[this was posted to Serene's Facebook account on April 27, 2008 at 1:47p]

It's humid and warm outside in Oklahoma, like usual.

Today is the last day I will feel the Oklahoma wind for awhile. But I'm ready.

Though bullets rain from heaven I will stand.
Though fire blazes everywhere I'll stay.
They may have the bigger guns,
but I'm never gonna run,
'cause I'm just too right not to fight.

On November17th, 2004, less than a year after losing both my parents and my two closest aunts in Oklahoma, I pulled a butcher knife on my husband and then ran out the door for dear life. My husband of 11 years was beating me up all the time. I was used to going out with makeup covering bruises. My son couldn't sleep at night for fear he'd wake up to his father breaking things and beating me up. My doctor, Dr. Gary Riggs, was sick of seeing me beat up, and had told me that if I could get out, he'd treat me for free. Our marriage counselor was talking to me separately, nearly every day, and was helping me to get out of the house. I had gotten a job at AOL on the phones, and was ready to go. The kids were more than ready. But that night, things went bad. The knife was just enough to get some space between us, and then I ran like hell. I was so relieved, about a block away, to see a patrol car cruising toward me. I ran in front of the car, waved my arms and screamed,

“Help me! Help! He's going to kill me!”

After 10 or so cops sat in my front yard laughing with their friend, Tony – my husband – for about 45 minutes, they decided to take me in for public drunk, just to “separate us,” they told him. There was only one problem: I hadn't had anything to drink.

When we got to the police station and I forced the issue and forced a Breathalyzer, instead of letting me go, the officer booked me on “assault with a dangerous weapon.” A woman in booking forced another issue – she said, “Lookit all them bruises. You gotta take pictures of them.” So the officer did. It even says so in the police report. But the pictures have never been seen. Perhaps they thought those pictures would show their guilt. The guilt of arresting a beaten, battered, terrified woman trying to escape a murderous husband.

While still sitting in their horrible jail, alone, in April of 2005, I was taken to family court, where Tony showed up for a victim's protective order that I had filed. He admitted strangling me and beating me, and the longest protective order allowed by Oklahoma law was filed against him. Then I was taken back to my jail cell for pulling a knife on my abuser. The abuser that even their courts had said was abusing me.

Welcome to the Oklahoma Injustice System.

(After I was released from prison, on April 16, 2007, Anthony Thomas Nicosia got rid of the kids, closed the shades to our bedroom, and then strangled me until he thought I was dead, so yes, he was, and is murderous. One of his friends – a dirty, crooked cop – followed the ambulance to the hospital and sat outside my ER room telling anyone who would listen what a piece of shit I was, and how, because of the original charge, I was not to be trusted. He would not file a police report, and after 5 days in the hospital, I was too scared, and too tired to file. I didn't think it would do any good anyway.)

A police detective did come talk to me while I was in there, and I gave him a list of names and numbers to call, which included my physician and neighbors. Everyone who knew what was going on.

They were never called. That might have taken a few minutes of work, and in Oklahoma, locking up abused women is a time-honored tradition.

Today I go to slay that dragon.

I do not know yet what I will say. I do not know what will transpire. I do know, however, that I am going to cause trouble. I know that I am going to speak my mind.

I have a misdemeanor marijuana charge, but because of the assault with a dangerous weapon sentence, which was eventually deferred after the YWCA got involved, this charge can put me back in prison.

Let it come. I'm not backing down. Let them lock me up and throw away the key. I know their kind of injustice.

Truth, only the truth can combat injustice, and I plan to speak it today. They will jail me for it, but my fear is not enough to stop me. I am contemptuous of their courts, I am contemptuous of their judges, and I am contemptuous of their laws, because they use them to harass and imprison innocent people, and the victims of crimes.

Once you know the truth it is not enough to speak it, you must live it.

And today I go to do just that.

>>>>>

Serene Nicosia was taken to the Oklahoma County Jail this morning. She has asked not to be bonded out. She will be there until at least July 13th, when her next trial is.
We wish her all the best of luck.