Honestly, I’m Too Speechless To Come Up With A Title For This One

CONTENT WARNING: Child Abuse

There’s a big, limited-time sale on a certain kitchen appliance that I want. I go to the store to get it.

When I get to the aisle it’s in, there’s one left on the shelf. There’s another woman browsing in the aisle, and she’s got a large child, maybe three or four, with her. She’s carrying him against her hip. There’s no one else in the aisle.

I grab the appliance I want and start leaving the aisle.

Woman: “Hey, you! That’s mine.”

“Then you should have grabbed it yourself,” I think. I don’t verbally reply, though; I’ve long since learned it’s a bad idea to engage with these types of people.

Woman: “Hey! Listen to me when I’m talking to you!”

I keep walking.

Suddenly, something slams into my back and knocks me into the shelves. The shelves are, apparently, not very well anchored. Product goes flying.

I’m mentally disorganized by the blow. I remember clutching at my box and attempts being made to pry the box out of my hands. I also remember essentially attempting to crawl under the fallen shelf because it seems “safer”.

The next thing that I remember clearly is several store employees around us and the woman screaming that I broke her child’s arm.

I glance at the child, expecting this to be some sort of exaggeration, and notice that his arm does not look right. I’m not a doctor, so I have no idea if it was broken, dislocated, or what, but that arm looks WRONG.

I then notice that the store employees are mostly ringed around me like they expect me to be some sort of violent menace.

Me: “What happened?”

Employee: “She says that you had some sort of violent episode, attacked her and her child, and knocked the shelves over on them. Are you okay, sir?”

I reply while attempting to stand up:

Me: “I feel like I’ve been… I feel like I’ve been… I didn’t attack anybody.”

Employee: “The police and paramedics are on the way, and we’re pulling the security footage. Please don’t stand up.”

Me: “Okay.”

The store manager gets there before the police do. He mutters something to his employees, and soon they’re circled around the woman instead of me. She doesn’t seem to have noticed the change.

The police arrive next. The store manager talks to them, and they arrest the woman. She rages the whole time about how they should be arresting me and how I hurt their kid.

One of the officers kneels next to me.

Officer: “Can I take your witness statement?”

Me: “Yeah, but I still don’t quite understand what just happened.”

Officer: “Tell me your version first, and then I’ll explain what we saw on the security footage, okay?”

Me: “Okay.”

I tell them, essentially, the first portion of this story.

Officer: “Well, on the security footage, it looks like she hit you with her child.”

Me: *Pauses* “I’m sorry, what?”

Officer: “Yeah, she grabbed her kid by his legs and slammed him into your back.”

Me: “F***.”

Officer: “Would you like to press charges?”

Me: “Yes.”

The paramedics got there next. They took both me and the child to a hospital… in separate ambulances. For me, nothing was broken, and none of my injuries were an immediate risk to my health. I asked about the child, but I was told that medical privacy laws meant they couldn’t even tell me if the child ended up at the same hospital as me, let alone if the child was “okay” or not.

I later was asked to give a deposition in preparation for a court trial, but when I showed up for my scheduled deposition, I was told that the trial had been canceled because the woman took some sort of plea bargain. I was not told any details of the plea bargain.