Some of you might remember that last October, I was involved in an issue when a man savagely beat his girlfriend in a parking lot. I intervened, and had a gun pointed at my head as he forced me back to my car, and then kidnapped the woman and drove her away. I was able to help police identify the man and vehicle, and he was apprehended within minutes. The gun was recovered, and the woman tearfully thanked me because he had meant to kill her. In fact, after this happened it was discovered that he had left a 4-minute long voice message on her work phone describing his specific plans to kill her, telling her to "say your goodbyes" and "this is you last day on earth" and "you'll be in a grave tonight."

He was charged with pointing a firearm with intent to kill, kidnapping, and domestic abuse. (Oh yeah, and since he had a suspended driver's license, he also got tagged with "driving under suspension" - ha!)

Well, court just ended! The State had a domestic violence expert witness to present, and I was named as one of the two crime victims, because he'd held the gun at me. (I have no idea about the current well-being of the woman he had beaten; I haven't seen her since. I know she applied for a Protective Order against him, and then dropped it four months later.)

He got a three year prison sentence and seven years of probation, which is actually pretty decent.

Here's the funny part: he committed the crime about 90 minutes after I'd just trained 150+ prosecutors at the Oklahoma Bar on the topic of "how to prosecute domestic abusers." The guy was screwed.