>Did they beat you up, refuse to help you, or something like that?

I’ll explain it like this...I felt revictimized. In my estimation four officers spent their time questioning me instead of any resources attempting to locate the gunman actively getting away in my car.

The truth is even being forced to drive my attacker at gun point for approximately 25 minutes, I felt some degree of control in the sense I had some power to make a decision even as bad as all of the available options were pretty bad. At some point after exhausting everything I could think of to negotiate myself out of the situation safely (i.e. please just let me out and take my phone and wallet; I’m a lawyer maybe I can help you, you don’t need to do this), I accepted that very likely what was going on is I was being forced to drive to an isolated location where I would be shot and my body wouldn’t be found.

Accepting something like that as reality is actually empowering - and I even testified to this - I considered driving my car into a concrete median on the highway at high speed; making a move to grab the gun and fight; I considered driving my car off the shoulder of the highway down a grassy hill and trying to roll out. And these were very real possibilities and options I could have attempted thinking at least if I lived I would get medical treatment quickly if this happened on I-95 and he would likely get caught...which I felt was unlikely if I allowed the entire thing to play out in some isolated location. At the end the gunman forced me to exit the highway and I made my move when being directed to do a u-turn at an intersection.

So you have to consider I’m not trained for any of this, but still I felt somewhat in control in the sense that I could make a choice. And when I escaped I felt some degree of elation, because of all my options I ended up picking one that got me away from a gunman relatively unharmed physically considering. But then I felt instead of pursing this gunman who was making an active get away in my car there were 4 officers busy questioning me the most senior of them setting the tone for the rest by basically telling me I’m full of shit before even speaking with me. I felt more victimized than with the gunman, because the reality was I had no options, I had no recourse, and in my mind their own bias ensured this guy would safely make a get away in my car (which he did). So based on nothing more than how the one officer treated me I felt more victimized by them than the gunman, because I actually had less power.

I went from feeling I made the right choice by escaping, to thinking I did the wrong thing and that what I should have done is try to fight and take the gun...godforbid something like this ever takes place again, it is very likely I will take that option, knowing full well life isn’t some movie where the good guy always wins.

And it’s not just about me but about the next victim and how they are treated, maybe it’s a woman escaping a sexually motivated attacker and this officer asking why she is dressed so provocatively if she didn’t want it. Chilling effects are real, and telling a victim they are lying as the first words out of your mouth while showing zero interest in pursuing the suspect making an active getaway from the scene sets the tone. Then again it was this slight (perceived or not) that resulted in me locating the suspect with 24 hours, even with a location from a stolen iPad there was an initial refusal for the police to go to the location, it was me who drove to the location and confirmed my vehicle location and the gunman, and that burden really should not have been on me, I should have felt confident the police would find this guy especially when I provided them with a location from my iPad that happened to be in the car. So you tell me, did they refuse to help me?