Explanations to Our Daughters

Because of the recent birth of his daughter Blue Ivy with wife Beyonce, the Internet has been buzzing with rumors that Jay-Z will stop using the word "b---h" in his music. They seem to be just rumors, but they would also make sense. How can men with daughters justify using derogatory words to describe women, no matter their line of work?

You may not think it is that big of a deal or that the word has become so common that it has lost much of its meaning. Well, Dawn Turner-Trice from the Chicago Tribune decided to ask teens girls what they think of the rumors. Check out what these girls between the ages of 13 and 17 have to say.

Clayton County Murder-Suicide

From 11 Alive News:

An 11-year-old boy coming home from school walked into a bloody scene where his parents had been killed.

Clayton County Police said the couple died in a murder-suicide. Their bodies were found in their Riverdale home Thursday afternoon.

According to a Clayton County Police officer, Edmond Martin, 33, shot his wife, Fitcha Martin, 31, and then turned the gun on himself.

The child called 911 after finding a large amount of blood inside the house, Clayton County Police spokeswoman Tina Daniel told the Clayton News Daily. She said the boy did not see his parents' bodies.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the Martin family.

Rash of DV Murders in Atlanta

This weekend was a tragic one in Georgia with 4 domestic violence homicides in less than that many days.

Police say a Roswell man killed his elderly mother and then himself.

Daughter and abusive boyfriend planned Clayton mom's killing, officials say. [update] Later reports expand on the probability that the victim's daughter was compelled to keep quite and assist in the cover up after her boyfriend killed her mother.

Police: Fulton Man shot ex-girlfriend in front of couple's two children.

North of Atlanta, a Jackson County man is also accused of killing his estranged wife before killing himself after police located him in Clarke County.

It is unfortunate that it takes many women being killed by abusive men in a short amount of time for many in our community to recognize that domestic violence is an epidemic that claims the lives of thousands of women every year. Even then, most are looking for an easy answer as to what causes domestic violence or what might have caused the rise in numbers of homicides. AJC reporter Marcus Garner did a fantastic job of reaching out to the experts here in Atlanta for an explanation, but he didn't get an easy answer, because there isn't one to give.

It's true that during poor economies, incidents of domestic violence often rise, as Allison Smith of the Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence pointed out. Lack of control in other areas of your life, such as losing your job or not being able to find work when you want it, often inspires those with a predisposition toward violence to seek that control over their family or loved ones. Thus, the root could also be control, as mentioned by Sulaiman Nurridin of Men Stopping Violence. Finally, it could be a criminal justice system that does not take domestic violence seriously enough. As our own ED commented, in the case of the man who killed his children's mother during a custody exchange, there was a protective order in place. The judge clearly felt that it wasn't safe for him to have access to his victim, yet it was OK for him to have access to his children? If the judge in the case had taken the level of risk seriously, he or she could have ordered supervised exchanges or supervised visits and it is possible that this murder could have been prevented.

Domestic violence is a complex issue and, like all complex issues, it requires many solutions. Until our community begins taking domestic violence seriously, working to understand its motivation, and holding men who use violence accountable, this won't be the last tragic weekend we have in Georgia.

Our thoughts and prayers are with all of the families who lost loved ones this weekend.

Sex Slavery In Atlanta

As we have mentioned before, Atlanta is an international hub for sex trafficking. Last week, the Marietta Patch ran an excellent article examining the specific problem of child sex trafficking and debunking some of the myths regarding where trafficking takes place in Atlanta and who the men are who participate in the sexual enslavement of children.

The Schapiro Group is a data‐driven strategic consulting firm based in Atlanta. They produced a study that shows the largest group of men who purchase sex with young females is found in the north metro Atlanta area, outside I-285 (42 percent). It also shows that 23 percent of buyers are from the south metro area, 26 percent are in the city’s core and only 9 percent come from the airport area.

