His Time Ran Out Today

            You just never know what is going to happen when you get up in the morning. Today was one of those days.

            Today I went to Cooperative Christian Ministries pharmacy to drop off medicine bottles to be refilled. I was not noticing who was sitting in the main lobby when I walked through the door but suddenly I felt a tickle in my brain. Were a guy’s shape and the coat he wore familiar? While rifling through my backpack I turned my head and looked over towards the lobby. The breath in my throat caught. Yes, I definitely knew this man. I finished my errand and walked back through the lobby the way I came in and didn’t make any eye contact with him whatsoever.

            After I got outside I found the non-emergency police phone number in my phone and pressed send. I was patched to a Hickory policeman working desk. I explained the situation, told him where this guy was, and hoped for the best. This was actually the third time trying to get this guy served. I walked into the adjoining CCM thrift shop, bought 4 coffee mugs and started on my way back home. While going down the road I saw a police car traveling slowly toward CCM. Was it possible that they were indeed coming to arrest this guy? I turned my bike around and went back to CCM. I found two cop cars in the parking lot but there weren’t any policemen in them. Putting my bike in the bike rack, I could see two policemen through the window talking to Richard Lawrence Robinson in the lobby. I didn’t lock up my bike but instead walked directly into the lobby.

            I was determined to not let this guy get away with this any longer. I told the police that he was the assailant and I was the victim. I also looked at the assailant, “Today is the day your time has run out.” He acted so bewildered and unknowing of any criminal summons the police were telling him about. After I knew they were going to take him in, I took my bike and started towards home again. When I looked back over my shoulder, I saw the police frisking him with his hands on the police car. They then cuffed him and helped him into the police car. My feelings and adrenaline were overwhelming. I was shaking so hard I could barely hold onto my phone. I had to talk to someone so I went to God in prayer and made it through the next hour the best that I could.

            This man in the lobby sexually assaulted me in November 2011. He took advantage of his position as a peer support specialist and my emotional state at the time when I was not only homeless but my boyfriend at the time was leaving me for someone he had found on the internet. The incident occurred in the office of The Grace House when it was on Highland Ave.

            When I went to the police station to fill out a report, the magistrate wasn’t sure if he was going to create a summons or put a warrant out for his arrest. The homeless aren’t treated as other people in the city would in similar circumstances so the magistrate issued a summons. On top of that the magistrate didn’t call what had happened sexual assault but assault against a female instead. I gave the police the only information I had on this man at the time. I didn’t personally know him so I didn’t even know his full name and certainly didn’t know his home address. The information I had wasn’t enough because they weren’t able find him to serve him.

            I wrote to the Special Victim’s Division Unit in Charlotte, North Carolina and I received a phone call from them only to tell me that there wasn’t anything they could do. They said when he goes to renew his ID or get a driver’s license or gets a ticket for something is when the police will finally catch up with him. There wasn’t anything I or they could do. 

            On my way home I began to worry. Did I just put my personal safety in danger by getting this man arrested? What about the safety of my boyfriend? People who had never been victimized don’t realize what being victimized feels like and how many times you have to relive the horror of the situation until it’s finally played all the way out. It’s the act itself, then having to explain the entire situation to a police officer, then having to explain the whole thing again to a magistrate, then having to explain it every time you try to get the police involved to get the assailant served, then it’s reliving the whole thing all over again when the guy is arrested, and the worry of repercussions to yourself or your family finally culminating in a court date all over the ILLEGAL BEHAVIOR OF SOMEONE ELSE. I still have court ahead of me. I’m sure that the assailant’s lawyer will try to make me out to be some promiscuous loose woman who pushed herself onto the assailant.

            Back in November of 2001 I was approached by a ‘pastor’ who told me that this poor man was just going through a lot and that I should just drop the charges. I was so dumbfounded at the time that I couldn’t think of any response to what he said. Looking back on it, I should have asked him if he would say the same thing to his mother or his sister if what had happened to me had happened to them.

            Whatever happens now is in God’s hands. I will accept whatever happens. I know that I wasn’t the first or only woman this guy has done this to. I have had other women come up to me and tell about things this guy said and did to them. I made a statement to Partners Behavioral Health where he had received his peer support specialist certification through and they immediately repealed his certification. His behavior was completely unacceptable to them and I hope the court will see it in the same fashion.