Chaos at an Idaho Town Hall Reminded Me of a Childhood Fear

On Sunday, a video interrupted my mindless social media scroll so frequently it became impossible to ignore. I clicked play and watched a terrifying and chaotic scene unfold: A woman was yanked from her auditorium seat by multiple men as people around them yelled.

The woman, Dr. Teresa Borrenpohl, was attending a legislative town hall hosted by the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee in Idaho. Borrenpohl expressed her frustration with the inability to ask questions during an event that was billed as an opportunity for public comment. She yelled, “Is this a town hall or a lecture?” before the men descended on her.

As I watched the footage, taken at various angles by half a dozen bystanders, my pulse raced and my mouth went dry. My body was responding to a fear I knew from my childhood: The terror of watching helplessly as a man abuses a woman. 

In this case, it was three men, plus Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris. The county’s Republican Central Committee hired Lear Asset Management, the black-clad security agents who descended on Borrenpohl. In the videos, you can hear people demand the men identify themselves, even asking the sheriff if they were deputies. The questions went unanswered. The men seized Borrenpohl’s arms and pulled. Her strawberry blonde hair fell across her face as she fell to the ground and was dragged by the wrists to the aisle. The men, including the sheriff, mocked concerns for her safety. 

“Look at this, this little girl is afraid to leave,” a man taunted from the stage as the security agents tightened the plastic tethers against Borrenpohl’s skin and dragged her away.

It seemed like a scene from a movie. Instead, it was a scene from a small community three hours from where I live. Couer d’Alene  is nestled on the shores of the pristine 28,000-acre lake that is its namesake. Twice a year, I cross two mountain passes to get there, but the brutality against Borrenpohl hits much closer to home. 

I grew up in a violent household. 

When I was young, my dad was a high school football coach in Texas. The heat from the Friday Night Lights only intensified his rage at home. He got State Championship rings and he gave bruises. My memories are littered with smashed plates, food strewn across walls, phones dangling impotently from their cords like broken limbs. 

My parents divorced when I was 8, and my dad remarried and divorced in rapid succession for the rest of my childhood. With every new nuptial came the same pernicious patterns. My dad always had an excuse for his rages, and I was always silent – until one day something inside of me screamed ENOUGH! I was a senior in high school. I was sitting on a couch at my aunt’s house, listening to my dad make another round of excuses for the toxic way he treated women. 

I had always told myself that my dad wasn’t violent toward me. But in that moment I knew that by making me witness him abuse other women, he had also been hurting me.

Listen to me: A man who abuses a woman hurts all women. Full stop. We belong to a divine sisterhood, a protective collective forged over millennia of watching our kinswomen suffer at the hands of noxious aggressive male behavior. We carry caution in our bloodstream. There is a reason the majority of women polled would rather run into a bear than a strange man in the woods. We know on a cellular level what can happen to one of us when we’re mobbed and overpowered.

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That’s what I was feeling as I watched the video of Borrenpohl. I was grateful the women around her were taking video, which was later used to dismiss a battery charge against Borrenpohl (she bit one of the men in the fray) and revoke the business license of Lear Asset Management. Those brave women’s actions affirmed what I already knew: Sometimes we have to put our own safety on the line to protect our sisters. 

During the county fair, I volunteer at my Democratic Central Committee’s booth. Two summers ago, a man came under our canopy wearing head-to-toe MAGA gear. I ignored him at first because I was busy helping someone sign up for our newsletter, but within minutes he was yelling in the face of another female volunteer. I did a swift mental calculation: I could let her fend for herself or I could put my body between his and hers and risk getting injured myself. 

I realized I am not afraid of what an abusive man might do to me if I confront him. But I am afraid of what he will do if he thinks his behavior is okay.

“Sir,” I said, stepping in front of the man. “You need to leave.”

 He stepped closer to me, blustering. 

“Leave,” I said, pointing outside the tent. My voice was even, but inside I trembled. He stared at me for a few more seconds before retreating. 

The thought of raising our daughters in a world where abuse is normalized is far more terrifying than the thought of being hit or yanked or bound. Borrenpohl’s actions empowered an army of women who will not watch powerlessly as our sisters are attacked.