Shawn Caradine Sr. put on an orange work jacket to protect his dress clothes. He brought his tools to a rental property he owns in the city to fix the air conditioning unit for the new tenants.

Caradine, 61, a mechanical engineer with a master's in business, also earned a technical certification in HVAC years ago. The skills have come in handy since he started buying and rehabbing houses in his old St. Louis neighborhood in the 1980s.

Caradine, a Black man who grew up a few blocks from this rental house, is respected and well known in the community. He owns seven properties in the West End, and has helped rehab about 50 others, in an effort to help stabilize the area.

On this day in early September, Caradine's tenant had tripped the house's SimpliSafe alarm a few times while moving stuff in and out. A series of messages on Caradine’s phone alerted him to the situation, which he responded to.

Around 4 p.m., when Caradine was about to start working on the outdoor AC unit, the alarm got tripped again. He saw a St. Louis police officer jump a fence and race over toward him. The officer asked to see his identification.

Caradine’s driver's license shows his home address in the suburbs, which he thought might confuse the situation. He offered to give the officer his phone, showing the call log with the security alerts, and to hand over the keys to the house. When the officer kept asking for ID, Caradine asked him to call a sergeant.

“Oh, you’re one of those kinds,” he recalled the officer saying. Caradine says the officer put one handcuff on him, then grabbed his shoulder and stuck his leg out to trip him. Caradine fell to the ground and the officer put his body on Caradine’s back. Caradine said the officer began to choke him with his right arm. When he got Caradine’s left arm, he handcuffed him.

“I’m going to be killed by a police officer at my own house,” Caradine remembered thinking. His shock was even greater than the throbbing pain in his head.

He had never been in handcuffs before. He and his wife raised their two sons, one a mechanical engineer and the other a manufacturing engineer, to always be respectful to the police. Son Michael Caradine, 24, who lives in Los Angeles, said his father had repeatedly taught him and his brother what to do in any police encounter: Don’t talk back. Don’t raise your voice. Don’t be aggressive in any way. Say yes ma’am, yes sir. Be as respectful as possible. Do what they say.

Caradine said he sat in handcuffs outside his house for half an hour, humiliated, even as neighbors vouched for him as the owner of the property.

When he told me about the incident, he shared his career accomplishments and how much they meant for his family: He was the first to graduate from college. The first to become an engineer. The first to get a master's degree. The first Black entrepreneur to own a Chik-fil-A franchise in the city. He had served as a deacon in his church and as a Boy Scout Leader, and his son became an Eagle Scout.

He rehabbed Section 8 housing so struggling families could find decent places to stay. In the process, he hired dozens of local young people to try to give them a way out of impoverished neighborhoods.

“I love St. Louis,” he said. “St. Louis is my home.”

But all his degrees and success and community standing didn’t change how he was treated in that encounter. Eventually, a sergeant came, talked to him and told an officer to release him.

On the drive home, Caradine called a few police officers he knew personally. They urged him to file a complaint at the district office. He wrote a detailed timeline and description of the experience and filed a case with internal affairs.

A spokesman for the police department said they do not comment on pending internal investigations. Caradine has a meeting scheduled with an internal affairs investigator.

He wants to see the officer reprimanded or removed from the department. He wants to talk to him face-to-face. Refusing to show an ID, while offering other ways to identify yourself, should not warrant being screamed at, thrown to the ground, choked and handcuffed, he said.

While his physical injuries are healing, one painful realization has stayed with him.

“He didn’t know all the things I have accomplished,” Caradine said. “He didn’t see all that. He saw a Black man in an orange jacket.”

Shelly Snow Pordea grew up in a fundamentalist religious sect.

When she was a child, her parents moved from her birthplace of St. Louis to Hammond, Indiana, to be near the First Baptist Church, an Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) megachurch then run by Jack Hyles.

Pordea, now 48, remembers her early life tightly revolving around this church.

The outside world, she was taught, was a threatening and scary place. Her parents subscribed to Hyles’ child-rearing methods, which promoted hitting children into submission -- spanking babies as young as 6 months old. Pordea said her parents later told her that they kept rubber bands on her wrists when she was 2 years old, which they would snap against her skin to keep her in line. It wasn’t until Pordea was 14 and listening to a talk about promiscuous women during an IFB youth camp that she realized she had been sexually abused as a 4-year-old by a church member.

After the lecture, she confided the abuse to a camp counselor.

“I was told I was tainted and not clean anymore,” Pordea said. And she had been conditioned to believe it.

As a teenager, she tried to keep the peace in her family, especially after her brother ran away from home at 17. She attended the unaccredited Hyles-Anderson College, where she took classes that taught her it was a woman’s fault if a man strayed from his marriage.

Pordea got some physical distance from the church when she got married and moved overseas with her husband, although she was still deeply invested in it emotionally and mentally. Through the internet, Pordea discovered the accusations against Hyles of sexual scandals and financial misappropriation. She began connecting with former IFB members on social media, who shared their own stories of abuse.

Over time, the indoctrination began to unravel. By age 30, Pordea began to believe she had been raised in a cult. In 2013, the church leader Jack Schaap, Hyles’ son-in-law, was convicted of taking a 16-year-old across state lines to have sex with her. He was sent to federal prison.

“That was a point of no return,” Pordea said.

Pordea, who now lives in St. Peters, Missouri, joined forces with others in the cult survivor world to host a first-ever, live storytelling event last month in St. Louis. She wants to raise awareness of how some organizations use coercion, manipulation and undue influence in order to abuse and control people.

