It Happened on a Friday Night . . . Finale

Not over ? ? ?

So, I am still shaking, the adrenaline was kicking! If I had to move a car off a child . . . I could have done it . . . and all by myself!

I make my way to the table, following Mito. My teacher friend says "hey we were wondering if you got lost."


I said "hey a woman just hit me with her black Mercedes SUV." They all just stop mid sentence.

"What did you say" . . . "WHAT DID YOU SAY"?




By this time my husband and girlfriend arrive. I am sitting next to our friend Ben, ANOTHER attorney and my girlfriend Lisa sits next to me. My husband is across the table from me and Lisa's husband is next to him. Sitting next to Ben and Lisa isn't routine - we usually either sit all girls on one side or as couples. Thinking back I must have be lost in my thought of WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED! I sat at the first spot next to someone. Thankfully I love them both, so it wasn't like I was hanging out with chopped liver!

I tell the story, my husband, Lisa and Mito all add on. I am thinking to myself too many voices are talking. I can't even hear myself!

Several of our friends offer to get me a drink; thankfully I am quick enough to know not to drink before talking to the Police! Let that be a guiding policy in your life! Just sayin!

We are sitting there . . . telling the story . . .

Ben who has done some criminal work but doesn't specialize in it says "send her ass to jail."

Joellen, the teacher says "are you ok?"

Mito says hitting someone with a car "is considered assault with a deadly weapon." DUH!!!! This I already knew, I told the 911 operator that!

My husband asked "whats the deal with the Police?"

 I tell them I had spoken with the 911 operator. She offered to send an ambulance. I told her I didn't need medical attention, that I was fine.  She asked if I wanted the Police sent out, and I said yes.

Again a round of  . . . send her ass to jail! Then I realize . . . she could go to jail over this.

I ask my husband and Lisa what the woman said to them. The woman told them she was there to drop off a special needs child for dinner. She talked to them but not about much. The one thing she did say was . . . what do you want me to do now? My husband's response was . . . you already hit her with your car, what else is there for you to do.

Lisa told the woman to park her car, to get it out of the lane of traffic. She advises her not to leave, that the Police are coming and that she should say at Pappadeaux. For some reason the woman listened to Lisa.  Maybe Lisa identified herself as a Prosecutor or maybe the woman finally had sense enough to know it would be worse had she left.

Lisa leans over and says "well, baby doll . . . what do you want to do with this?" I say "what do you mean? Could the woman really go to jail?" She responds with "you can't un-ring this bell, so yes she could.  It most likely depends on what you want to do with this."

HOLY SHIT! I would never want to be the reason someone went to jail. I get it - people do stupid stuff! They take it too far, but jail it a whole different level of trouble!

Ben says, "Send her ass to jail." Mito sings the same chorus. I look to my husband who says "I will support whatever you want to do here."

It is about that time I get a phone call. I almost consider not answering it, and then I realized it was probably the Police. I answer.  It is a Police man, he is on site. He starts to ask me questions, but it was very hard to hear. My husband suggested I just go outside to talk to him. He asked me "do you want me to go with you?"

If there was ever a time to have dinner with 4 attorneys, it was then! I had 4 different takes on the situation, and 4 different legal specialties. All concurred, she was in the wrong, she hit me with her car, and THAT was an assault with a deadly weapon.

My husband goes with me.

I meet the Policeman at the bottom of the stairs. He asked me for my driver's license. I only have my cell with me, so I give him my DL number. He asks for more identification information. He asked for the license plate of the car that hit me. My voice is shaky! My hands are shaking.

We get into the story, I tell him everything. He then asks me to tell it again . . . FYI for you criminal type - know your story! You will be asked to tell it more than once!

About the time I started in on it again, the woman appears. I think nothing of her standing near me, WHY didn't all those years of TV pay off! My husband makes the Policeman aware this is the suspect; he separates us so she cannot hear my story! Truth in television, baby! Just like they do it on current cop dramas.

This is the first time I really see the lady who hit me. She is dressed in blue skinny jeans, black loafers, could be Weitzman or Tods. She wore a long white button down shirt, with a black cropped sweater on top. She has a headband, a bobbed haircut with some waves in it. She is holding what looks to be a Hermes bag, well it looked a little cheaper than that but it was a great shade of orange! When I see the bag, I realize she could be one of my people. She could very well have children at my kid’s schools, know people I know. She could be a neighbor.

She most likely though . . . was a mother, and that did it! I would be heart broken if my children knew I had gone to jail, because I was stupid in a Pappadeaux's parking lot on Friday night. So, I made up my mind then, I was not going to push it. I wanted to spare her the embarrassment of her kids finding out how stupid she had been, and therefore altering how they felt about her the rest of her lives!

I casually toss my hair back, raise my left hand and place it on the arm of the Policeman. I say to him "look, I am not interested in anyone going to jail tonight. I recognize things got heated and out of control really fast. I just really want to go back inside and enjoy the evening with my friends."


The Policeman proceeds to tell me not to worry, he couldn't arrest anyone anyway. I am completely confused by this.  He says “you were not hurt; there was no damage to the car.” Technically, he says, “in court you would have had to prove you had feared for your life and that is a tough sell for someone who was willing to stand in a parking spot and not move when approached by a car.”  He has a point . . . I wasn’t going to move, but I also wasn’t aware someone would actually consider HITTING someone with a car!

An assault with a deadly weapon occurs when an individual is put in fear of bodily harm. The harm doesn’t actually have to occur, but if it does, the charge may be changed to assault and battery, which means contact occurred even if no injury did. A deadly weapon can obviously include firearms and knives, but even normally innocent objects, such as a bottle, a pencil, a rock, and a car, can be considered deadly weapons if they have the ability to cause harm. Even using an unloaded gun, because it causes fear, may fall into this category. Hands and feet are not usually deadly weapons, but kicking or biting an individual may be sufficient for a charge of assault with a deadly weapon because kicking and biting may cause serious bodily injury.

I respond back with “I wouldn’t have called 911 if I wasn’t afraid it was going to escalate, if I hadn’t been scared.”

Having just come from the dinner table with a prosecutor, former prosecutor now criminal defense attorney, a jack of all trades attorney and a litigator, who had ALL taken criminal law in law school AND who had all said the minute she hit me with the car it became assault with a deadly weapon. I was confused!

The Policeman says what he needs to say and I turn to look at my husband. He and I both know the Policeman is wrong. I am thinking he is an idiot who doesn't know the law, how could they hire someone who is so ignorant about the law.  He actually made me a little mad!  My husband's take on what he said was very different.

I look to my husband and say . . . "I am going to let this go."

Despite my reluctance . . . at times . . . to grow up and behave like a well meaning adult . . . I was going to let his inaccurate comments go, since I didn't want a nasty outcome, since I didn't want matters to escalate!  When I said to my husband . . . "I am going to let this go" he knew what that meant. He knew it meant I wasn't going to argue, point out the fact I had a state's prosecutor with me, a criminal defense attorney with me or two other attorneys. I was just going to let it go. No need to correct him!  I didn’t need to be the smartest one out there, or most knowledgeable . . . I just needed to do what I thought was the right thing!!

And so I said it again . . . “I am just going to let this go.”

And with that we turned and walked away . . . and lived happily ever after . . . hell no!  We rehashed this drama ALL       NIGHT       LONG!!!!!

and . . . by the way . . . he didn't park in the parking spot I was saving!