Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence

February 25, 2016February 25, 2016

Domestic violence homicides in Rhode Island are preventable

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During the past ten years, from 2006 to 2015, 54 people lost their lives to domestic violence homicides in Rhode Island over the course of 48 incidents, says a new report from the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence (RICADV). Domestic Violence Homicides in Rhode Island, 2006-2015 is a first-of-its-kind report. The report contains key findings, homicide incident descriptions, and recommendations for preventing future domestic violence homicides in Rhode Island.

By analyzing the collective data, the report delivers some key findings:

Domestic violence homicide is a violence against women issue: Of the 45 victims killed in intimate partner homicide incidents, 34 (76 percent) were women.
Guns and domestic violence continue to be a deadly combination: Firearms made already violent situations more deadly. In every incident where a bystander was killed, a gun was used.
Many of the intimate partner homicide incidents shared common elements that are known to indicate a heightened risk of homicide: In 14 of the 41 cases, there were indications that the perpetrator had been stalking the victim, 20 of the 41 perpetrators had been arrested for domestic violence in the past, and in 22 of the 41 cases there was evidence that the victim had already left or was planning to leave when the homicide occurred.

The report offers five recommendations:

Rhode Island must continue to invest in coordinated community response to domestic violence and foster collaboration between law enforcement, courts and victim advocates.
Rhode island must implement dangerousness assessment and screen all domestic violence criminal cases for lethality risk factors.
Rhode Island must pass legislation to prohibit convicted domestic violence perpetrators and perpetrators subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing guns.
Rhode Island must pass legislation to strengthen the state’s current laws against stalking and consistently enforce protective orders.
Rhode Island must take steps to stop domestic violence before it happens in the first place and establish a fund that will support evidence-substantiated public health approaches to the primary prevention of domestic violence.

At the press conference to announce the report there were two posters bearing the names of all those murdered in Rhode Island in domestic violence incidents. Two women told heartbreaking stories about losing a family member to domestic violence. In the first, Jami Ouellette talks about her sister Stacy’s death at the hands of her abusive husband. The story is graphic and chilling.

Next, Ann Burke tells of her daughter’s death from intimate partner homicide. A health teacher, Burke has been instrumental in getting the state to teach teens about intimate partner violence, but she has been doing so without any funding since the program began. She co-founded the Lindsay Ann Burke Memorial Fund in he daughter’s memory.

Deborah DeBare, executive director of the RICADV walks us through the report.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Kilmartin also spoke. He has been a strong advocate for the prevention of domestic violence.

June 10, 2015June 10, 2015

Children lobby GA leaders on domestic violence prevention

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Speaker Nicholas Mattiello and Senate President Teresa Paiva-Weed were met by unusual lobbyists in the hallways of the State House before going into session on Tuesday. Five children, Shyenne, 14, Seneca, 11, Shawnee, 9 Saponi, 8 and Dominique, 10, all victims of or witnesses to domestic violence, asked the General Assembly leaders to pass legislation that would create the Domestic Violence Prevention Fund, helping to “put an end to domestic violence before it starts.”

Paiva-Weed took extra time to greet the children, and told of her time as an advocate for domestic violence victims, expressing that she understood the traumas associated. She thanked the children for reminding her about this important concern. Mattiello spoke to the children in a crowded hallway, and I was not privy to the specifics of the conversation.

According to the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence, which organized the event, 500 children have been present at domestic violence arrests since bills H5651 and S650 were heard by committees in March. 500 children that might have been helped had this legislation passed.

“Childhood trauma,” reads a RICADV press release, “is not something a person grows out of- such adverse experiences strongly relate to a person’s development and to the prevalence of health and social problems throughout one’s lifespan, including chronic diseases, substance abuse, dropping out of school, employment challenges and even early death.”

1 in 3 Rhode Islanders will experience domestic violence within their lifetimes. Between 8 and 10 thousand children receive domestic violence services in Rhode Island each year. “In 2013, children were present for 40 percent of domestic violence arrests, and children accounted for 50 percent of the clients who stayed in domestic violence shelters that year.”

The status of children struck by hot cooking oil during a domestic violence incident in Providence last week is unknown, but it is the kind of assault that a smart domestic violence prevention program may have prevented.

About 100 domestic violence advocates and volunteers, many first time visitors to the State House, cornered legislators and pinned small orange paper dolls to their lapels if the legislator expressed support for the bill. “It’s a little like ‘pin the tail on the donkey’” said Deborah DeBare, Executive Director of RICADV. RICADV partnered with SOAR (Sisters Overcoming Abusive Relationships) for this action.

More seriously, DeBare added, “We want our legislators to know that we care about our children, that we know they they care about our children, and that we want the Domestic Violence Prevention Fund established. Simple as that.”

