Posts Tagged ‘DV crime’
TATTOO ARTIST OFFERS FREE WORK FOR SURVIVORS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE/ davidwolfe.com
http://www.davidwolfe.com/tattoo-artist-offers-free-work-for-survivors-of-domestic-violence/
Scars can cut both ways: they can give us a sense of pride or they can retraumatize by reminding us of the past. With that in mind, tattoo artist Flavia Carvalho decided to start a project called ‘A Pele da FLor’ (translation: ‘The Skin of the Flower’). Through this project she offers free services to women who have scars from domestic abuse.
Flavia Carvalho runs a studio in Curitiba, Brasil. She’s helped women who have been stabbed by knives, shot with bullets and covers up mastectomies as well.
As she explains:
“I started the project quite recently, and I had no idea it would receive this much media attention. It began very spontaneously. As I said, my services are a hundred percent voluntary, and the only “cost” women need to invest is to choose a design for their tattoos!”
She tells her story of how it began:
“It all started about two years ago, when I worked with a client who wanted to cover a large scar on her abdomen”
“She told me that she was at a nightclub, and when she turned down a man who approached her, he stabbed her with an switchblade”
“When she saw the finished tattoo, she was extremely moved, and that deeply touched me”
“The one that shocked me the most was the story of a 17 year-old girl who dated an older man and, for months, suffered from the physically abusive relationship”
“When he wanted to break up with her, he scheduled a meeting, and after they began to fight, he stabbed her several times in her abdomen, and violently raped her”
Cops Beat Their Wives & Girlfriends At Double The National Rate, Still Receive Promotions/ Freethoughtproject.com
Statistics show that 1 in 4 women in the US is a victim of domestic violence, those numbers jump to 1 in 2 if they are married to a cop.
May 7, 2014
Law Enforcement officers beat their significant other at nearly double the national average. Several studies, according to Diane Wetendorf, author of Police Domestic Violence: Handbook for Victims, indicate that women suffer domestic abuse in at least 40 percent of police officer families. For American women overall, the figure is 25 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
According to The Advocates for Human Rights Organization, studies indicate that police families are 2-4 times more likely than the general population to experience domestic violence, making the potential for disparities in protective success particularly troubling.
Historian John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, has a famous quote, Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This rings true through all levels of government ‘power,’ however it is particular prevalent among police officers.
Sociopaths are attracted to positions in which they are able to assert authority over others, so it should come as no surprise that there are higher concentrations of sociopaths within law enforcement.
The trouble with spousal abuse lies in the very nature of police work. The authority and control in the wrong hands, will be misused, according to domestic violence counselors.
What makes police domestic violence more difficult to deal with is the fact that women feel scared to report it. Even advocates for battered women are reluctant to dive into domestic violence cases involving police for fear of alienating the agencies they rely upon for help in other abuse cases, according to a report by SFGate.
When other women report their abuse, they do so to law enforcement officers. Think about it from the position of the one being abused by a law enforcement officer. The one doing the beating is simultaneously holding a position in which they are tasked with preventing that very abuse!
“There are a lot of good cops who go into the work for the right reasons, to help people. But then you have these others who are more interested in the authority, in the badge and the gun.”
Diane Wetendorf told SFGate in an interview,
“The biggest problem for a woman reporting that she’s been abused by her police officer husband or boyfriend is that nobody believes you.”
“There are a lot of good cops who go into the work for the right reasons, to help people. But then you have these others who are more interested in the authority, in the badge and the gun.”
“They start out with command presence and voice to gain and maintain control, and if that doesn’t work, they go up the scale with an increasing amount of force until they get compliance,” Wetendorf said. “Unfortunately, these guys use the same technique with their wives and girlfriends. And some of them go from 0 to 60 right away.”
These women not only fear retaliation, but also have apprehension about their husbands losing their jobs, thus stifling their own economic future.
If they do report it they often run into skepticism from the same law enforcement system they are complaining to.
“A big part of police culture is the code of silence, the prosecutors depend on police for their cases, the police depend on each other – it’s a very insulated system,” says Wetendorf. Cops will all too often look the other way when it is “one of their own” facing accusations.
An example of this tendency to cover up domestic police abuse can be seen in the case of Jeremy Yachik. This monster beat and tortured his daughter for years. His girlfriend even filmed the abuse with her cellphone and brought the footage to the police department that Yachik worked for.
After showing the video to Glen Johnson, the Police Chief, they failed to respond and she was forced to find another venue to expose this abuse.
Also a study conducted by the Domestic Violence Task Force called Domestic Violence in the Los Angeles Police Department: How Well Does the Los Angeles Police Department Police Its Own? revealed that performance evaluations of cops with history of domestic violence are largely unaffected.The study of the Los Angeles Police Department further examined the 91 cases in which an allegation of domestic violence was sustained against an officer.
Over three-fourths of the time, this sustained allegation was not mentioned in the officer’s performance evaluation.
Twenty-six of these officers (29%) were promoted, including six who were promoted within two years of the incident.
The report concluded that “employees with sustained allegations were neither barred from moving to desired positions nor transferred out of assignments that were inconsistent with the sustained allegation”
Wetendorf points out the most common fears when reporting police domestic abuse in her handbook:
If your abuser is an officer of the law, you may be afraid to:
Call the police — He is the police.