The movement began during the pandemic with the #IGotOut hashtag on social media, with people sharing their own experiences in cultic groups. A number of documentaries, podcasts and TV shows have brought awareness to the diverse range of such organizations. Some are political, religious or spiritual, while others revolve around doomsday prophesies, sex, self-help and even multilevel marketing.

Gerette Buglion, an author and executive director of IGotOut.org, was a teacher for 19 years before she became involved with a self-help group that eventually took over her life. She was introduced to the group leader by fellow teachers who were getting dream therapy sessions from him. Buglion began sessions as well, and the leader used the personal information she shared during therapy to slowly manipulate her and create dependence on him.

For 18 years, Buglion remained under the mind control of a charismatic fraud.

Almost 10 years ago, another woman in the organization described how the leader would yell at her for hours at a time for her perceived infractions. Because this information came from a person within the cult whom Buglion trusted and cared about, it created a big crack in her perception of the leader.

That was the opening she needed to get out.

Buglion, who has now heard hundreds of stories from survivors and their loved ones, said it is critical to try to maintain some kind of connection with a person you fear is being indoctrinated. She has since published the book “An Everyday Cult.” In it, she shows how anyone can be susceptible to narcissistic leaders and groups that claim to know the truth. They use natural human vulnerabilities and group dynamics to slowly take over a person’s critical thinking skills.

“The level of shame is very high for people coming out of cultic organizations,” she said. She was plagued with questions about how she, an educated person, could have let it get so bad and stayed for so long.

In recent years, many survivors have found connection through social media. Those connections, plus the pandemic lockdown and a boom in media programs about cults, have prompted many to reexamine their relationships with their tight-knit groups and leaders.

Pordea recalls watching Leah Remini’s documentary, “Scientology and the Aftermath,” with her husband, who hadn't fully accepted the truth about his and Pordea's upbringing.

Watching Remini's story, the parallels to his own life finally hit him.

He looked at Pordea, stunned.

“Oh my God, it was a cult,” he said.

A conversation about domestic violence unfolded at a public board meeting in St. Louis in a way that has never happened before in the city’s history.

At a meeting earlier this month, Megan Green, the first woman president of the city's Board of Aldermen, shared her personal experience as a survivor of abuse.

It wasn’t something she had planned to say. But while she listened to advocates talk about raising awareness of resources available to abuse victims, and the isolation victims can feel, she felt her breath get short. She was fighting back tears.

“A lot of things came back in that moment,” Green said. She felt compelled to share why she was struggling to keep her composure.

In her early to mid-20s, Green was in a relationship that was mentally, sexually and physically abusive at times. Her family and friends saw her change from an outgoing and driven young woman to withdrawn and reclusive. She became depressed and suicidal, eventually quitting her job.

Once, she tried to tell her partner she was leaving. He grabbed her by the neck and pushed her against the kitchen wall.

She said she felt like a failure, deeply ashamed and embarrassed by what was happening to her.

“Part of me was in disbelief that this was happening,” she said. Green would leave for a day or two, but her partner would find his way back into her life.

“I became a shell of myself,” she said. She finally worked up the courage to talk to a counselor, who encouraged her to confide in a friend. Green sat in her car in the parking lot after that session and called her best friend. She broke down and told her everything.

“I know,” were the first words her friend said. A burden lifted from Green.

She eventually got a restraining order against her partner. It took several more months, but she was able to leave for good.

Alderwoman Pam Boyd also shared a personal story. She had gotten married at 15, in part to escape a difficult situation at home after her mom died. She had been with her husband, also a teenager, for a year before the abuse started. She stayed until she was almost 20. She remembers her 3-year-old son picking up his Tonka truck during a fight and throwing it at her husband.

“Don’t hit my momma anymore,” the toddler said. At that moment, she decided she had to leave. She did not want her son to see this behavior as normal.

She put her son’s things in a brown paper bag and walked out of their home. She was pregnant with their second child, without any idea of where she would go. A cousin saw her walking on the road and took her to his house. Her family had never known about the abuse she had been dealing with at home.

“I was more embarrassed than anything,” she said. “It made me feel like I was weak.”

She said she had stayed in the relationship because of the low self-esteem she felt at the time: “You don’t think much of yourself, and think that this is the best you can get.”

More than 10 million people -- 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men -- have experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner.

Green and Boyd both talked about the importance of educating young people about healthy relationships and raising awareness about the resources that are available.

Heidi Suguitan, director of clinical services and education for Safe Connections, a nonprofit working to reduce the impact and incidence of relationship violence and sexual assault, said there are many benefits when people in public positions speak up about their experiences.

First of all, it lets others know that they are not alone. It also helps eliminate the stigma and shame people feel when they are trapped in an abusive relationship.

“Shame is a natural byproduct of abuse,” she explained. When control is taken from a person, there is a feeling of, ‘How did I let that happen?’”

In addition to educating young people, Safe Connections helps victims figure out safe ways to leave bad situations. Women may face barriers in finding and accessing shelter space or counseling services. With rent costs escalating, there is a desperate need for more affordable housing and access to jobs that pay a living wage. These are critical to addressing the problems of domestic and intimate partner violence.

Suguitan said the survivors she works with have often been convinced that they are somehow responsible for their partner’s abuse. She helps them recognize what they are actually in control of.

“They are not responsible for someone else’s actions, choices or emotions,” she said.

Once Green and Boyd had that realization in their own lives, they never looked back.