Child sex trafficking is just as huge a problem for affluent families in Marietta as it is in the inner city of Atlanta.

When we think of sex trafficking, we often think of children from a foreign land being brought here to serve foreign men coming to Atlanta via the airport. This study shows that this is categorically not the case. Atlanta's men are creating the market for the slavery of children and Atlanta's children are often the ones enslaved.

Any young girl is at risk for being enslaved for sex. Factors such as childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence at home, poverty and running away lead to a much greater threat.

An estimated 1.6 million children run away from home each year in the United States. The average time it takes before a trafficker or a solicitor approaches a runaway is only 48 hours.

And 90 percent of runaway girls in Atlanta become part of the city’s sex trade, and 70 to 90 percent of commercially sexually exploited children have a history of childhood sexual abuse.

Girls are lured in by recruiters and pimps; other children are also used as recruiters. At times, a girl’s own family may be the sellers.

The article also includes information regarding how children are accessed by traffickers. We recommend reading the whole thing and then contacting an organization like A Future Not A Past for more information on how you can help.

Our Investment in Gender

As a culture, we have a lot invested in gendering our citizens. Don't believe us? Then why do people freak out so much when a person of one gender acts like a person of another?

It should be no big deal. Major League Baseball offers paternity leave. It's a personal decision whether or not players want to take it. A player decides to take advantage and misses a game to attend the birth of his child. End of story, right? Not exactly.

A Dallas sports writer publishes an entire rant because he thinks a guy taking time off from work to do girly things like have babies is so weird. Funerals, he's OK with, they're unisex. But birth is strictly a woman's domain, so no men allowed.

Also, boys should never, ever paint their toenails. And if a company like J Crew happens to print an ad about a mother having some bonding time with her son by painting his toenails his favorite color, the frenzy might just reach epic proportions. Don't believe us? Google it. We'll wait.

All sarcasm aside, this gender policing has real consequences for people.

In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a Mississippi high school football player wanted to wear pink cleats. He got kicked off the team for it and might not graduate on time.

A 17-month old boy was beaten to death in New York for "acting like a girl".

"Corrective Rape", the horrible crime whereby gay men and lesbian women are raped by persons of the opposite sex in order to "fix" their being gay has its own Wikipedia entry.

So why is our society so invested in this? Why do we care if women do things that are considered masculine and men do things that are considered feminine?

Chalk it up to power. Men are more valuable in our society, and they have more power. It's why rape and domestic violence are committed. If women acted like men, maybe we could claim some of that value and some of that power. That has to be stopped. And why on Earth would a man want to act like a woman? Women are worthless. To be a woman is bad. Therefore, there must be something very wrong with a man who wants to do feminine things. That has to be stopped, too.

If we get to a point in our society where women and men are equally valued and equally respected, gender won't matter so much. Until then, gender policing will be alive and well and to step outside your narrowly defined box could be very dangerous. Literally, dangerous.

Bullying Linked to DV

The Centers for Disease Control recently released a study that found a link between bullying and witnessing or experiencing violence at home.

Exposure to violent family encounters was more common among bully-victims [those who both bully and are bullied] than among bullies, and more common among bullies than victims of bullying. Among middle school students, 23.2% of bully-victims reported being physically hurt by a family member and 22.8% reported witnessing violence, compared with 19.4% and 17.4%, respectively, among bullies and 13.6% and 14.8%, respectively, among victims of bullying. Among high school students, comparisons by category were similar.

It makes sense. Children learn how to move through the world by what they witness in the home. If they witness a parent using bullying behaviors against another parent, they will likely mimic those behaviors. It is up to us to teach the children in our care (our own children, those in our classroom, those in our scout troop, etc.) that violence is not acceptable and to model respectful behavior. Otherwise, we will continue to pass abusive behaviors from generation to generation.

Lithonia Man Accused in Stabbing Death of Mother, Siblings

The AJC reports that a Lithonia man is accused in the stabbing death of his mother and two siblings. He also wounded his teenage sister who survived the attack but is in critical condition.

