Take This Woman Away!
I am a 18-year-old male, born completely deaf and mute. Also, I am partially blind in my left eye. I live with my sister, who had been taking care of me since our parents passed on.
Recently, she got married and went on her honeymoon. So I was on my own for a few weeks. This happened yesterday. Usually, whenever I go out I am accompanied by my sister due to my disability.
But now, since she is away on her honeymoon, I had to go out alone. There was a new supermarket open in our area, and I needed some items, so decided to go there and grab them.
My bad for wearing a red-colored shirt almost similar to the employee uniform. But if you look closely, you could see that it was not the uniform.
I was at the electronics section looking for some batteries, when I see an old man struggling to get some DVDs at the top shelf.
Since I am tall, I helped him. He thanked me—I can do lip reading—and went on his way. Then I began looking for the batteries.
That’s when I felt someone grab my left wrist. I couldn’t believe what happened next. I turned around and a women in her late 40s slapped me.
She was speaking something, but I couldn’t follow her lips as she spoke too fast. However, I was able to catch some words like ‘you’, ‘ignore’, ‘job’, etc.
So, I signed to her that I am deaf. Apparently, this was a wrong move, because she became more irate toward my signs. Again, she was yelling something but I couldn’t catch anything.
So, I took my notebook and started writing that I am deaf and mute. Before I could finish, she grabbed my notebook and pen and threw them away.
Then she slapped me again and pushed me to the ground. Luckily, by this time a store employee came to see what the commotion was about.
He saw me on the ground and helped me up. Then he asked me what happened.
Before I can sign to him, Karen starts to yell at the employee. I don’t know that she said as she was not facing me.
After she finished, I sign to employee that I cannot hear or speak. Fortunately, he understood and explained this to the lady. But she is still not convinced.
She tries to attack me again, but I moved away.
Then I wrote a note and showed it to the employee. It said to call the authorities on her. The employee nodded and called them.
Karen tried to run away, but the security caught her. They arrived in about 10 minutes. They first talked to the employee who explained the situation, about how Karen attacked me because she mistook me for a store employee.
One officer comes and speaks to me. I understood that he wanted my version of events, so I wrote everything down and showed it to the officer.
Then they went to check the CCTV footage. Then came back and asked me if I wanted to press charges. I gladly said yes. Karen was then placed in handcuffs and given a free ride at the back of a cruiser.
The manager then explained to me that Karen thought I worked there and she became angry that I ignored her. She had been standing on my left side, so obviously I couldn’t see her.
The store manager then offered me a 50% discount on the products. That’s not the best part. I texted my sister about the events that happened and she was livid.
Oh, did I mention that my sister is a lawyer? She told me that she will be making sure she’s involved in the case and would see to it that Karen would get the maximum time.