Just to kind of illustrate the "telephone effect" here is the EXACT and ENTIRE conflict description from the transcript of the 911 call:
DISPATCHER: "What were they doing?"
CALLER: "Uh, we drove by and the gentleman was slapping the girl."
DISPATCHER: "He was slapping her?"
CALLER: "Yes and then we stopped. They ran up and down the sidewalk. He proceeded to hit her, hopped in the car and they drove off."
That's it. Nothing more. Those 2 lines have taken on a life of their own on this forum and others. What's also important to note is we DO have another perspective - one that is more detailed and one that MUST cover the same incident BECAUSE it also ends with them getting in the van.
"At approximately 4:30 p.m., I arrived at Moonflower. While standing on the south side of the street, I observed a man and woman appear to have some sort of a dispute. They were talking aggressively at each other and something seemed off. At one point they were sort of fighting over a phone, I think the male took the female's phone. It appeared that he didn't want her in the white van. He got into the drivers seat and she followed him. At one point she was punching him in the arm and/or face and trying to get into the van. "
She eventually climbed in over him and over the passenger seat. I heard her say, "Why do you have to be so mean?" I wasn't sure how serious this was - it was hard to tell if it was sort of play fighting, but from my point of view something definitely didn't seem right. It was as if this guy was trying to leave her, and maybe take her phone? Not sure but wanted to help out. I noticed another person had called this in, and as soon as I left the store, I noticed a police officer and gave him my contact info."
The second witness isn't minimizing the incident. He says it looked wrong - but he also isn't reporting them chasing each other up and down the street and BL beating on GP. His description is WAY more detailed and I think gives a better idea what was going on. Then - you marry that to what GP and BL both said (when separated) and you look at the physical evidence and I think you can tell what happened.
And I'll also point out - it's not logical to just look at those 2 lines from the 911 call and decide a worst-case interpretation of them is the way to go. <modsnip>