Go to a shelter — He knows where the shelters are located.
Have him arrested — Responding officers may invoke the code of silence.
Take him to court — It’s your word against that of an officer, and he knows the system.
Drop the charges — You could lose any future credibility and protection.
Seek a conviction — He will probably lose his job and retaliate against you.
These fears can make someone feel incredibly trapped and feel like there is no way out.
If you or someone you know is a victim of this type of abuse we encourage you to no longer remain silent. As long as people go unpunished for their abuse, they will continue their abuse.
Film it, record it, expose it in any manner you can. Tell us your story and we will expose these abusive jackboots for the cowards they are.
Sources:
1 Johnson, L.B. (1991). On the front lines: Police stress and family well-being. Hearing before the Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families House of Representatives: 102 Congress First Session May 20 (p. 32-48). Washington DC: US Government Printing Office.
2 Neidig, P.H., Russell, H.E. & Seng, A.F. (1992). Interspousal aggression in law enforcement families: A preliminary investigation. Police Studies, Vol. 15 (1), p. 30-38.
3 P.H. Neidig, A.F. Seng, and H.E. Russell, “Interspousal Aggression in Law Enforcement Personnel Attending the FOP Biennial Conference,” National FOP Journal. Fall/Winter 1992, 25-28.
Mother of Missing Conn. Baby Feared for Child’s Safety / crimesider
This article was originally posted on CBS news crimesider ( link below)
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mother-of-missing-connecticut-baby-feared-for-childs-safety/
HARTFORD, Conn. – The mother of a 7-month-old boy, whose father is believed to have jumped with him into the Connecticut River, previously sought a restraining order against the father saying she feared for her safety and the baby’s.
According to the Hartford Courant, the child – Aaden Moreno – had been the focus of a child custody case between his parents. His mother, Adrienne Oyola, was granted a temporary restraining order against the father, Tony Moreno, and that order had been in effect from June 17 to June 29, when it was denied by a judge, the newspaper reported, citing court records.
Aaden Moreno was reported missing the night of Sunday, July 5, when his father, 22-year-old Tony Moreno, jumped from the Arrigoni Bridge between Middletown and Portland. Police said Monday that Tony Moreno is believed to have jumped off the bridge with the child and that the mission to find the child is now a recovery operation.
Firefighters were able to pull Tony Moreno from the river and took him to Hartford Hospital, where he was initially listed in serious condition. Police later said he was upgraded to stable condition and that he was alert and conscious.
Charges are expected when the investigation is completed, police said.
CBS affiliate WFSB reports that in a petition last month for a restraining order against Tony Moreno, the child’s mother, Adrienne Oyola, wrote, “I am afraid he is going to do something to my son. He is angry and probably isn’t thinking straight.”
According to the Hartford Courant, Oyola wrote in the application that she and Tony Moreno were happy until she became pregnant and he began to verbally abuse, threaten and push her.
“He has told me he could make my son disappear any time of the day,” she wrote, according to the paper. “He told me how he could make me disappear told me how he could kill me. I sometimes am scared to sleep. He told me he would put me in the ground and put something on me to make me disintegrate faster.”
“I feel that he is a danger to my child and me and would like to leave with my child and get full custody,” she reportedly continued.
The restraining order was denied just six days before the tragedy, WFSB reports. It is unclear why.
http://www.wxyz.com/news/mother-beaten-dragged-by-car-in-dearborn
DEARBORN, Mich. (WXYZ) – You can see it on the video: A car pulled over in Dearborn. Inside, a couple argued. This was no lovers’ spat. It was the beginning of a disagreement that erupted into a full blown attack on a mother and her two children.
The fight ended with a woman being dragged around a city block.
In the exclusive video above, an SUV pulls to the side of Chase Road. Police say the driver, a woman, got into an argument with the father of her children who was in the passenger seat. The mother pulled over and told the man to get out. Surveillance cameras from a business captured every detail.
With a 2-year-old and 3-year-old in the back seat, police say 34-year-old Hassan Sayed forced his way into the driver’s seat, but not before chasing the woman into the street, taking her purse, pushing and hitting her.
Police say he overpowered the mother of his children, and with the kids in the back seat, drove away at a high rate of speed dragging the mother caught in the door.
mother caught in the door.
“She was still attempting to get him out of the car when he took off with her hanging on to the side of the vehicle,” says Dearborn Police Detective Patricia Penman.
Sayed is now looking at years behind bars. The habitual offender was charged Wednesday with stealing the victim’s cell phone, child abuse and neglect and assault with a deadly weapon, the weapon being the car.
This domestic dispute happened in October, which is Domestic Violence Awareness month.
The U.S. Department of Justice reports 25 percent of women will become victims of domestic violence, that’s almost a million women battered annually.
For help with domestic abuse, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233).
This Is Why I Didn’t Tell You He Was Beating Me/ damemagazine.com
http://damemagazine.com/2014/10/29/why-i-didnt-tell-you-he-was-beating-me
When I fled my abusive relationship for the last time (yes, I left and went back), one of the first things my well-meaning friends and family asked was why I never told them what was happening to me.