Police arrested the 21-year-old [Eugene Quatron] McCoy as he was walking away from the house Sunday night. According to jail records, McCoy lived at the Rockland Road house even though there was a restraining order prohibiting him from being in contact with his family.

McCoy was booked into the DeKalb County jail early Monday on three counts of murder and one charge of aggravated assault.

Sheila Irons, the man's mother whom he is accused of killing, had taken out a protective order him, prohibiting him from being in contact with her and her minor children. However, as we counsel women every day, a protective order is just a piece of paper that relies on fear of arrest and imprisonment to make it effective. Men who do not fear being arrested often do not fear a protective order.

According to court records, there is a history of family violence.

McCoy has been arrested six times prior to Monday, including twice for allegedly violating family violence orders. All the cases were before DeKalb County judges.

The first arrest was in 2007 when McCoy was sentenced to 12 months' probation for burglary, but that case did not involve family violence.

Last May 26, McCoy pleaded guilty to violation of a temporary protective order and was put on probation for a year and ordered to have no contact with the victim.

McCoy pleaded guilty last Sept. 8 to disorderly conduct and was sentenced to 23 days of confinement and 12 months probation.

Then on Dec. 8, McCoy pleaded no contest to family violence battery, disorderly conduct and criminal trespass. He was sentenced to 14 days in jail and two years probation.

He was ordered on Dec. 21 to undergo a mental health evaluation.

He also was told he could have no contact with the victim, a different woman, and to attend 12 anger management classes.

His last previous arrest was on Jan. 8 on a criminal trespass charge. Court records show McCoy pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 months probation. He also was sentenced to jail time but received credit for the 67 days and was released on March 16, the day he enter the plea.

McCoy clearly did not fear arrest again, because he learned in prior arrests that he would get minimal jail time. Instead of putting the burden on the victim to protect herself, it would have been much more effective to hold McCoy accountable for his past uses of violence and his past protective order violations. If he had ever been shown that our legislators and our courts take violations of protective orders seriously and been given real consequences (other than the inconvenience of anger management classes and probation), he might not have violated another protective order and these three people, two of whom were children, would still have their lives.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims' family.

Building a Story

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Father, Son Deaths Called Murder Suicide

The deaths of a Murray County, Georgia man and his son have been ruled a murder-suicide. The Dalton Daily-Citizen reports:

Murray County Sheriff Howard Ensley said investigators found a hose connected to the exhaust pipe that was run into the interior of the 1984 Corvette where he discovered the bodies of David Wayne Graham, 39, and his son, Easton Blayde Graham, 3, early Tuesday morning.

The article makes no mention of the child's mother. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Graham family.

Police: Father Kills Children During Custody Dispute

The AJC reports that a father is accused of killing two of his children and wounding another while involved in a custody dispute with their mother. He tried to blame the killings on the mother's new boyfriend.

Police arrested Noe-Garcia Saturday morning and charged him with two counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault. Police did not know whether he had a lawyer.

Three-year-old Bradley Garcia and 1-year-old Edward Garcia were found stabbed to death in the home. Bradley's twin brother was hospitalized with stab wounds.

Police arrested 28-year-old Antonio Cardenas-Rico shortly after the attack and charged him with murder and assault, based on Noe-Garcia's accusations. But they quickly noticed discrepancies between Noe-Garcia's statement, the evidence and Cardenas-Rico's alibi.

After spending hours recreating the scene, examining the evidence and re-interviewing witnesses, police arrested Noe-Garcia.

Authorities have dropped the murder and assault charges against Cardenas-Rico, but he remains in custody on a charge of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.

Batterers often use court processes surrounding custody and visitation to further harass and intimidate their victims. Unfortunately, some batterers will take their intent to hurt their victim to this degree, because the best way to hurt a woman is to hurt her children. If you live in or near Atlanta and are afraid for your safety or the safety of your children during visits or custody exchanges, please contact Nia's Place Supervised Visitation and Exchange Center to learn if our services are right for you.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the Garcia family.

