16 month old assaulted should i have expected more support from the police?

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Feeling shaken up tonight a drunk person hit me, pushed my 3 year old over and my 16 month old who was in his pram she pushed the pram over i couldn't do anything to stop it happening. He did hit his head on the floor.

We have spent four hours at hospital who have said they don't think he has any significant head injuries. He has pre existing conditions that mean any head injuries have to be seen in a&e as he has false signs already for a bleed in brain etc so signs to look for concern are already there on him. At five months old he had an emergency mri with drs thinking he had a bleed on the brain.

This was at a family event. The attack was by a completely unknown person who doesn't live in the village. It took the police 33 minutes to attend. The dispatcher said they were coming from the local station 4 minutes away. By this point the woman had now disappeared. She had made further threats of harm - she had told people apparently we were pushing in and that's why she turned around and hit me then went for my children. We were in fact trying to find my son's friend who had walked off and with 400 people there it was difficult to see. The organisers were in the main area where we were heading to ask for assistance.

I don't know if i'm in the wrong but i feel very let down by the police not attending until too late, they said that they would have no chance of trying to find the person now and would only look if someone had significant injury. To me this is clearly a very volatile person and this happened to us they could well do this again. They said they would call in a few days time to check the child has no further injuries. My other child was literally telling the police that he had been pushed over by a lady and that she had chucked a drink at him. Police response we don't need or want to speak to the child.

Or is this now what society has turned into and is it normal to go to family events and have aggressive people / drunk people at 6pm in the evening.

Well to me no matter what the violent woman’s version of events are, there are no excuses for assaulting OP’s children.
So I only need to hear OP’s side of the story to know the facts… and the facts are that a grown arsed adult hurt her children.

But isn’t ’pack mentality’ the basis on which MN operates ? An OP posts for advice or comment on whatever their issue, and others participate in the discussion. Surely the point is that unless there is something which points obviously to misinformation, chat bots or trolling, the OP is believed. Otherwise it’s all pointless isn’t it ? I’ve lost count of the number of threads l’ve seen go down a rabbit hole and drive the OP off after a very short time because of participants nitpicking at irrelevancies, misunderstanding the issue, and just being downright offensive for the hell of it. And your post does beg the question if this is what you think why are you even here ?

And if the 'violent woman' didn't actually assault anyone?
If there was a 2 way scuffle and the pram got tipped in the middle of it? The 16 month old got in the middle of 2 grown ups pushing and shoving?

I don't know either way, I don't know anyone involved, I wasn't there.
I have no idea about the 'facts' like you do

I don't believe everything I read either @sel2223 but I report posts I think are made up. Why post as you have done if you think the OP isn't genuine? It's troll-hunting and that's why you've had posts deleted. You're not the only person on here who can employ critical thinking, even if you think you are.

Absolutely shocking that you had to wait so long for the police to arrive as I would've expected something like this to be considered an emergency as children were in danger and physically assaulted!?

Unfortunately, much like ambulances, there are more emergencies these days than available personnel and strategically located vehicles. Calls have to be prioritised.

Perhaps if people stopped calling 999 to complain about prices, inquire about the weather and want to report their leaf blowing neighbours, the services wouldn't be quite as bogged down as they are...

Interesting viewpoint but no, I don't agree that 'pack mentality' is the basis on which MN operates.

To me, you can participate in a discussion on an online forum without blindly believing and agreeing with everything you read.

Isn't the very nature of discussion about inviting healthy debate and asking questions? You said yourself, the poster invites advice and comment on a situation. My comment is that there may be more to this story - and I've had my replies reported for saying that.

You don't have to agree but surely we shouldn't be deleting viewpoints that don't align directly with our own?

I think you need to try and push this further. The police should be trying to identify the woman from your description and perhaps others know who she was. This definitely should not be dismissed. I was on a crowded bus recently with three boys aged about ten. For some reason a woman decided they were being rude. They were stood close to me and giggling, not being rude.She then asked if they would like a punch in the face.Someone told her to stop being aggressive. She told them to mind their own business. I was waiting and had she hit anyone I would have intervened and expected the police to take action. I hope you and your young ones soon feel less upset.Nasty woman!

Again, who said I think the post is made up? Or who said I think the OP is a troll?

The gist of what I've actually said is that while the OP may be genuine, there may be more to this story. That's it, nothing more, nothing less.

It certainly does seem from this thread that I'm in the minority of those that employ critical thinking on here unfortunately. I'd like to believe I'm not.

Is it actually beyond you to bring yourself to believe someone who says they are a victim of a violent assault? Are you always this cynical when people say they have been attacked?