“Why didn’t you say something,” they’d ask, looking concerned and confused. “I could have helped you. I could have done something!”
And I believe them. Had they known how horrible my life had become, I have no doubt that they would have done their best to help me. But all this happened more than twenty years ago. Today, I’m healed, emotionally healthy, and over it—and have the clarity of hindsight to see that my friends and family would have helped me.
But back then, not so much. Because when you’re in the thick of things, in the middle of a Hell that you’re convinced is of your own making, you can’t see anything clearly. Fear and shame consume you—they’re your constant companions. And when you look at your family and friends, you often can only see judgment and derision. You know their opinions about women who stay in abusive relationships.
Consider this scenario: You have a childhood friend with whom you’ve always been close. Lately, she’s not around as much as she used to be. You assume it’s because she’s all wrapped up in her new relationship. And at first she was. When things were new, she couldn’t get enough of him. They spent nearly every waking moment together.
But back then, you still heard from her—she called you. And even though she mostly just bragged about her new love, it didn’t matter. She was happy.
Then the calls became less frequent. And when you called her, she’d rush off the phone, sounding hurried and distracted. Mutual friends casually mentioned that they hadn’t seen her in a while. “It’s her new guy,” you’d tell each other. “They’re never apart these days.”
Soon you get used to her absence, to not talking to her as often. You miss her, but you don’t want to be that friend who seems like she’s trying to sabotage her new love.
One day you bump into her at the grocery store, and you’re shocked by her appearance. She’d always been so meticulous about how she dressed, especially in public. And now she’s wearing sweat pants—she’d never be caught dead wearing those outside of the house or gym! Yet here she is, not only in sweats, but they’re stained, and she’s wearing a baggy T-shirt, her hair, usually perfectly coiffed, now pulled into a sloppy ponytail. Her fingernails are ragged and unpolished.
She looks tired.
But you’re so happy to see her you pull her into a tight hug. She stiffens in your arms, as though she’s in pain. You let go—surprised. And then you take a really good look at her face.
She won’t meet your eyes. Her mouth trembles a little, and her lips are chapped. Is that a fading bruise on her cheek? You’re thinking. No, it must be the lighting.
You exchange pleasantries, but you can tell she’s not really engaged in the conversation. You get the feeling that she wants to leave … that she’s not really happy to see you. You feel uncomfortable, but you can’t exactly put your finger on why.
“How are you?” You ask again, only this time you mean it.
“Fine,” she answers briskly. “Really, I’m fine. Just in a hurry. I need to get home.”
“I won’t keep you, then.”
Something tells you she isn’t fine at all. You have an inexplicable urge to pull her into your arms again, but you don’t. Against your better judgment, you ignore your instincts and send her on her way. And in your gut you know that something is terribly wrong with your once outgoing, vivacious, beautiful friend.
Here’s what you don’t know: Your friend would love nothing more than to fall into your arms and ask for help. But she won’t. She can’t. She’s too ashamed. As awful as you think she looks, she believes she looks even worse. In a relatively short period of time, her boyfriend has gotten into her head and convinced her that she’s ugly, stupid, and worthless.
Your friend no longer puts any effort into her looks because he’ll either accuse her of dressing up for some “other man,” or he’ll just tell her she looks like crap anyway—so there’s no point in trying anymore.
Sweatpants are her new best friend.
She doesn’t call anymore because she’s embarrassed by her life. That wonderful guy she bragged about in the beginning has turned into a monster. And she knows that if her friends knew how bad things were, they’d think she was just as stupid as he says she is—and maybe she is. After all, she still loves him. So maybe she’s getting exactly what she deserves. At least that’s what she thinks.
You don’t see her as much because that’s what abusers do: They isolate their victims from friends and family. They do it subtly, though. He’d never go so far as to say that she isn’t allowed to see you—that’s too direct and he’s much smarter than that. Instead he manipulates her into staying away by doing things like picking a fight with her when she comes home. That way, the next time you invite her out, she’ll decline in order to avoid another fight. Or he’ll accuse her of loving her friends more than him. So that she’ll stay home instead of upsetting him. He uses her love for him like a weapon.
And those fights she’s so eager to avoid? “Fight” isn’t exactly the right word, not when she always ends up sprawled on the floor. At first, it was more yelling than anything. She could hold her own back then. She always did have an acid tongue. But then he became cruel, saying things that cut her to her core. And he twisted her words and used them against her. And all the while, he was playing the wounded one who couldn’t understand how she could treat him so badly when he loved her so much. There were the accusations and recriminations, wild scenarios forged in the deep valleys of his twisted mind. Her smart mouth never stood a chance against his emotional brutality.
By the time the first punch landed on her jaw, her psyche had been beaten to a pulp. And don’t be fooled by the shell of a woman you just saw at the grocery store. She used to fight back. She even got a few good punches in, especially that first time. But he’s stronger than her. Bigger than her. He’s been throwing punches all his life and she never even got a spanking as a child, so she never stood a chance against him physically, either.
You ask yourself, If it’s so bad for her, why didn’t she say something to me? I was right there! We’ve been friends since childhood. Surely she knows that I would help her!
Does she know that, though? Does she really? Or does she look at you, her childhood friend, and remember the time you said, “I don’t understand why women stay with men who hit them”?
