Vanessa Disbrowe did what we're all told to do. She stood up to a young bully picking on an even younger child in a park near her Toronto home. But that act, and the assault that followed, has changed her life.
"Because I knew the youth, I wanted to do something," said the 27-year-old mother of four.
"But I don't know if I was put in the situation again now, after what has happened, with the lack of action, if I would do it again."
The trouble started for Disbrowe in March when she and her children were at Driftwood Park close to their Tobermory Dr. home in Toronto's Jane-Finch area. Disbrowe and a friend noticed a nine-year-old neighbourhood girl being picked on by a larger girl. She estimates the girl stood about five-foot-five and weighed about 220 pounds.
"We told her, 'You shouldn't be bullying her' . . . We were just trying to get through to her . . . She started swearing at us and cussing us off."
Disbrowe's friend told the girl, "Just because you live in Jane and Finch doesn't mean you have to be a statistic."
"(The girl) paused for about five seconds," Disbrowe said.
"Then she picked up a handful of sand and threw it at me. She knocked me to the ground and started punching me."
Disbrowe, who had her 10-month-old daughter in her arms, managed to hand her child off to a neighbour who came to her aid. She wrapped her arms around the girl's legs and yelled for bystanders to call police.
Disbrowe said the girl bit her left arm, drawing blood.
When she heard people calling 911, she let go of the girl, who walked away with her friends.
The police arrived moments later as Disbrowe pursued the girl, not wanting her to get away.
"While the story was being told (to police) she was sitting there, mocking us with her friends," she said. "The police said there was nothing they could really do. Our stories sounded the same until the assault happens and that's when it gets different."
They told Disbrowe she could press charges if police didn't.
The officers said they were going to drive the girl home and talk to her parents. Disbrowe was taken to the hospital to treat cuts above her eye, a split lip and the bite wound. She sported a black eye for a week after the incident.
Since that day, Disbrowe said, the investigation hasn't moved and her efforts to press charges have been bogged down because the girl is younger than 18.
Several months passed and Disbrowe's husband Sam was talking to a Toronto police officer.
He explained their problem and asked for the officer's advice.
"He just looked at me and said 'You should move,' " Sam said.
"I looked at the guy and said, 'You've got to be kidding. Your answer to someone assaulting my wife and my child is that we should move because you guys can't do anything about it?' "
Disbrowe's anxiety over the attack grew.
"It got to the point I couldn't go outside," she said. "I'd see the girl on the street. Nothing was happening to her."
Tormented by memories of the attack, Disbrowe applied for a transfer from her criminology studies at York University to Western University. Since the family moved to London, Sam is out of work and they're struggling financially.
"It's screwed up a lot of things.
We've gone through all of our savings. But it's the inaction that really bugs me. I've called so many times."
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Source: http://www.lfpress.com/2012/10/17/inaction-sent-family-packing
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