Domestic Violence and the "Princess Problem"

You might think that there is no way in the world that princess culture amongst little girls has anything to do with violence against women as adults, but Hugo Schwyzer at the Good Men Project thinks it does.

Scwyzer, responding to an article in Redbook titled “Little Girls Gone Wild: Why Daughters Are Acting Too Sexy, Too Soon", argues that even princess culture contributes to an earlier and earlier sexualization of girls.

You may balk—what’s sexy about a little girl in a pink princess costume? But sexy, as it turns out, is not the same thing as sexualized. Sexualization is not just imposing sexuality on children before they’re ready and viewing girls as sexual objects, but also valuing a girl for her appearance over her other attributes. “Princesses are just a phase,” Orenstein writes, but they mark a girl’s “first foray into the mainstream culture. … And what was the first thing that culture told her about being a girl? Not that she was competent, strong, creative, or smart, but that every little girl wants—or should want—to be the Fairest of Them All.”

As Orenstein and others point out, little girls take their cues about what is desirable by looking at how boys and men respond to older girls and women. The father who lavishes adoration on “Daddy’s little princess” but ogles high-school cheerleaders is sending his daughter a clear message. The message is that the princess phase won’t last much longer, and if you want to grasp and hold adult male attention, you need to be sexy.

This sexiness has very little to do with sex, and everything to do with the craving for validation and attention. While all children want affirmation, princess culture teaches little girls to get that approval through their looks. Little girls learn quickly what “works” to elicit adoration from mom and dad, as well as from teachers, uncles, aunts, and other adults. Soon—much too soon—they notice that older girls and women get validation for a particular kind of dress, a particular kind of behavior. They watch their fathers’ eyes, they follow their uncles’ gaze. They listen to what these men they love say when they see “hot” young women on television or on the street. And they learn how to be from what they hear and see.

Both articles are worth a full read, because they paint a dangerous picture of how we as a society value women primarily, and in some circles exclusively, for our appearance and not for the myriad of other talents and values that women can bring to table. It is this view of women as not fully human, or not as valuable as men, that empowers men who use violence against women to do so. If a woman is not fully human, is not valuable, or is not worthy of the same respect as men, why is it wrong to treat her accordingly? As parents, we need to raise our kids to believe that men and women are equally valuable and, as peers, we need to hold others accountable for any words or actions that would suggest otherwise. Only after we change these attitudes as a society will violence against women be brought to an end.

Georgia House Bill Addresses Human Trafficking

On a better note than our last post about the Georgia legislature, a bipartisan group is tackling human trafficking and underage prostitution in our state.

According to the AJC, "House Bill 200 is designed to help law enforcement and prosecutors go after people who traffic in people, especially minors, for sexual servitude."

The proposal increases penalties for the crime to those similar to drug trafficking, with offenders facing up to 20 years in prison for human trafficking and 50 years in prison for trafficking in minors.

The bill also treats those in sexual servitude as victims, not criminals, by offering them recovery under the state crime victims fund and an affirmative defense when coming forward.

“Human trafficking for sexual servitude is one of the most serious criminal problems facing our state,” said Lindsey, R-Atlanta. “[The bill is] designed to make it easier to go after this crime and treat the victims with compassion and give an avenue to get out of the trap that was laid for them.”

Atlanta is a nation-wide hub for human trafficking, and it is nice to see the problem being addressed on a statewide level. The focus on treating women and children who are trafficked and prostituted as victims of their traffickers is also a very welcome change. Though our organization focuses on violence against women by their intimate partners, all forms of gender-based violence are intrinsically linked, and we cannot have freedom from one while others still exists. To learn more, visit the Atlanta Human Trafficking Project.