Remember when the Ray Rice abuse story first broke, and you all were having drinks? Remember what you said? You said, “If a man beats me once, shame on him; if he beats me twice, shame on me. That woman was an idiot for marrying him after what he did to her in that elevator!”
Your friend remembers those words. And even though she knows you love and support her, she can’t help but wonder how she’d change in your eyes if you knew what was really happening. Understand that she wants desperately to leave her current situation, but doesn’t know how. She may also be convinced her abuser will hurt whoever does try to help her. Remember, he’s in her head, even when he’s not beating her.
Trust your instincts, though. You know your friend. And from that encounter in the store, you know that something is definitely wrong. So please, don’t be afraid to follow up with her.
Start with a phone call. But ease into it: Don’t immediately launch into how you think she’s being abused, or anything like that. If her abuser’s at home when you call, she won’t say anything of substance, anyway. You simply want to convey the message that you’re concerned and want to help. Keep your words loving and gentle—and pressure-free.
Say something like, “I know you’re busy now. But when you have a few minutes to yourself, give me a call. I’m worried about you and want to help. I love you.” Keep the call brief, but be clear: You’re worried, you want to help, and you love her.
If she doesn’t call back right away, call her again. Keep reaching out to her. Try to reach her when you know she’s alone or at least away from him. Remember, your goal is to help, not endanger her any further.
Be prepared for her denials. Shame, guilt, fear, and even worry for your safety will keep her from opening up to you. Just gently remind her that if she’s in the kind of trouble you suspect, she has no reason to be ashamed. You love and respect her, and just want to help.
The reality is that gentle persuasion may not work. Real intervention, possibly involving law enforcement may be required. If that’s the case, don’t attempt to handle this on your own. Involve other friends and family, and most importantly, seek professional guidance from the experts. Call the National Domestic Hotline at 1-800-779-7233. Let the experts help you help her.
You need to know that an abuse victim leaves her abuser on average seven times before she leaves for good. So, even if your friend leaves this time, she may go back. This is where your friendship will really be tested. You’ll be disappointed and even angry that, after all the work you did to help her escape, she willingly goes back. And your anger is understandable.
But an abuser’s most lethal weapon is his ability to manipulate his victim’s mind. Breaking his hold on your friend will take time, patience, professional help, and a whole lot of hard work on her part. You just have to keep loving and supporting her, even when she disappoints you. Try to resist judging her: It will only make things worse.
It’s painful to watch someone you love suffer domestic abuse. It’s also hard to understand why women stay with or return to the men that hurt them. But leaving is far more difficult than people think. Fear, lack of financial resources, and shame are just a few of the reasons women stay (or return). If children are involved, it’s even more complicated. Many women truly have nowhere to go. Shelters fill up fast and are few and far between. And sadly, as far as we’ve come in this country with regards to strengthening laws to protect women, it’s still way too easy for abusers to track down their victims and murder them. So some women just stay, hoping to survive another day.
As friends and supporters of abuse victims, we need to be more educated about the dynamics and mechanics of domestic violence. And most of all, we need to shed our own preconceived notions about the victims. They need our support and empathy. I learned that the hard way. I used to sit in judgment of women who stayed with their abusers, too. And I stayed on that high horse until the man I loved knocked me off with a punch.
– See more at: http://damemagazine.com/2014/10/29/why-i-didnt-tell-you-he-was-beating-me#sthash.5jOUQ0j8.dpuf
Steps to Safety After a PPO- When it’s time to escape, make sure to have a plan/ domestic shelters.org
About 20% of abuse victims file for a personal protection order, or PPO, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Issued by a civil court, a PPO forbids a person from doing something, such as contacting you, coming on to your property or harassing you at work. It allows the survivor to press charges should their abuser not obey the order.
While this piece of paper alone cannot guarantee stalking behavior will end (roughly half of PPOs are violated by the abuser), it can still be important to get one, since many abusers do respect the orders. Should an abuser violate the order, however, they can face fines or jail time. It is important to note that a PPO should be a part of a larger safety plan, and should not be replied upon singularly. WomensLaw.org offers some safety strategies for that are smart for anyone escaping an abusive situation to follow.[1]
Safety After Escaping Violent Relationships
Stop all contact with your abuser. Responding to this person’s actions could reinforce or encourage his or her behavior.
Keep any evidence of stalking, such as voicemails, texts or emails for future court cases.
Always keep a cell phone with you and don’t hesitate to call 911 if you feel you are in danger.
Have a safe place to go in an emergency such as a police station, public area or the home of a friend of family member that is unknown to your harasser.
If you feel like someone is following you, it’s not a good idea to go home.
Let your coworkers, friends, neighbors and apartment building personnel know about your situation. Give them as much information as you can about the person who is harassing you including a photograph of him or her and a description of their vehicle. Ask them to call the police if they see this person at your home or place of work.
Try not to go places alone. Ask someone to walk to your car, vary your routes to places you regularly visit and get an exercise buddy to go with you if you walk or jog outside.
Report all incidents and threats to the police as soon as they occur. Keep a log of everything that’s happening including the name of the officer in charge of the case and the crime reference number, if there is one. This can all come in useful for future court dates.
