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Good evening, thrumyeyes  ! It is my pleasure to review another one of your items, "INCIDENT AT LA BOHEME"  . I hope that you will find my comments and suggestions helpful, honest, and positive!
First of all, I'd like to thank you for speaking out about such a huge factor of abuse in our society. It's a reality that there are some men out there who just do not respect women. They not only abuse them physically, but mentally as well. I agreed with you that it was a cowardly act. Bravo for your courage!
You may want to label this as "Non-fiction", since this was an actual experience of yours. That or an "essay" or "article", because as "Short Story" I thought it was something fictitious. Only at the end did I finally realize this was something that had actually happened to you.
On the part of the story itself, I felt you told the events of the incident well, however, it was lacking a little in connectivity. As a reader, I had trouble connecting with the speaker and the man and woman. I didn't feel much emotion while reading this, something I think an author should strive to portray. However, I DID think you touched upon the topic in an engaging and informative manner. It just needs a little work in the emotion department.
Some of the statements you made throughout this piece needed to be further explained; I mentioned some of them in my "Suggestions" section. I felt some stuff was left out, or not working for some reason.
Also, since some of your readers may not know who you are, age, sex, or even name (name could be left out though), I'd suggest adding some of that to the story. I think this may be one of those reasons that I could not connect. I had no idea whether the speaker was a woman or a man; this was a big factor for me throughout this piece. The sex of a character/speaker can change the readers whole view on a piece. While reading, however, I did THINK it may be a woman, but I wasn't entirely sure, since you never clearly stated one way or the other. Another thing was some of the reactions you described seemed a little robotic (matter of fact), and I felt you could put in some more of your feelings during the incident. This is another thing that may have affected the connectivity.
I did think you did a great job at showing how a lot of these situations turn out. The woman will sometimes give in, not wanting to bother with the incident, and will give in to the man. It becomes "normal" and something of which will become a cycle for both of them. Great job at capturing that in this piece!
Suggestions:
 I looked in that direction and saw a man and a woman standing before a storefront, they were separated by about 15 feet.
Instead of a comma, you need either a semi-colon or you need to separate this into two sentences. Otherwise, it is a comma splice.
Assured that he wasn't going to strike her again, the manager and I returned inside to await the police so they could calm down also.
I think we need a little more detail for the first area in bold. How was the speaker assured the husband wouldn't strike her again? How could she (I assume the speaker is a woman, I'm not totally sure) trust him not to? The second part in bold didn't make sense to me. So who could calm down also? And why did they have to await the police in order for "them" to calm down?
When I came back out[,] the husband had already left the scene while the wife's girlfriend and companion had arrived and were comforting her.
I think you need a comma in here. My correction is in blue and surrounded by brackets.
I had done the right thing. I felt good about doing the right thing; what, I pray, someone else would do if it were my sister, mother, wife, daughter or any woman.
The repetition of this phrase in bold leads to an awkward read. I'd suggest rephrasing. Ex. "I had done the right thing and I felt good about doing it; what, I pray...." Or something similar.
While I'd like to credit my "Cowardly Lion's" courage, I think it was more that I was raised in the south and a man just doesn't hit a woman. Period.
This statement in some ways implies that this sort of violence doesn't happen in the south. I think you may need to reword it in order to make your thought clearer to the reader. (Because, as I am from the south, I know that men do hit women here. It's not a regional thing; it is just that there are some men in any place of this world that hit women.)
Unfortunately, they still have yet to confront the problems that led to him acting out his repressed rage in public.
How do you know they have yet to confront it? If you have this information, you may want to share it with the reader in order to make this piece more complete.
Please note, any suggestions I make are solely my opinion. This is your story/poem, so if you don't want to change it then don't. 
I felt that the majority of this was well written, and true to its subject! Thank you so much for sharing this experience; we women need to have our eyes opened to this dreadful type of abuse. I really enjoyed the read! It just needs to be tightened up a little and connect more to the reader.  Great job!
-Neko
 Proud member of the "SIMPLY POSITIVE GROUP"
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I felt so bad for poor Smokey, and for you for having to go through this. At least you still had that experience and your memories of your dear friend.
I loved it and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. You are fabulous and talented writer. I hope to see more of your work here on WDC. 