Yes I can be pretty cynical to be honest, that's probably a fair way to describe me but I neither believe nor disbelieve unless I know something for certain myself.

I've been the victim of a serious violent assault myself where I was left with a bleed on the brain so i do actually have a lot of empathy for victims. I've also seen first hand damaging false reports which have later been categorically proven not to be true though. I don't immediately believe everything I hear, especially on the Internet.

How do you know what else was going on when you called the police… might have been more priority calls than yours to deal with. They are understaffed.

Hi, jumping on here. I'm so sorry this has happened to you and your children. It must have been a frightening experience for you all.

Were there any witnesses? Would the venue have any CCTV that might capture this woman?
If there were witnesses, then maybe someone knows this woman and she can be traced that way.
Please don't give up and definitely file a complaint.

I’m a police officer. On my last two shifts I’ve spent 10+ hours in A&E with two different people in mental health crisis. When my shift ended I was still stuck there until someone on the next shift could relieve me. They then spent many more hours there. I did not get a break, or food, in what ended up being 14+ hour shifts. During that time, many many jobs came in that there were no officers available to attend.

I am laughing at the PP who said we’d rather do paperwork, it’s laughable that I’d even find the time. I would love the opportunity to catch up, to investigate, to provide care or even have much contact with the victims of the crimes on my workload. Incoming emergency calls take priority, although senior officers are quick to criticise when the things they measure (frequency of victim contacts and progress with investigations) are dipping.

At the moment, around 20% of officers at my station are off sick, the large proportion with stress. We also have “vacancies” in terms of how many staff we should have for minimum cover, but there’s no money for recruitment or training because we were awarded a pay rise but no funding.

We are provided with vehicles and equipment that aren’t fit for purpose, because they are cheap.

No one wants to fund the police because it’s not “nice” and doesn’t have the same ring to it as schools/NHS.

I love my job, but to be honest I’m reaching breaking point in terms of stress. And all we ever get is criticism.

This happened to my mum when she was pushing my daughter in her buggy. A strange woman pulled her down to the pavement by her hair and the buggy tipped over. Passerby called the police. The woman assaulted an officer while being arrested.

They successfully prosecuted her for assaulting the police officer and did not even take a statement from my mum.

I’m so sorry this happened to you OP.

Something similar but different happened to me. Fwiw my advice is

• contact your health visitor for a chat about the effect on the children, I did this and it was very helpful. My situation involved a pre schooler and they found it helped to draw pictures etc to help process their experience and fears.

• don’t expect the police to have the slightest emotional intelligence whatsoever, you are sadly just something on their to do list
• ask on Facebook etc for witnesses, I didn’t do this and I wish I had done

take it steady and be kind to yourself. You are possibly used to being invincible due to your work and it’s a horrible shock when something like this happens in your personal life and makes you realise you are a bit vulnerable after all.

I have no idea if it's on social media as i am not on it as i would never want clients to find me etc or have personal details.

My friend saw the post on social media. The police were trying to find this info out to see if there were any taken. They have some witnesses who have given details - all similar to me families with young children

I'm sorry something happened to you i have friends who are trained in trauma with children and i am also trained so i know the practice side it's just different to when it's your own child

Someone on here really doesn't like the phrase

'There are normally 3 sides to every story'

Every time I type that it gets reported 🤣

The vast majority of people with even an ounce of sense understand all of what you have written.

Thank you for everything you and your colleagues do.

@TreeCake

I wasn't picking holes in the story. I was expressing shock that no-one intervened.

Yes you’ve made it clear that you don’t like to believe victims until YOU have got concrete proof. I’m sure that attitude is very helpful for victims to hear.
I was a victim of domestic violence, but I guess because you wasn’t there it didn’t happen the way I say it happened. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Nice bit of victim blaming right there 🤬

@funinthesun19

Yeah, mine was DV as well, we all have our own stories to tell..... none of which you can tell behind a few words typed on a keyboard or phone.

Mine went to court and ended in conviction but not just purely on my say so, nor would I ever expect it to. No, they needed evidence: witnesses, forensics, injuries which corroborated my account, previous disclosures etc.

It's lovely that you automatically believe the best in everyone and take everything you read at face value without question. We're not all the same though, and that's OK too, we're all shaped by our own experiences. That doesn't make you a bad person and it doesn't make me a bad person, we just think differently.

And just for the record, nobody needs to prove anything to ME, I'm not the Police or the courts. I don't know these people involved or anything about what happened. I wasn't there.