Halle Berry Talks About Childhood Domestic Violence

A few weeks ago, Halle Berry opened up to CNN regarding what it was like to grow up with a father who was abusive to her mother.

"I think I've spent my adult life dealing with the sense of low self-esteem that sort of implanted in me. Somehow I felt not worthy," she told CNN. "Before I'm 'Halle Berry,' I'm little Halle....a little girl growing in this environment that damaged me...I've spent my adult life trying to really heal from that."

Visit the CNN website to watch the video in full.

Harrisburg Man Kills Son, 13, Then Self

As reported by the Gazette Times:

Linn County sheriff’s detectives determined that Darwin D. Stout, 49, killed his son Jared Stout, 13, before taking his own life, Sheriff Tim Mueller announced Thursday afternoon.

According to the state medical examiner, a postmortem examination Thursday indicated both died of knife wounds.

LaMae Stout, 58, the wife and mother, found the bodies when she returned home from work at about 7:30 Wednesday night. She went to a neighbor, who called 911.

The deaths apparently occurred Wednesday morning. No one else was at home.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the Stout family.

Man, 2 Children Dead in DV Murder-Suicide

Media outlets around the state are slowly releasing details about a Southwest Georgia man suspected of killing his 15-year-old and 8-year-old stepchildren, then himself.

From Fox 31 in Southwest Georgia:

Colquitt County Sheriff's officials say it started as a domestic violence situation between Kejie McDougald and his wife Angela. But it ended with the death of the husband and their two children.

“She got away from him, escaped from the house ran to a neighbor. In [sic] the husband took the lives of two children and himself,” said Colquitt County Sheriff Al Whittington.

Investigators say the kids, both boys ages 15 and 8, were just getting ready for bed when the violence broke out.

It's also an especially tough case for the sheriff's department, because Angela McDougald is one of their own.

“She is a deputy sheriff with Colquitt County. She has been with us since I think '02, just a fine young lady,” said Whittington.

This crime affects a large part of Colquitt Count, because not only did Mrs. McDougald work for the sheriff's office, but she was assigned at the Colquitt county school system, where her husband also worked and both of their children attended classes.

People are always shocked when someone they know commits an act this violent, but we would remind everyone that batterers don't walk around with a neon sign on their chest that says "beware". They look like everyone else, and just because they are nice to their neighbors or good at their job does not mean that they aren't capable of violence within the home.

Another truth is that survivors of domestic violence don't wear signs on their chest identifying themselves as such. Many of us have a stereotype of a domestic violence victim in our head. She is usually covered in bruises, cowering in a corner, has no self esteem, and is in need of rescue. Occasionally WRC meets women like that, who have been so beaten down by years of abuse that they have lost their sense of self, but more often the women, just like the men, look like everyone else.

This is certainly a teaching moment for an entire county about what domestic violence can look like. We should also remember that this is not just a teaching moment, but the loss of three lives to a problem that our society largely ignores. Our thoughts and prayers are with the McDougald family.

Decatur Man Kills 5-year-old Son

On Monday, a Decatur man was charged with killing his 5-year-old son and attempting to kill the 4-year-old as well. The man and his estranged wife were in the process of a divorce. The mother's attorney speculates that this was the father's way of hurting the mother. He was seeking full custody.

Spruell [the mother's attorney] said Melanie DeToma left her husband in January and sought an uncontested divorce.

The two DeTomas had reached a temporary agreement through mediation, but a final settlement had not yet been reached or filed in court, Spruell said.

The visitation agreement was that the father would have his sons on alternate Fridays until the following Monday morning. This Monday, however, he did not bring the children to his soon-to-be ex-mother-in-law as was the agreement, Spruell said.

That prompted Melanie DeToma to call her lawyer, who called Gary DeToma's attorney.
Spruell and his client then called Decatur police, the DeKalb Sheriff’s Office and the Department of Family and Children Services, but the agencies said there was not enough to allow them to go into Gary DeToma’s apartment without permission.