JAILHOUSE PHONE CALLS REVEAL WHY DOMESTIC VIOLENCE VICTIMS RECANT/ The Ohio State University
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/vicrecant.htm
COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study uses – for the first time – recorded jailhouse telephone conversations between men charged with felony domestic violence and their victims to help reveal why some victims decide not to follow through on the charges.
Researchers listened to telephone conversations between 17 accused male abusers in a Washington state detention facility and their female victims, all of whom decided to withdraw their accusations of abuse. For each of the couples, the researchers analyzed up to about three hours of phone conversations.
Amy Bonomi
The analysis of these conversations may fundamentally change how victim advocates and prosecutors work with domestic violence victims to prosecute abusers, according to the researchers.
“The existing belief is that victims recant because the perpetrator threatens her with more violence. But our results suggest something very different,” said Amy Bonomi, lead author of the study and associate professor of human development and family science at Ohio State University.
“Perpetrators are not threatening the victim, but are using more sophisticated emotional appeals designed to minimize their actions and gain the sympathy of the victim. That should change how we work with victims.”
The study appears online in the journal Social Science & Medicine and will appear in a future print edition.
The detention facility in the study routinely records conversations of detainees to increase jail safety. The couples were aware they were being recorded through an automated message at the beginning of each call. Such recordings have been approved by the state Supreme Court, and the researchers gained approval from the county prosecutor’s office to use the recordings. All the recordings involved cases that had already been resolved.
The researchers chose to study victims who had decided to recant. They listened to from 30 to 192 minutes of recorded conversations for each couple.
After analyzing the calls, the researchers identified a five-step process that went from the victims vigorously defending themselves in the phone calls to agreeing to a plan to recant their testimony against the accused abuser.
After analyzing the calls, the researchers identified a five-step process that went from the victims vigorously defending themselves in the phone calls to agreeing to a plan to recant their testimony against the accused abuser.
Typically, in the first and second conversations there is a heated argument between the couple, revolving around the event leading to the abuse charge. In these early conversations, the victim is strong, and resists the accused perpetrator’s account of what happens.
“The victim starts out with a sense of determination and is eager to advocate for herself, but gradually that erodes as the phone calls continue,” said Bonomi, who is also an affiliate with the Group Health Research Institute in Seattle.
In the second stage, the perpetrator minimizes the abuse and tries to convince the victim that what happened wasn’t that serious. In one couple, where the victim suffered strangulation and a severe bite to the face, the accused perpetrator repeatedly reminded the victim that he was being charged with “felony assault,” while asking whether she thought he deserved the felony charge.
“Finally, he wore her down and she agreed with him that he didn’t deserve a felony charge,” Bonomi said.
What happens next in this second stage, though, is the critical step in the process of recantation.
“The tipping point for most victims occurs when the perpetrator appeals to her sympathy, by describing how much he is suffering in jail, how depressed he is, and how much he misses her and their children,” Bonomi said.
“The perpetrator casts himself as the victim, and quite often the real victim responds by trying to soothe and comfort the abuser.”
In one case, the accused perpetrator threatened suicide and said in a phone call to his victim, “Nobody loves me though, right?”
At that point, the victim’s tone changed dramatically, and she sounded concerned that he might actually try to hurt himself, Bonomi said. From then on, the victim promised to help him get out of jail.
In the third stage, after the accused abuser has gained the sympathy of the victim, the couple bonds over their love for each other and positions themselves against others who “don’t understand them.”
The fourth stage involves the perpetrator asking the victim to recant her accusations against him and the victim complying. Finally, in the fifth stage, the couple constructs the recantation plan and develops their stories.
“They often exchange very specific instructions about what should be done and said in court. They seal their bond as a couple and see themselves as fighting together against the state, which they view as trying to keep them apart,” Bonomi said.
While the couples were told that the phone calls were being recorded, Bonomi said she doesn’t believe it had a major effect on what they talked about.
“These are couples in crisis and the perpetrator wants above all to get his freedom. He isn’t holding back,” she said.
Bonomi said she also doesn’t believe the fact that the calls were recorded is what kept the accused perpetrators from threatening violence. Instead, she thinks the men calculated they had a better chance of succeeding if they didn’t make direct threats.
If the accused abuser threatens his girlfriend or wife, she may hang up the phone or refuse to talk to him. Of course, the threat of future violence is always there for these couples, Bonomi said, but the perpetrators didn’t use threats in these calls to achieve their aims.
Bonomi said the results of this study could help prosecutors and other victim advocates as they work with abuse victims in the criminal justice system.
“These results provide a new model for how to work with victims. Advocates can counsel victims up front and let them know the sympathy appeals and minimization techniques that their husband or boyfriend is likely to use on them.
“If the victims are prepared, they may be less likely to fall for these techniques and would be more likely to follow through with the prosecution.”
The results of this study also show how emotion-based techniques of abusers may make it difficult for some victims to disentangle themselves from violent relationships, she said.
Bonomi’s co-authors on the study were Rashmi Gangamma and Heather Katafiasz of Ohio State, Chris Locke of Auburn University and David Martin of the King County (Washington) Prosecutor’s Office.
The study was funded by the Criminal Justice Research Center at Ohio State and the Group Health Foundation of Seattle.
