By Ken Robertson, Herald Executive Editor
Even after I started working as a reporter covering cops and courts, there was a time when I thought domestic violence only happened to people I didn’t know.
I stopped thinking that way on the day a co-worker came to the office with black eyes, lumps on her forehead and a swollen, bruised nose.
She was ashamed to come to work that way, but couldn’t afford to lose the pay. So she swallowed her pride and showed up.
And she showed even greater courage a few days later by leaving the man who’d beaten her, moving out on her own to rebuild her life.
What I didn’t know then and what many people still don’t realize is that most victims of domestic violence suffer for months and years. They often move out several times before they finally work up the courage to leave and stay gone.
Since I’ve been at the Herald, we’ve reported repeatedly on many other grim statistics of domestic violence.
I’ve watched veteran reporters physically shiver as they talked about the all-too-routine police reports of this crime and described their interviews with the men — for it is overwhelmingly men — who commit it.
A couple of stories from our files are worth repeating. From reporter Genoa Sibold-Cohn on Sept. 5, 2006:
It wasn’t unusual to see a bruise on Julie Prather’s face or arms. The 31-year-old Kennewick woman told her parents the marks were nothing. Julie would tell them she and her husband Richard were just goofing around when she got bumped.
But there were other warning signs.
Richard repeatedly accused Julie of cheating on him. If she wasn’t home within a few minutes of leaving her job as a grocery store clerk, her phone started ringing.
“Sometimes she would come over here just crying hysterically,” remembered her mother, LaDelle Borcherding of Kennewick.
“We tried to talk her into getting away from him. She left several times, but she’d always go back to him.”
And despite trips to the Tri-City domestic violence shelter, Julie wouldn’t leave her 71/2-year marriage.
Richard Prather slashed his wife’s throat last year and killed their two kids, Alex, 7, and Alysha, 4.
They are among 27 Tri-Citians murdered in domestic violence slayings in the past eight years.
And this excerpt from a story on Oct. 20, 2003, also written by Genoa:
Tara Jensen's last seconds were spent running frantically from the man who had pledged to love her till death did them part.
James Jensen caught up to her, pointed a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol at her and then shot her at least 13 times as she pounded on a neighbor's front door.
She died moments later.
James, 34, insists that when he shot Tara on Sept. 16, 2000, in Pasco, it was an isolated act of violence, fueled by alcohol and rage over his wife's relationship with another man — not another chapter in a lengthy history of abuse as detailed by Tara's family and Franklin County prosecutors.
“I had no intention of doing this,” said James, who was fidgety and ill at ease during an interview in April at Clallam Bay Corrections Center near Sekiu, Wash.
Theirs is a familiar story.
And this Sunday, yet again we’re reporting on another rash of domestic violence in the Tri-Cities. The crimes are chillingly the same.
Reporter Paula Horton’s two-day series on domestic violence begins with a strong woman who has at least some similarities to my long-ago co-worker:
Julie Cooper looks in the mirror now and knows she’s a strong, competent woman who doesn’t need a man to survive.
It’s a stark contrast to how the 40-year-old Richland woman felt four years ago after her 12-year marriage ended and she was set up on a blind date with a man who later physically abused her.
The relationship turned sour nearly immediately, but she excused the name-calling and belittling as caused by drinking. She stayed with him as it got worse because “the prospect of being alone scared the crap out of me.”
Cooper became one of nearly 1.3 million woman in the nation each year who are physically assaulted by an intimate partner.
Julie Cooper was lucky. She got out. And she’s alive.
Two other Tri-City women are not. Their former boyfriends are accused of attacking and killing them this spring in two of the three homicides so far this year in Franklin County.
Once again, we're writing about the terrible crime many people don’t like to confront.
And once again, we feel our readers can’t afford not to confront it. The life of someone you love may depend on it.
That’s why I recommend Paula’s series that runs Sunday and Monday in the Herald.
-- Ken Robertson: 582-1520; krobertson@tricityherald.com
Stay updated with the latest news from the Tri-City Herald with an RSS feed: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/1309/story/97842.html
No comments:
Post a Comment