“We tried to get the property owner and the property manager to let us in, and they said they wouldn’t unless the police let us in,” Spruell said.

“We did everything thing that we could do and not a single government entity wanted to help us out,” Spruell said.

Decatur police said no one responded when an officer went to the door earlier Monday.

"The residence was secure and the officers observed nothing suspicious," the police said in a statement.

Spruell and Melanie DeToma also called Gary DeToma’s employer, who said he had not come to work. State Sun Electric declined to comment.

Melanie DeToma knocked on Miller's door around 8 a.m. and asked her to call the property manager. Miller said the property manager came over immediately, but told police she couldn't let them in. Miller said she was surprised that one of the boys hadn't opened the door. They often opened it for no reason after learning how to, she said, and surely would have answered a knock. She said she was also surprised to see Gary DeToma's van outside the apartment. He usually left for work by 6:30 a.m.

Miller left for work. Later, one of Gary DeToma’s co-workers came to check on him. When Gary DeToma didn’t answer his knocks, the co-worker, an electrician, took an extension ladder off his truck and climbed up to look into a bedroom window, Spruell said. He saw Gary Jr.’s body on a bed, the attorney said.

The co-worker was able to persuade the younger boy to open the door.

“He went in and saw Mr. DeToma and the little boy was deceased,” Spruell said.

Moments later, Melanie DeToma made her second trip of the day to the her husband’s apartment.

When she drove up, she saw the co-worker standing on the sidewalk with Will, still in his pajamas.

A police report says an officer who was dispatched to the apartment just before 1 p.m. found the dead boy. The official cause of Gary Jr.'s death is pending an autopsy to be performed Tuesday, but the results will not be released until a toxicology report is completed in two to three weeks.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the DeToma family.

Double Murder and Suicide in Suwanee

Suwanee police said Wednesday that the fatal shootings of three people at an apartment on McGinnis Ferry Road were a double murder and suicide.

Officers responding to a shots fired call just before 8:30 p.m. Tuesday found two women and a man dead in a unit at the Amli at McGinnis Ferry complex, according to Suwanee police Capt. Clyde Byers.

Byers told the AJC that Suwanee police investigators, assisted by the Duluth police crime scene unit, had determined that Michael Kenneth Turner, 40 of Lawrenceville, forced his way into the apartment of his estranged girlfriend, 24-year-old Tiffany Hulsey, and her roommate, 36-year-old Deanna Griffin.

"We believe that he shot both of the females and then turned the gun on himself," Byers said.

Police suspect that the killer was upset at being asked to pay child support.

An investigation is in preliminary stages, but evidence suggests that Kenneth Michael Turner may have spouted threats to co-workers at Wal-Mart in Suwanee hours before the killings, said Suwanee police spokesman Capt. Clyde Byers.

Byers said Turner worked part-time, possibly in a janitorial-type capacity. A Wal-Mart representative said Thursday that company policy prohibited her from verifying employment over the phone.

“I understood he was disgruntled about child support payments (but) it sounds like it may have been multiple things,” Byers said. “My guys are trying to look into those things.”

Investigators believe Turner fatally shot his estranged girlfriend and mother of their 8-month-old child, Tiffany Hulsey, 24, after kicking in the door of her AMLI at McGinnis Ferry apartment Tuesday night.

Turner also killed a Dacula woman police believe was staying at the apartment, Deanna Griffin, 36, before turning the gun on himself, police said.

Hulsey’s 5-year-old daughter and Griffin’s 7-year-old daughter witnessed the slayings, police said. All three children are in the custody of relatives.

No mention is made in the article of domestic violence, though most men who are asked to pay child support don't go on a killing rampage. One of the most dangerous times in an abusive relationship is after that relationship has ended. Men who are used to holding all of the power and control in a relationship begin to feel very threatened when that power is taken away. Many women we know never pursue child support, even though many really need it, because they fear their former partner's reaction to that request. They know that he could view child support payments as a further loss of power and seek to restore some of that power through tactics to invoke fear, such as stalking, violence, or homicide. Unfortunately, many women rely on child support to provide for their families and have no other choice than to remain connected to a man of whom they are desperately afraid.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the Hulsey and Griffin families.