Contact: Amy Bonomi, (614) 292-4753; Bonomi.1@osu.edu
Written by Jeff Grabmeier, (614) 292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu
Ray Rice Wins Appeal, Suspension Vacated Immediately / Huff Post Sports
NEW YORK (AP) — Ray Rice has won the appeal of his indefinite suspension by the NFL.
An arbitrator ruled Friday that his suspension for punching his fiancee, now his wife, should be vacated immediately. The NFL said Rice, a free agent, is “eligible to play upon signing a new contract.”
Former U.S. District Judge Barbara S. Jones said Commissioner Roger Goodell’s decision in September to change Rice’s original suspension from two games to indefinite was “arbitrary” and an “abuse of discretion.”
Jones was deciding whether the NFL overstepped its authority in modifying Rice’s two-game suspension after video of the Baltimore Ravens running back punching Janay became public.
Rice was released by the Ravens when the video went public. Rice and the union contended he was essentially sentenced twice, and Jones agreed.
She noted in her decision that after Goodell increased the punishment for a first offense under the personal conduct policy from two to six games, “the commissioner called Rice to assure him that the new policy would not affect him — that it was forward-looking and his penalty would not be increased.”
In her decision, Jones also wrote:
“Because Rice did not mislead the commissioner and because there were no new facts on which the commissioner could base his increased suspension, I find that the imposition of the indefinite suspension was arbitrary. I therefore vacate the second penalty imposed on Rice.
“The provisions of the first discipline — those regarding making continued use of counseling and other professional services, having no further involvement with law enforcement, and not committing any additional violations of league policies — still stand.”
The NFL said it accepted the decision.
“We respect Judge Jones’s decision to reinstate Ray Rice from his indefinite suspension for violating the league’s personal conduct policy in an incident of domestic violence,” spokesman Greg Aiello said in an email to The Associated Press.
“Ray Rice is a free agent and has been eligible to be signed by an NFL team since he was released by the Ravens. Based on Judge Jones’ decision, he will be eligible to play upon signing a new contract.”
Goodell and the Rices testified at the hearing, as did NFL security chief Jeffrey Miller and Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome. During his appearance, Goodell told Jones: “I do accept that I have to be consistent with consistent circumstances, and … I think that’s about fairness, and fairness would be, you should be as consistent as possible in your discipline.”
The NFL Players Association claimed a “victory for a disciplinary process that is fair and transparent” in a statement. The union called again for collective bargaining to produce a new personal conduct policy.
For battered NFL wives, a message from the cops and the league: Keep quiet / The Washington Post-By Simone Sebastian and Ines Bebea
Whenever Dewan Smith-Williams sees Janay Rice on television, she feels like she’s looking into a mirror. Smith-Williams, 44, remembers the denial, the secrecy, the sense of isolation, the shame. But most of all, she remembers the fear of ruining her husband’s career as a National Football League player — the feeling that coming forth, or seeking justice, would destroy her four children’s financial security. She understands that struggle not only because she, too, was a domestic-violence victim, but because she watched so many other NFL wives, many of them her friends, go through the same nightmare. For each of them, it began with their husbands’ attacks and worsened with a culture that, they felt, compelled silence.
“We’ve told agents about it, called the NFL Players Association when things were really, really bad,” Smith-Williams recalls. “They would say, ‘Oh, we’re really sorry that you are going through this. We’ll look into it.’ But you never heard back. There’s no one available for the wives.”
She and another former NFL wife describe an insular and intensely secretive organization, where loyalty extends only in one direction – everyone protects the NFL brand, but the NFL protects its own interests over everything else. The culture is passed down more by example than diktat. Wives new to the league watch older ones suffer from abuse in silence, and they mimic the behavior. Often, wives and girlfriends confide in each other, but when they do, their advice is to stay quiet, say the two women, one of whom declined to let her name be printed because her ex-husband is still associated with the league.
It’s counterintuitive to the outside world: Women should leave their abusers, and their abusers should be punished. But the NFL is a unique universe with an overwhelmingly male workforce whose members are lionized in the press and in their communities; a we’re-all-in-this-together ethos; and incentives for the managers, coaches, and union reps to keep negative stories under wraps. Going to authorities, whether police or hospitals, means social exclusion and, more importantly, negative media attention that could end your husband’s career. Justice imperils their belonging and their livelihood.
The wives, whose husbands ended their playing careers in the 2000s, say they knew of no safe alternative — no liaison to players’ families, no counselor, and no procedure for reporting abuse. In fact, the league rarely communicates with wives at all, on issues serious or benign, even though a great number of them don’t work and are dependent on their husbands, they say. The NFL did not answer several requests for comment about league culture or how officials interact with players’ wives. Teri Patterson, deputy managing director and special counsel to the NFL Players Association, says her organization beefed up its communication with wives after she arrived in 2009. The NFLPA now holds meetings for players and their wives in 10 cities each year, plus up to five others at special events like the Super Bowl. (There are 32 teams in the league, meaning only one-third of them have access to the sessions each year.)