Please consider calling your state rep and senator, and telling them that you want H5651 and S650 passed before more children fall victim to domestic violence.

April 22, 2015

How to lobby for domestic abusers’ gun rights

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When testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on bills that would bring state law in line with federal law and close the loophole allowing misdemeanor domestic abusers to keep their guns, Frank Saccoccio, representing the Rhode Island 2nd Amendment Coalition, insisted that he was in no way defending domestic abusers. It’s surely not his intent to defend domestic abusers, but that is exactly what Saccoccio is doing.

Time and again Saccoccio made statements that were refuted by Rachel Orsinger, representing the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Julia Wyman, representing the Rhode Island Coalition Against Gun Violence (RICAGV).

Saccoccio claims that the bill before the committee is the same as the bill presented last year. The bill did not pass and Saccoccio implied that though his organization was willing to help make some changes to the bill’s language that would allow the bill to pass, no one asked for the 2nd Amendment Coalition’s opinion. “We haven’t seen this bill until it was brought forward now,” he said.

This seems contrary to the statement by Rachel Orsinger, who thanked the Committee Chairman Cale Keable, the 2nd Amendment Coalition, the RICAGV, various law enforcement people, the Attorney General and the Public Defender’s office who “sat in very hot, very long meetings last year to come up with the language” in the bill, “That everyone could agree to, at least last year.”

Julia Wyman also remembered the “roundtable discussion last year, and all the major stakeholders were involved… including… two members of the 2nd Amendment group…” Wyman found it “rather incredulous” that the 2nd Amendment Coalition cannot support a bill they helped to craft.

Perhaps it’s Saccoccio’s strategy to obfuscate the issue. Time and again he prefaced his statements with some variation of, “Those of you who are lawyers will understand,” as if those in the room who are not lawyers will never be able to get their heads around the complex legal definitions of misdemeanors and petty misdemeanors. Fortunately, Rachel Orsinger was able to clear up the confusion Saccoccio sowed.

“I know there’s been some confusion around petty misdemeanors and misdemeanors,” said Orsinger, “those are two separate legal categories, just like book worms and worms are not the same thing, just because they have one of the same words in there.”

Lawyers in the room who work in family court, said Saccoccio, know that family court judges are “very very liberal” and likely to “err on the side of caution” when issuing protective orders. But, that’s the way the system is designed, pointed out Orsinger, once again cutting through the fog of Saccoccio’s words. It’s only after a judge makes a final decision that a permanent firearm restriction is put in place.

“Even if there’s no nexus to a firearm,” an indignant Saccoccio said, even if “there’s no allegation that a firearm was ever used,” a domestic abuser might lose his guns under this law.

“If someone is routinely showing that they have power and control over ending your life,” countered Orsinger, “knowing that they have a gun is an inherent threat.”

This legislation binds judges hands, offerred Saccocio. The word used to be “may” as in “a judge ‘may’ remove a domestic abuser’s guns.” That word has become “shall.” In Saccoccio’s opinion, judges should have discretion. Of course, other states, even states as gun friendly as Louisiana, use the word “shall” in similar legislation, said Orsinger.

Ultimately Saccoccio got to the end of his testimony by telling the assembled Representatives the same story he told the Senate weeks earlier. Saccoccio told of a “seminal case” in which a man with a protective order against him ran into his wife three times by coincidence, and was charged with violating the order. In Saccoccio’s telling of the case, the man was coincidentally holding the door for his wife when they ran into each other at the post office, and another time the man innocuously waved to his wife as he passed her while driving.

According to Orsinger, such stories tend to minimize what victims of domestic violence go through. “For those of us who have had healthy relationships in our lives,” she said, “it seems really reasonable that even in the most animosity filled divorce… you can bring a coffee to court just to be nice. But to the person who always got a Starbucks Latte the morning after they were brutally beaten, a Starbucks Latte means something different. It can be an inherently violent act to violate a restraining order… What it says to that victim is that no court can hold me back, no police can hold me back… I can get to you whenever.”

Saccoccio’s performance seemed doubly unnecessary when we remember that the bill under discussion simply brings state and federal law into alignment. It doesn’t do anything but close a loophole. “Already, under federal law,” said Julia Wyman, “if you commit a domestic violence misdemeanor, you are barred from owning a firearm for life.”

“By the time someone gets a conviction” for domestic violence, added Rachel Orsinger, “they’ve either… committed a felony assault that’s now been pled down to a simple assault… or this is their seventh or eighth time being arrested.”

“But don’t get me wrong,” said Frank Saccoccio, “we are not supporting or in any way… advocating for domestic violence. It should not be condoned or supported in any way.”

Frank Saccoccio and the 2nd Amendment Coalition say they agree with Wyman on the need, “to take firearms out of the hands of abusive people,” but until he supports this common sense legislation, his bewildering word clouds are “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”