There was an alleged attacker somewhere nearby.
The description was still being developed.
The situation was moving quickly.
So officers approached the man.
They began demanding information.
Who are you?
What is your name?
What are you doing here?
Do you live here?
Do you know what happened?
From the man's perspective, police had appeared suddenly and were treating him as though he might be involved in a serious violent crime.
He became defensive.
He wanted to know why they were questioning him.
The officers explained that they were investigating a stabbing or cutting and were trying to identify a man connected to the attack.
The man insisted he had not stabbed anybody.
But officers could not simply accept that statement without establishing his identity.
A woman was bleeding nearby.
A dangerous suspect was missing.
They had to know whether the man in front of them was Steven.
Eventually, he gave them his name.
He was not Steven Lewis.
The officers had briefly confronted the wrong person.
Once they established that, they released him.
But what might have seemed like a mistake actually clarified something very important.
Steven was still out there.
The man they had found was not the suspect.
And the actual suspect's location remained unknown.
Officers moved toward Kimberly and Steven's home.
They needed to determine whether Steven was still inside.
They also needed to find the baby.
The house was checked.
Steven was not there.
Neither was the child.
That discovery changed the emergency immediately.
Until officers searched the home, there was still a possibility that the baby was inside, perhaps physically unharmed.
Now they knew the child was gone.
The person accused of attacking Kimberly was gone too.
There was an obvious possibility that Steven had taken the baby with him.
For police, that creates a completely different kind of search.
An armed domestic-violence suspect alone is dangerous enough.
An armed domestic-violence suspect moving around with a one-year-old child creates even greater uncertainty.
Officers cannot know how the suspect will react when found.
They cannot know whether he will surrender.
They cannot know whether the child is being used as leverage.
They cannot know whether the suspect is calm, panicked, intoxicated, injured, or emotionally unstable.
They do know one thing.
Every contact has to be approached carefully because there is a child close to the danger.
Meanwhile, Kimberly was still bleeding.
Officers returned their attention to her.
She had survived long enough to get away, reach the neighbor, and communicate.
But survival did not mean her injuries were minor.
Police tried to understand what had happened to her.
They asked where she had been hit.
They asked what kind of weapon Steven had used.
Kimberly identified the weapon as a machete.
She described trying to grab it or stop it.
Even before doctors examined her, that detail told officers that this had not been a small domestic scuffle that accidentally caused a cut.
A machete is a large bladed weapon.
If somebody is swinging one during an argument, the potential for catastrophic injury is obvious.
Kimberly indicated that she had been struck in the arm.
She had also been struck in the head.
The visible blood already told officers that the wounds were serious.
But the full extent of her injuries would only become clear later.
At the scene, police had to work with what they could see.
Kimberly was conscious.
She could talk.
She knew her own name.
She could tell them who attacked her.
She could describe the weapon.
But she needed medical care.
Paramedics were requested.
Even while dealing with her own injuries, Kimberly kept coming back to the same concern.
Her daughter.
Where was the baby?
That question may have been more frightening to her than anything the officers could tell her about her wounds.
Kimberly knew what Steven had just done to her.
Now Steven was missing.
And so was their child.
An officer told her that nobody had been found inside the house.
For Kimberly, that did not answer the question.
It made the question worse.
If her daughter was not at home, where had Steven taken her?
Was the child safe?
Was she crying?
Was she alone with him?
Had Steven calmed down?
Did he still have the machete?
Was he driving?
Was he going somewhere the family knew?
Was he leaving the area completely?
Kimberly could not go find out herself.
She was badly injured.
That is one of the cruelest elements in this part of the story.
She had managed to survive the immediate attack.
But surviving meant she now had to stand or sit injured while other people searched for her child.
She could not simply get into a car and chase Steven.
She needed a hospital.
Police needed her to remain safe.
And the officers themselves still did not know where Steven had gone.
At this point, the emergency had split into several separate operations.
Paramedics had to keep Kimberly alive and assess the damage.
Officers had to protect the neighbor's residence in case Steven returned.
Other officers had to search for Steven.
Someone had to locate the child.
Police had to secure the original home.
They had to determine whether the machete was still there or had left with Steven.
They had to begin preserving whatever evidence existed.
And they had to do all of this without yet understanding what had caused the violence in the first place.
Then another 911 call arrived.
This one came from Kimberly's mother.
Her involvement added another piece to the timeline.
Steven had contacted her.
Kimberly's mother told dispatch that her son-in-law had called her and said that he did not know what he had done to Kimberly.
Consider how alarming that statement must have been.
Your daughter's fiancé calls you.
He sounds disturbed.
He tells you something has happened.
He says he does not know what he has done to your daughter.
Then you try calling your daughter.
She does not answer.
At that point, there are very few comforting explanations.