The Alleged Push – Post 2 of the Boise Roommate Saga

I left off last post talking about a phone conversation I had with Chirstina, where she was describing a strange incident involving the roommates hiding the kitchen chairs in the garage as “punishment” for her failing to push the chairs in when she left the room. That and a variety of other incidents made it clear that the roommates were systematically controlling, manipulating and bullying Callan and Chirstina, who were avoiding conflict and trying to appease the roommates. Then Chirstina got Callan’s permission to tell me everything, and she let the bomb drop.

Callan has a misdemeanor battery charge for allegedly pushing Kylie, one of the roommates. WHAT?!? I nearly lost my shit. My kid? Has a battery charge?

How is that even possible? Callan has been so unbelievably patient with these freeloading, verbally abusive, messed up crazy roommates. And Callan has a battery charge? I’m picturing my child going to jail. Not only that, but the hearing was very soon and they hadn’t hired an attorney because of the expense.

Apparently one of the roommates, Kylie, had been in Callan’s doorway, in Callan’s face screaming, and Callan had been repeatedly asking Kylie to back off. Callan kept explaining that they didn’t want to talk right now and just needed some space and to please just leave them alone. Callan finally told Kylie to “Fuck off and leave me alone, just leave me alone.” Callan then put their hands in the air, palms out, in a defensive gesture, apparently making slight contact with Kylie’s shoulder. Kylie then did an exaggerated prat fall against the wall and yelled to Heidi, “He laid hands on me! Call the police!”

Laid hands on? Callan thought that was a strange choice of words. Is it a legal term? Or intended to sound like one? Eventually we came to realize that this was the break Heidi and Kylie had been waiting for; their means to keep Callan under their control.

The police came out, and unfortunately wrote it up. But what can they do? Domestic violence is real and serious. Too often the police do nothing even when the victim is badly hurt. Due to recent political pressure, or for whatever reason, the policeman felt like he had to write it up.

Call me a biased mom, and I won’t deny that. But here is what the policeman wrote in his report:

“I observed a red mark on Kylie’s left shoulder, however, it was apparent that most of the red mark was caused by her rubbing her own shoulder to sooth it. While interviewing Kylie she was constantly touching and rubbing on her shoulder causing more redness to appear.”

What a fraud. Did the roommates deliberately entrap and frame Callan? Or did they simply recognize an opportunity when it came? They didn’t even do a particularly sophisticated job, but it was good enough for the State of Idaho.

From this moment out, Heidi and Kylie used the charge as blackmail, dangling the carrot and stick of how they would “testify” at the hearing. They convinced Callan that they had the power to decide whether the charges would be dropped or not. They threatened Callan with jail and job loss. Callan was paralyzed in full appeasement mode.

I had to find an attorney, and I had to find one fast.

Oh and get this. You want to know what Kylie was screaming at Callan for? Callan and Chirstina had invited a couple of dinner guests over without Heidi and Kylie’s permission. These are roommates who aren’t paying rent and had repeatedly been asked to leave, screaming because the home owner had invited over a couple of dinner guests.

At first I thought that I should get one attorney who could help us with both the battery charge and getting the roommates evicted. After all, those issues were entwined. But it turns out we needed a criminal defense attorney for the misdemeanor battery charge, while an eviction is a civil suit. These two types of attorneys aren’t remotely similar. Luckily I have a friend who is an attorney (in the field of medicine), and she was able to explain to me that good attorneys are very specialized, so I would need two different ones.

I got out my computer and started researching and calling attorneys. Chirstina did the same. Soon we had settled on a defense attorney. I paid the retainer (ouch that was expensive) and got that ball rolling.

Step two, did I need to actually go to Boise?

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com