Last year, there were 12,686 reported domestic violence crimes in Nashville's Davidson County, including nine homicides. Two domestic violence prosecutors handled most of those cases, each averaging about 250 cases every week, The Tennessean reports. Mayor Karl Dean says they need help. He is seeking two more domestic violence prosecutors, part of an ongoing top-to-bottom audit to identify how Nashville can improve the way it addresses domestic violence, from investigation and prosecution to victim services.
“We need to send a message that Nashville is a safe city for women and children,” Dean said. Tennessee has a deplorable reputation for domestic violence. Since 2001, it has ranked among the Top 10 states with the highest rates of women murdered by men. The state has been included on that list every year but 2009, says the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit Washington-based public safety research and advocacy organization. It has ranked in the Top 5 five times, including the past two years.
Read full entry »To most outsiders, nothing seemed amiss between Lisa Mederos and J.T. Ready in Gilbert, Az., says the Arizona Republic. Behind closed doors, friends say, Ready was cruel and controlling, once pouring a bottle of water over her head because it was the wrong brand and another time ordering Mederos' beloved daughters to find new homes. Despite outside appearances, Mederos, 47, was a domestic-violence victim, Gilbert police said.
She had called police twice about domestic violence, the first time in February, when she reportedly complained that Ready had choked her six months earlier, police said. The report went nowhere, police said, because they had no probable cause for an arrest. The second time would be her last: She called police in the moments before she and three other members of her household were slain Wednesday. Ready, the suspected shooter, killed himself, police said. Ready, 39, was a gun-toting member of the far-right National Socialist Movement who wore fatigues around the house, amassed a grenade stockpile and led armed vigilante patrols to the border.
Read full entry »The Senate voted 68-31 Thursday to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act and expand its reach to American Indians and homosexuals, after Republicans opted out of an expected partisan brawl, reports the New York Times. But a political fight still looms when the House takes up a version of the legislation next month that lacks the hot-button issues added in the Senate. Fifteen Republicans voted for the measure, which extended landmark 1994 legislation to give courts and law enforcement new tools to combat domestic violence.
Amid partisan brawls over abortion and contraception, some Democrats saw the Violence Against Women Act as the next battle in what they framed as a Republican "war on women." But Senate Republicans did not rise to the bait. Republican senators like John Cornyn of Texas made clear their concerns, but even before amendments to address those concerns were voted on, many of the same senators who had expressed reservations signaled that they would vote for the bill, regardless of whether it was changed. No Republicans spoke out against it before the final tally.
Read full entry »San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee is suspending Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi from his post, the first step toward removing him from office permanently for official...
Read full entry »Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam is seeking mandatory minimum jail sentences for repeat domestic violence offenders. Experts worry that mandatory jail time without treatment isn’t enough, reports The Tennessean. “In many other states, batterers programs are mandated for varying lengths at least for the first offense,” said Ed Gondolf, retired research director for the Mid-Atlantic Addiction Research and Training Institute and sociology professor emeritus at Indiana University of Pennsylvania “Putting people in jail, in and of itself, is not a cure-all. It sounds like it’s a simplistic answer to a harder problem and one that appeals to the public — the law and order toughness — but isn’t necessarily practical in the long run.”
State officials counter that it is an important step toward making repeat offenders accountable for actions that sometimes don’t earn any significant punishment. “This bill focuses on repeat offenders who have not changed their behavior despite previous interventions, including arrest, counseling, probation and court injunctions,” said Bill Gibbons, head of the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security. “Battering is a crime. We believe the best way to deter future violence is to increase perpetrator accountability.” One victim, Ashlee McGrann said that, based on her experiences, the state should require both.
Read full entry »The criminal case against San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi is winding down, but the political case against him may be only beginning, says the San...
Read full entry »Sherrie Gavan of suburban St. Louis tried hard to protect her son from heroin, says the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She confiscated his cellphone, sent him to live with relatives and enrolled him in a different high school. She drug tested him as many as three times a day and brought him with her to work. When those efforts failed, she drove to the home of a person she believed supplied the drug: 21-year-old Joshua Loyd.
She wound up hitting him with an aluminum baseball bat. "I don't know if I can say that what I did was right," she said. "But it was the only thing I could do in the moment." Now Gavan faces a charge of third-degree assault. Last month, the Facebook page "Stand with Sherrie Gavan" sprang up anonymously. More than 335 people have given it a thumbs up. The case illustrates a common frustration for parents caught in the growing heroin epidemic: How to protect their children?
