Dear Friends and Neighbors, I never intended to publicly tell my story, especially in this way. So why now? I am not afraid anymore and I am not a liar. I cannot stand by silently as Cohoes Mayor Shawn Morse repeatedly tells the media that he never put his hands on me? the ?Grant Street girlfriend.? He has publicly claimed that I said the abuse never happened. That is a lie. It did happen. So now I must come forward with the truth. For about three years on and off between 1992 and 1996 I was romantically involved with Shawn. During this period experienced years of emotional and physical abuse at the hand of my then boyfriend, Shawn Morse. The abuse started out with me being physically pushed, grabbed and verbally degraded. It escalated from there. The worst incident came after we had broken up. I returned from a weekend out of town only to have him come to my home, angry that I?d been unreachable for the weekend. He grabbed me by the throat, picked me up, and carried me by the throat into the dining room, where I finally was able to break free. The incident left me with bruises on my neck, throat and arms. Following this incident i called the police and Cohoes Police Officer Gary Ethier responded to my home. The following year Shawn gained unwelcome entry into my home and destroyed my property. Once again I called the police and an officer responded. The response to those calls to the Police didn?t make me feel safe. Shawn had and continues to have a great deal of sway in the City of Cohoes and I did not. I got restraining orders. Shawn violated them. The police would show up and just say ?go home Shawn?. I specifically remember an incident with a Cohoes Police Officer standing in the driveway of my Grant street home telling Shawn to just go home. But Shawn kept coming back. Nothing ever seemed to happen to him. Because I didn't feel protected I had to move out of Cohoes for my own safety. The truth is the same today as it was twenty years ago. While these incidents happened in the past, the fact that Mayor Morse is lying about them today is something that the public should know when formulating an opinion. ,Colleen Keller UNLK