According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, just one-quarter of the 1.3 million American women assaulted by an intimate partner each year report the attacks to the police. But the two wives interviewed for this article claimed the rate of reporting among NFL wives and girlfriends is much lower. They say the league has built a tight-knit culture, similar to a fraternity, with entrenched hierarchies and a fierce sense of loyalty among members. “You get brainwashed. It’s so ingrained that you protect the player, you just stay quiet. You learn your role is to be the supportive NFL wife,” says one of them, the onetime wife of a Saints player who asked to speak anonymously because her now ex-husband is still associated with the league. Otherwise, she says, “You’d cost him his job.”
For that reason, few of them have felt comfortable telling their stories in the press. But the example of Janay Rice moved two of them to describe what they had gone through and what they had seen — namely, the way they thought the NFL, the NFLPA, and local law enforcement abandoned them after their husbands’ abuse. Since they began telling The Washington Post their stories, they also spoke with other NFL wives who went through similar situations but didn’t want to come forward, they say. These accounts help explain why.
During the decade when her husband, offensive lineman Wally Williams, played in the league, Smith-Williams says that the overwhelming majority of the NFL wives she talked to quietly suffered from some kind of spousal abuse. One showed up on her porch barefoot and crying one night. Others came to indoor team events in sunglasses. Other times, they opened up to her and other wives in the league about their experiences with domestic abuse. But as in any tight-knit organization, players’ family lives rarely stayed private, she says. Coaches and general managers didn’t need to be told directly to know which players were having trouble at home.
Yet they habitually overlooked the league’s systemic domestic abuse problem, she says, an experience in line with the story former Chicago Bears General Manager Jerry Angelo described to USA Today last week, when he told a reporter that teams failed to punish players in “hundreds and hundreds” of domestic-violence episodes during his three-decade-long career. Later, he took back his comments after others in the league criticized him. (USA Today has not retracted the story.)
In rare cases when women did muster the courage to notify law enforcement, police officers appeared to tolerate players’ bad behavior. “When the cops would come, they just said we needed some time apart, and they would talk to [Wally] about football,” Smith-Williams recalls. “The police tell you, ‘You don’t want this in the news.’ I have things that happened in my life that there is no record of.”
Wally Williams denied the domestic-abuse allegations in this story and declined to comment on any specific claims.
Smith-Williams, who now lives separately from her husband but is still married to him, says she was pushed, grabbed and held by the throat early in her tumultuous 16-year marriage to Williams. During that time, the NFL was a constant presence in their lives, and she received clear messages from the head coach not to air the league’s dirty laundry — even to the cops.
In 2001, two years before Williams retired from the sport, police responded to an alarm at their empty New Orleans-area home and found marijuana on a table. Head Coach Jim Haslett, who lived in the neighborhood, heard about the incident and left a note at their home warning them to call him before talking to anyone else. Haslett, the most important authority figure in their lives, later met them at their home and told them to keep quiet, Smith-Williams says. She says she originally offered to take the fall and tell authorities the marijuana was hers, to protect Wally’s public image and career. Haslett told her it wouldn’t work. “He said, ‘They don’t want you. They want him,’” she recalls. “He said, ‘Don’t talk to the media. Don’t talk to the police. We will handle it.” It was a message that would stay with her.
Soon after, an attorney for the league contacted the couple to tell them Wally would be arrested. Smith-Williams says she doesn’t know what happened behind the scenes after he posted bail, but ultimately, her husband was never charged. The NFL put him under supervision and assigned him a liaison to help him stay out of trouble.
The Saints declined to comment on the incident, and Haslett, who is now defensive coordinator for the Washington Redskins, did not return calls or e-mails for comment.
The next year, during his final season, Williams tested positive for marijuana use and received a four-game suspension. So when Smith-Williams found marijuana in their Baltimore home, she confronted her husband about it. He stormed through their Baltimore house with a baseball bat, hitting doors, chairs and pictures while threatening her, she says. But after Coach Haslett’s warning the previous year, she chose not to call the cops. Instead, she rang the NFLPA rep assigned to Williams’s case. He told her to stay safe and to let Williams leave the house. He said that someone would call her back. That call never came. Smith-Williams wasn’t entirely surprised — the league rarely returned calls from her or other wives, they had told her. So she didn’t bother calling again.
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello says the league has no record of the event. The NFLPA declined to comment, but Patterson, who now counsels NFL families on its behalf, says the players association is “definitely hyper-responsive” to wives’ inquiries.
In another incident that year, in their New Orleans-area home, Smith-Williams says her husband threw a cellphone at her, hit her on the arm with a newspaper, then pushed and held her against the wall and started choking her. This time, she called the cops and filed a police report that describes much of the episode; a copy was obtained by The Washington Post. But she was ultimately afraid to press charges. “I didn’t want the father of my children in jail,” she wrote in an e-mail. “I didn’t want him to lose his job. Bottom line.”
“HE SAID, ‘DON’T TALK TO THE MEDIA. DON’T TALK TO THE POLICE. WE WILL HANDLE IT.”
Even after players have left the field, their dependent wives have an incentive to protect their husbands’ careers. Wally Williams had retired in 2003 to work as a CBS analyst and moved out of the Maryland home he shared with Smith-Williams. But in January 2005, he returned to pick up a laptop and some other property that, she says, didn’t belong to him. “I called the police and he snatched the phone from me. I called from other phones, and he would do the same. There was a glass door and he pushed me through it.” The police eventually called back, and Smith-Williams was taken to a Maryland emergency room, where, according to hospital records obtained by The Washington Post, she was treated for multiple cuts and bruises. Police came to the hospital and took a statement, but again she chose not to press charges.