By Lisa Riordan Seville
GOP officials in New York back a City Council resolution this week calling for passage of expanded protections for domestic violence survivors.
T.J. Lane, accused shooter at Ohio's Chardon High School had violence in his life from the beginning, says the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Court records show his father had been arrested many times for violent crimes against women in his life, including Lane's mother. More than once, police or courts warned him to stay away from the boy and his mother. Authorities said the teen walked into the high school cafeteria yesterday and aimed it at several boys. In the end, three students were seriously wounded and two were killed.
T.J. Lane is to appear in Geauga County Juvenile Court today. A statement from his family said, "This is something that could never have been predicted. TJ's family has asked for some privacy while they try to understand how such a tragedy could have occurred and while they mourn this terrible loss for their community." Fellow students said the 17-year-old was quiet. Some said he was sweet; others said he had a simmering temper. His Facebook page, now deleted, had a photo that showed him bare-chested, glaring down toward the camera. In another picture, dated 11 days ago, he is sitting on a bed peering out from behind a giant teddy bear with a heart that says, "Be Mine." He listed his interests as anime and primitive hunting.
Read full entry »Teen victims of dating violence are overwhelmingly more likely to have been victims of other forms of violence, such as sexual violence and child abuse, according to new research from the University of New Hampshire Crimes Against Children Research Center.
Read full entry »San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee may ask Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi to take a leave of absence while fighting misdemeanor charges stemming from an alleged domestic...
Read full entry »The number of suicides among soldiers has been leveling off but there has been a dramatic jump in domestic violence, sex crimes, and other destructive...
Read full entry »As San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi faces arraignment today on three misdemeanor charges related to alleged domestic violence, many are wondering why his wife is standing firmly by his side. The San Francisco Chronicle says it's very common for victims of domestic abuse to refuse to report the crime or cooperate with the police or district attorney. Experts cite a number of reasons, including fear the violence will escalate if it's reported, financial reliance on the abuser, worry over a custody battle for children, having nowhere else to live - or simply holding out hope the relationship will improve.
Mirkarimi's wife, Eliana Lopez - who moved to San Francisco from her native Venezuela after becoming pregnant - faces an even more daunting scenario. "Not only is he in law enforcement and very politically connected, but she's from another country, she doesn't speak the language fluently, she doesn't have family support here or political connections," said Minouche Kandel, an attorney with Bay Area Legal Aid who specializes in domestic violence cases. "She's in the middle of this very public maelstrom," Kandel continued. "I'm sure one of her worst fears has come true." Domestic violence experts said Lopez's actions mirror what they see from hundreds of people they serve every year.
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Although the number of domestic-violence murders in Orlando's Orange County dropped slightly in 2011, those seeking shelter and protection from abusive partners reached record numbers, the Orlando Sentinel reports. No one can say for sure what fueled those increases, but advocates, law enforcement and legal experts say it's a good sign. Advocates for domestic-violence victims hope that an increase in awareness and a stronger push toward community education has led more people to agencies that can help.
Harbor House of Central Florida provided emergency shelter to 1,007 men, women and children last year, which is up slightly from 2010, said Chief Executive Officer Carol Wick. The 2011 total is nearly double what it was five years ago, when 620 people sought emergency shelter. County courts got a record 5,173 injunction requests last year, about a 12 percent increase. The Orange Sheriff's Office and Orlando Police Department saw an 8.5 percent drop in reported domestic-violence incidents in 2011. "A lot of it [the decrease] has to do with education," said Cpl. Susan Soto of the Sheriff's Office. "More people are seeking help and walking away from the abuse."
San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi's wife said in a videotaped account of his alleged New Year's Eve attack against her that he had manhandled her on an earlier occasion last year, and that the former city supervisor had warned her he could gain custody of their young son because he was "very powerful," say court documents reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. Mirkarimi, 50, is awaiting arraignment Thursday on misdemeanor charges of domestic violence battery, child endangerment, and dissuading a witness, stemming from an incident that began after the couple left their home for a New Year's Eve meal. Mirkarimi has denied the allegations.
A key piece of evidence is a Jan. 1 videotape taken of Mirkarimi's wife, Eliana Lopez, by a neighbor, Ivory Madison. On it, Lopez is crying and points to a bruise on her right bicep where she said Mirkarimi grabbed her during the confrontation the day before, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. "This happened yesterday," Lopez says on the video. "Two times in 2011, and this is the second time this is happening. Mirkarimi's defense attorney, Robert Waggener, said he was aware of the accusation of a prior incident in March 2011 involving the couple. "I know that issue is out there," he said, "but there's no domestic violence."
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