By ARELIS HERNANDEZ
Associated Press Writer
7:31 PM CDT, July 17, 2009
HOUSTON
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Six months before she was killed, Evairene Flores wrote her entire family in case she died: "Many will miss me, many will cry, but it was because of Matthew that I had to die."
Married for 20 years to an abusive husband, Flores divorced Matthew O'Connor and turned to the San Antonio courts for a protective order to keep him away.
When O'Connor continued to threaten her, a district court ordered him to wear an electronic monitor, court documents show. But that didn't stop O'Connor from kicking in the door of Flores' apartment and shooting her more than 20 times on Aug. 23, 2006. O'Connor then shot himself.
Flores' sister says the killing might have been prevented if O'Connor's electronic monitor had been equipped with a global positioning system, allowing police to track his movements and warn Flores before he reached her apartment.
The device -- the same technology used in car navigation systems -- has become an increasingly popular tool in the fight to protect domestic violence victims.
In June, Texas joined 17 states that have passed legislation requiring GPS use as a condition of probation for a convicted domestic violence offender.
But some advocates and law enforcement officials worry that ambiguous language, lack of funding and overall confusion in some of the bills may only endanger victims, providing only an illusion of safety. The measure could exacerbate offender violence and silence women, particularly minorities, who are terrified of their abusers and have little faith in the system, advocates say.
"I worry that nationally there is a lot of fervor that GPS is going to save everyone" and authorities will stop looking at other solutions such as education, said Cindy Southworth, director of technology for the National Network to End Domestic Violence.
GPS technology allows police to monitor and respond the moment an offender gets near the job, home or school of a victim with a protective order. The device records it and provides evidence of an offense.
"It's a moment where the technology matches the problem in a way that can help criminal justice systems address domestic violence," said Harvard Law School lecturer Diane Rosenfeld. "I see this as domestic homicide prevention."
Before these laws became popular, protective orders required offenders to stay away but did little to stop them.
"We've had deaths in Corpus Christi where someone had a protective order but it just wasn't quite enough," said Frances Wilson, executive director of the Women's Shelter of South Texas, "This (measure) will encourage more victims to come forward and give more teeth to protective orders."
Three women are killed every day in the U.S. by their husbands or boyfriends, according to Justice Department statistics. Such killings accounted for about a third of all female homicides in the United States, statistics show.
Without GPS, police have been lax to follow up on complaints that partners are ignoring protective orders, said Tara Shabazz, executive director of the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence.
However, Shabazz and her organization oppose California's proposed GPS legislation because it would require the state to order GPS tracking for an offender without providing details on how to implement it.
In Illinois, the law there has frustrated smaller jurisdictions ill-equipped to carry out its requirements. Advocates and officials are struggling to interpret the details of a 2008 state law that requires judges to order the devices for protective order violators.
"When we start playing with anything computerized or electronic, it all sounds good and we wish it worked like it does in 'CSI,"' said Vickie Smith, executive director of the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence, "but the reality is we aren't there yet."
The Illinois law also doesn't spell out who would pay for the devices and many police departments don't have enough officers to enforce every violation.
In California, the cash-strapped government can't pay for the program, said Alexis Moore, the president and founder of Survivors in Action, a California-based advocacy group. Similarly in Texas, no money was appropriated for GPS implementation.
In most states the offender must pay the $4 to $12 daily fee, but some critics say the offenders don't always pay up, and the cost ultimately falls on local governments.
Despite the problems, Rosenfeld said the popularity of GPS devices does signal a shift in the prosecution of these crimes and the attitudes of local agencies.
"It enables us to see who's paying attention to orders of protection," she said. "GPS is not necessarily going to make police departments stand up and say, 'We have to do something about it,' but it takes away a lot of their excuses for not taking it up."
Floria Roberts said a GPS device could have given her sister the time to save her own life.
"My sister would have had a 50 percent chance of surviving that attack if she was given at least a two-minute warning," Roberts said.
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