Smith-Williams says she has talked about this phenomenon with dozens of football wives and girlfriends over the years, all of whom echo her feeling of powerlessness when law-enforcement, NFL, and NFLPA officials all failed to intervene against signs of domestic-abuse. The women, she says, eventually come to believe there’s nothing they can do fix the problem, so they focus on living with it. “I had friends who had black eyes. They said they ran into cupboards. There were women who said their husbands ran them over like they were on a football field,” Smith-Williams recalls. “There are many other families’ experiences that have already been minimized, ignored, or overlooked by the law and by the NFL because of the protection of the NFL brand.”
Among them was the then-wife of another New Orleans Saints player — the one who asked not to be named because her now ex-husband is still associated with the league. She recalls that one night, when several players were at a bar celebrating their first win of the season during the 1990s, her husband became enraged at her request to go home early. He grabbed her arm roughly and dragged her to their SUV while a teammate convinced two police officers who’d been patrolling nearby not to intervene.
The abuse intensified once they got home, where her husband dragged her into their apartment by her hair and then beat her, she says.
He pushed me to the top of the stairs and shoved me over to the bed. When I stood up, he punched me, and the next thing I remember is coming to on the floor. I remember pulling my legs up to the fetal position to protect myself from his kick after kick. I was vomiting and gasping for air and remember screaming, ‘You are going to kill me!’
Her black eyes lasted for four weeks, she says.
Neighbors who saw the altercation begin outside their home had called the police. But when they arrived, instead of arresting her husband, the officers chatted and laughed with him about his successful game, she says. One requested an autograph for his kid. When her husband cleaned the blood from her face and ushered her downstairs to assure the police officers all was well in the home, they overlooked any evidence of abuse, she says, and as far as she knows they never filed a police report.
The next afternoon, a woman from the Saints main office called her for the first time ever. It wasn’t until she became a potential threat, the wife remembers thinking, that the team had reached out to her. Yet the rep didn’t mention the manhandling at the bar, the intervention from the police or even the abuse, which led the wife to think they just wanted to know whether she intended to involve the police or the press.
[The rep] said she called to ‘check on me.’ … I knew what the call meant. I think every wife knows innately what that call means: ‘Your husband needs this job, and you don’t want to take his dream away now do you?’ I lost more than my dignity. I lost my voice, my self-confidence, my identity. I was just a football player’s wife, collateral damage.
She says her then-husband avoided a hospital visit (and a potentially public embarrassment) the next day by cleaning up her bloodied eyes and face with supplies purchased at the drug store. He personally took her to her job to make sure she told her coworkers she had been in a car accident, which explained the bruises. She didn’t follow up with the police or press charges.
“I learned to listen and not speak,” she says. “He would remind me of that night, how no one would care if I was gone and how the cops did [not care]. It was all about him. He reminded me that I was alone and disposable.”
Neither the Saints nor the NFL responded to requests for comment about her story
In family-style cultures that promote loyalty above other concerns, victims are often disinclined to seek safety, says Ruth Glenn, executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. “There are a lot of barriers for women when they are trying to leave an abusive relationship,” she says. “The NFL has given us many factors as to why there are barriers: financial, shame, cultural barriers.”
Smith-Williams says that description fits her story, because she had become highly dependent on her NFL husband. She left her hometown of Akron, Ohio, her family and her social circle to move around the country as he played for different teams. She gave up her nursing job to support his career and take care of their growing family. For her, like many wives, the NFL became her life and her livelihood, and her husband was the link to that. If he left, she had nothing.
The elevator surveillance video showing Ray Rice punching his then-fiancée Janay Rice in Atlantic City emboldened these women to come forward, they say, because it revealed widespread but rarely-discussed problem. “If you hadn’t seen the video, you would never believe that this happens,” Smith-Williams says. “There is never any accountability” for men taught to attack on the field and enforce their wills on others. “Some of these men are not equipped mentally or emotionally to turn off the aggression switch.” Since separating from her husband, Smith-Williams has gotten a master’s degree and now works as a nurse practitioner in Garfield Heights, Ohio.
The NFLPA says it works with clinicians on various health needs of the players and their families, but there are no programs focused on domestic abuse. Smith-Williams thinks the league should mandate psychological help for players who exhibit warning signs and counseling for abused spouses and children. Token suspensions and resignations do nothing to solve the problem and may even worsen it, because players who are abusive, including their own husbands in the past, use the threat of punishment to keep their partners quiet, the wives say.
If the league is serious about ending domestic violence in its ranks, it must rehabilitate instead of punish, they say. Penalties should be less draconian, so wives don’t worry about ending their husbands’ careers or threatening their families’ livelihoods. “They use [the NFL’s current policies] as leverage against you,” says the ex-wife of the Saints player. “There’s abuse on every team. Everybody knows, but you know not to tell.” Ultimately, she says, the case against Ray Rice has made the NFL less safe for women:
“You will hear of a wife murdered before you hear another one come forward.”
Protective Mothers' Alliance International 