It was Friday the 13th of August 1999. Once again I heard the cry of my mother as my father stood over, watching her ball up on the floor. I could almost feel the fear she bared inside. She was crying. I cried for her. I sat there, under my blanket. Looking over at them. My ears hurt from his yelling. He spoke loud enough for the neighborhood to hear. Covering my face by pulling up the blanket as he glanced over to me. I shivered. A tingle shot down my spine like lightning. Peaking out of the covers, I watch my mom again. Blood running out of her mouth. She spoke out the words to me I will never forget.

“I’m so sorry you must see this Anthony.” He left the room. The man I called dad. A bat hung down from his hand as he came back in just seconds later. With evil in his eyes, he clenched onto the bat with both hands. Raising it back behind his head, he focuses on his target. With a clean swing, he thrusts the bat into my mothers head. I turn as it happens. Filled with evil and hatred, he almost calmly speaks four words. “Now you are quiet.” As the door flies open, men dressed in black enter into the room. While the men raised their hands and pointed guns at my father, I put my head into my pillow and covered my ears. But, not even that was good enough to silence the firing of the guns. As frightened as I was, I still looked over and watched my father drop to his knees with blood running down his white shirt.

I turned to the men dressed in black. One came up to me and picked me up. Watching the others as I was carried out, I noticed the back of their jackets. It read “LAPD.” At the time, I did not have the slightest clue as to what the letters meant. I was put into an ambulance. I was familiar with them because of the many times they pass down our road. I used to watch them from our porch as my mother and father were inside. I was unsure of what they were doing, but when I would come back in, there would be broken glass everywhere and my mother crying. Now I was sitting.

I felt warmth as one of the men in black wrapped a blanket around me. People ran in with a moving bed that had wheels on it. They came out a moment later with my mother on it. They took me out of the ambulance and put my mother while on the bed into it. Being driven to a big building with the same letters that were on the men in blacks’ jackets. They brought me in. I was placed in a chair. As I looked around I saw many people at desks. Most of them holding phones against their ear. A lady approached me. She whipped my tears away gently with her thumb. She said “It’s okay. Your safe here.” While breathing deeply, I sniffled. For some reason I felt safe with this woman. She stood back up and went into the office beside me. I saw her speak to a man.