About all that can be said with any certainty is this: Mrs. Ralph Anthony Grohman, 71, was not about to let the League City cops just walk right up and arrest her 70-year-old husband Ralph for assault.
What happened after that is open to debate.
The official police story has her picking a fight with the cops by more or less forcibly hindering their pursuit of her Ralph, thus earning her a charge of interfering with a police officer. The Grohmans’ story is that a League City policewoman overreacted by throwing Mrs Grohman to the ground, breaking her wrist in two places.
The trouble started when Ralph got into an argument with a 76-year-old woman who lived nearby. (Grohman accused her of spreading rumors; the woman said the trouble had been ongoing.) A 42-year-old man intervened.
The 42-year-old wound up with a scratched face, but Ralph tells Hair Balls that the scratch was unintentional.
When the cops came, they didn’t buy that story, so they told Ralph he was about to be arrested. He attempted to flee, and his wife — whom Ralph says is legally blind — tried to protect him.
“[Her blindness] was obvious to them — she had her big thick glasses on,” Ralph tells Hair Balls. “She had cataract surgery where they took all three lenses back in 1957. All of her brothers and sisters were born with cataracts and/or glaucoma.”
And in the ensuing struggle, Mrs. Grohman wound up on the ground with a broken wrist.
Grohman is planning a lawsuit. “But we are gonna get rid of the two
criminal charges first,” he says. “If we can afford him we are gonna
hire David Walker — he’s one of the best attorneys in Galveston County
— “
In the background you can hear Mrs Grohman dissenting.
“My wife says we haven’t decided, but we’re probably gonna use him,”
Ralph continues.
He goes on to say that this isn’t his first
brush with the law, nor would it be the first time that David Walker had
helped him out of a jam — there was that lady at the day care center
five years ago who pulled out in front of him with two kids in the car.
Because of her, Ralph says he was arrested, jailed, and spent $8,000
fighting a double-felony child-endangerment and reckless-driving rap.
And
not long after that, lightning struck a tree in their yard, and the
flames traversed the root system and set fire to the underside of his
house.
And then came Hurricane Ike.
“So we’re still pulling out from that,” he says, and then turns his
attention back to his wife. “She’s a proud girl, a real sweet lady.”
“Let
me just come out here, ’cause my wife doesn’t want me to tell anybody
anything,” he adds.
“I don’t,” you can hear her say in the background.
Told that their travails had made the papers, Ralph
waxed
even more philosophical. “The crime reports…We’re so hungry to see
people with
problems, to wit, the soap operas, and watching the wrecks across the
freeway,
and keeping browns and blacks down — thank you, honey — where was I? Keeping browns and blacks down, because we
have to be better than somebody else.
“My wife’s worried about the notoriety,” he says.
“It’ll be
good for the trial when it comes up. Jury selection. Or maybe not. I am
not
that famous. I am insignificant! Except to me!”
Muffled, crabby sounds come from Mrs Grohman.
“Stop it,” says Ralph with no anger.
“The
closer you are to God, the more you’re
gonna think you’re bipolar, because there’s an aura around Christians,
and the
bigger the Christian, the bigger the aura. And you become a prime
candidate for
attacks.
“And I welcome them.”
This article appears in Apr 29 – May 5, 2010.
