I’ve been working at the Domestic Violence Clinic for about six months, now. I help people complete the paperwork necessary to get a temporary restraining order (and, in some cases, a forced move-out order) against their abusers. I sit in the back of the court, interviewing and typing. I rarely know whether or not the TROs have been granted (although I did get called an “angel” a few weeks ago, and got a hug) but for me, I’m doing what I need to be doing to help.

I’ve heard some pretty bad stories, seen men and women alike cry, and taken photos (for the file) of injuries I’d like to forget. But for some reason, the broken iPod Touch I saw last week has haunted me.

A woman came in to get a move out order and TRO against her partner of 14 years (at the court, we would call him her “boyfriend”, because they were never married, but in my mind, that’s not explaining the whole situation). They were the parents of four children and lived together in Section 8 housing. He had been controlling and abusive for as long as she had been in a relationship with him, not allowing her to have friends, work outside the home, or have access to the internet. Recently, she had taken her welfare check to a local electronics store to buy her oldest daughter an iPod—it probably took the whole check. When the father found out that the device was capable of accessing the internet, he demanded it from his daughter and broke it in front of her.

This was why her mother had come to court that day—because he had finally turned his violence and need to control on her children and she wanted them to grow up happy. (I can’t tell you how often people will take abuse for themselves and are only motivated to change their situation by the thought of abuse of their children.) She showed me the iPod.

Now, I’ve worked at the Genius Bar and have rarely seen iPods in such bad shape as this one. Generally speaking, they’re hard to break. A scratch here or there, sure; a broken screen, maybe; but it takes a lot of force to really destroy one. The only other time I’ve seen an iPod this bad was when it had been run over by a car. The screen was white from all the cracks in it and all of the inside electronics were visible (and falling out). It was about twice as thick as it should have been because the electronics had been broken and rearranged. The back was so scratched that the serial number was barely visible—but it was visible.

Injuries that I’ve seen to people have been, of course, far worse than this. But those people have come to court to do something about it. This child’s toy was destroyed, in my mind, only for spite. And it could have been a Barbie, whose hair he had chopped off and clothes he had torn so his daughter could no longer enjoy it, or legos that he’d smashed to pieces. All I could think of this 13 year old in a house of violence and poverty and this, one of the few things that made her a normal kid—something all her friends had, something she could use to virtually escape her environment—had been destroyed in front of her.

After I finished with the paperwork, I gave her mother a few addresses and told her to go to an Apple Store, to ask for a Genius, and to show them the iPod and tell her story. If it had been me, I would CS-code it in a heartbeat—I pray to Steve Jobs daily that she gets a good person on the other side of the Bar and that, with the TRO, the move out order, and a new iPod, she and her children can start to live a normal life.