Commerce Man Kills Sons, Self

Two days ago, a Georgia man killed his young son and stepson before taking his own life.

Relatives of 36-year-old Keith Jermaine Gresham found the Commerce man dead Monday afternoon inside a car parked on a remote dirt road between Commerce and Jefferson, according to Chief Deputy David Cochran of the Jackson County Sheriff's Office.

The two boys, Keionte Gresham, 4, and Keion Gresham, 7, were found shot to death outside the vehicle.

Keith Gresham was Keion's natural father, according to Cochran.

Cochran told the AJC on Tuesday that Keith Gresham had been involved in an ongoing domestic dispute with the children's mother, who had custody of the boys.

She let the boys spend the weekend with Gresham, but he failed to return them.

On Monday morning, relatives got phone calls and text messages from Gresham, who threatened to harm himself, Cochran said. They went looking for Gresham and the boys, and found them dead on Old Woods Bridge Road.

OnlineAthens has more details:

Prosecutors were attempting to revoke his probation because he had been charged with aggravated stalking in Oglethorpe County and misdemeanor marijuana possession in Jackson County.

Gresham and the boys' mother, Catrina Doster, had been separated for at least a year.

A Jackson County judge granted Doster a 12-month restraining order against Gresham in 2008 and a second 12-month restraining order in October 2009 requiring him to stay 500 yards away from her and her children, according to documents filed in the Jackson County court clerk's office.

However, she allowed Gresham to visit with the children this weekend in advance of his probation revocation hearing, Cochran said.

But when he didn't return the children, Doster, who lives outside of Jackson County, filed an interference with custody complaint with the Commerce Police Department on Monday morning.

Some women want their children to continue a relationship with their father even after they have separated, while others fear harm or an expensive custody battle if the try to keep the kids away. Unfortunately, this case is indicative of a horrifying trend:

In the nine months between June 2009 and April 2010, 75 children have been killed by fathers involved in volatile custody battles with their former partners, according to the Center for Judicial Excellence, a court advocacy organization which has been tracking news articles of such deaths around the U.S. Based in San Rafael, California, the Center focuses on strengthening court integrity as well as improving public accountability of the judiciary.

Some recent examples from the dockets of Family Courts around the country:

» Teigan Peters Brown (3 years old), shot to death by his father during a court-ordered visit. (Arizona June 2009)
» Bekm Bacon (8 months), killed by father, who then killed himself during overnight visitation. (Idaho Feb 2010)
» Janiyah Nicole Hale (1 year), father is charged with her death during an overnight visitation. He is a registered sex offender. (Alabama July 2009)

Office judges do not give women a choice, and many don't take a history of domestic violence into consideration when awarding visitation or custody to violent man.

Experts say abusers use the court system to exercise control over their former partner’s lives, manipulating the players and risking the safety and well being of the children’s lives the courts are sworn to protect.

“Family courts are trained to look for cooperative behavior,” says Rob (Roberta) Valente, general counsel for the National Network to End Domestic Violence, which is based in Washington D.C. “When someone raises an abuse allegation, the court sees it as uncooperative behavior. The result, advocates say, is that the abuser is able to manipulate the court, while a child’s safety and well-being is placed at risk. Many judges are likely to view abuse complaints as a tactic to win custody battles. What the courts have failed to take into account but research has clearly shown time and time again, is that most of the cases that make it to trial in family court are high-risk abuse cases.

Compounding the problem is that judges, attorneys and custody evaluators have little or no training in detecting signs of abuse.

