Chapter 8 - THE POLICE REPORT
The gala had security cameras.
Guests witnessed the assault.
Naomi had bruising on her upper arm and shoulder.
No fracture.
No blood.
No serious head injury.
The fall into cold water caused mild hypothermia risk and exhaustion.
Paramedics warmed her.
Police interviewed witnesses.
Blake said:
“She was causing a scene.”
An officer asked:
“Did she touch you?”
“No.”
“Threaten you?”
“No.”
“Why did you hit her?”
Blake stopped.
Julian had not struck Naomi.
He had laughed.
Mocked.
Failed to intervene.
Morally ugly.
Not the same criminal conduct.
The case against Blake remained focused:
assault,
use of the stick,
the shove,
and the resulting fall.
No attempted murder.
No hate-crime enhancement invented merely because Naomi was blind.
Prosecutors reviewed motive and applicable law.
They charged what evidence supported.
Adrian’s first instinct after the fountain was to take Naomi home.
She said no.
“I need to speak to police.”
“You’re freezing.”
“I know.”
“Hospital?”
“After statement.”
He almost argued.
Then stopped.
Old habit.
Decide for Naomi because she is hurt.
Instead he asked:
“Blanket?”
“Yes.”
He brought one.
Small correction.
But the entire relationship would now depend on thousands of small corrections like that.
At urgent care, Naomi insisted staff speak to her directly.
One nurse initially asked Adrian:
“Any medications?”
Naomi answered before he could.
The nurse apologized.
It was not malicious.
Common habit.
Still exhausting.
Naomi later told Adrian:
“This is why using me as an inclusion symbol makes me furious.”
He looked at her.
“Because of this?”
“Because they want the photo of me at the gala. They don’t want the discipline of remembering I’m the person in the room.”
That was the difference between representation and respect.
Blake’s lawyer argued that the stick was lightweight decorative wood.
True.
The prosecution did not claim otherwise.
The seriousness came from how Blake used it:
repeated strikes to Naomi’s guarded upper arm and shoulder,
then a shove near a fountain.
No broken bones.
No weapon enhancement invented beyond applicable law.
Naomi did not want exaggeration.
She said:
“He did enough. You don’t have to make it worse to make it matter.”
That sentence became quoted later.
She hated that it became quoted.
But she still believed it.
Naomi also refused a viral fundraising campaign.
People wanted to donate to her legal fees.
She could afford counsel.
Instead she asked supporters to give to two local organizations run by disabled advocates.
Not because she was morally superior.
Because she did not want the assault to turn into another story where strangers consumed her humiliation and then felt redeemed by donating to her personally.
May you like
Attention could be useful.
It could also become another kind of ownership.