Just 20 per cent of the almost one million divorces and separations registered every year in the U.S. actually land in court. Most are settled in the pre-trial phase, according to Prof. Janet Johnston of San Jose State University, in research studies written for the journal, The Family Court Review.

But of the few who make it to a judge, over 75 percent of these cases are victims of some form of domestic or sexual abuse, according to a 1995 paper by Prof. Peter Jaffe of the University of Western Ontario, who studies children and violence in U.S. and Canadian court systems.

Today’s family courts have also been affected by the rise of the Fathers Rights movement. During the 1950s, family courts almost exclusively awarded custody to mothers. But complaints by fathers that their rights were ignored in custody battles led to a shift in the 1970s to awarding shared custody, on the grounds that it was in the best interest of the child to maintain a relationship with both parents.

Nevertheless, only a small percentage of high-conflict cases require judges to act as conciliators between parties locked in otherwise endless litigation. The majority involve mothers and children that are suffering from serious sexual or domestic abuse.

The National Father Resource Center disputes this, claiming that its member organizations report that 80 percent of mothers’ abuse allegations are false. Although Canadian research from the University of Toronto studying false allegations in U.S. and Canadian custody cases has found that between one and two percent of mothers make false allegations, the fathers’ rights argument has had a powerful impact. As shown by the Tagle case, courts don’t want to hear the mothers’ allegations.

“Historically, allegations of abuse and incest are [met] with a great deal of suspicion, and there is a tremendous resistance to hearing these types of allegations,” said Eileen King, director of Justice for Children, a national non-profit that works to protect children involved in contested custody cases.

Even OnlineAthens felt the need to sneak this comment into their article:

Watson described her cousin as a devoted father who saw his children as often as he could.

"Keith has always been a good dad," she said. "Nobody could separate him from his children. Even when he and Catrina split up, he still went to see his kids."

You know what makes a man a good dad? Not beating up mom! Even after the couple separate, the father's attitudes toward women and violence continue to shape the children's worldview. Unless he is willing to attend counseling or an intervention program to address his abusive past, judges should seriously consider whether allowing the father to parent is really in the children's best interests.

For more information, read the whole article from The Crime Report.

Victim's Child Kidnapped By Gunpoint

It's a parent's worst nightmare and one that the women we serve suffer all too regularly.

Richmond County Investigators are searching for a man whom they say kidnapped his 6-year-old son at gunpoint from the child's home Monday night.

Maurice Leon Holland, 27, of Pearl Avenue, is wanted on charges of kidnapping, terroristic threats and acts and gun charges, according to Richmond County Sgt. Blaise Dresser.

About 5 p.m. last night, witnesses said Holland forced his way into his child's mother's home at gunpoint, a sheriff's report said.

The mother, Latasha White, wasn't home at the time so Holland took the child and fled the home. Sgt. Dresser said they located the boy last night at an apartment in Olmstead Homes off Broad Street and he was returned to his mother. White had previously filed charges against Holland for terroistic threats and acts, Sgt. Dresser said.

"She claims to have been getting terrorized by this man since she broke up with him," he said.

Many batterers know that the quickest way to frighten their partners is to threaten their children. The fear that he will take her children is one of the top reasons women stay in violent relationships and preventing that from happening is often a woman's primary concern once she leaves. Men often use their children as a means to continue to have contact with former partners, and men who have a history of domestic violence are more likely to receive joint custody because they are significantly more likely to ask for it. We need to protect future generations of children from learning abusive behavior from abusive parents by taking domestic violence seriously when making custody decisions. Judges - don't order custody or unsupervised visitation for parents who have a history of abusing a spouse or partner. Moms - don't let anyone make you feel guilty for keeping your children away from a parent who will teach them that violence is acceptable.

Patrick Stewart Speaks on the Legacy of DV

As a child, Patrick Stewart regularly saw his father hit his mother. In the Guardian, he describes how the horrors of his childhood remained with him in his adult life. We recommend that you follow the link, so you can read his comments in their entirety.