News From The "Duh" File

From today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Protection orders not enough to save them

(Note that this is the headline from the dead tree edition; the online edition says "Protection orders not enough to save 3 women")

By HECTOR CASTRO AND VANESSA HO, P-I REPORTERS
(In my experience, when I see either of these two's byline on a story, it's probably going to piss me off. They always seem to do the stories in which the poor misunderstood teenager was working to turn his life around, right after this last home invasion robbery in which the evil middle-aged person shot him in self defense...)

Debbie Lynn Bonilla was trying to get her husband into batterer's treatment. Baerbel Roznowski had just gotten an anti-harassment order against her boyfriend.

Tracey Lee Creamer repeatedly called police after her husband bruised and bloodied her, hoping that someone would stop him.

Each woman had sought help from police or courts. But within a span of two weeks, each was slain in King County, allegedly by their partners.

Bonilla was stabbed in front of her children. Roznowski was killed three hours after her boyfriend received the protection order. Creamer was found strangled and beaten, her body decomposing inside her husband's van.

Their recent deaths underscore the dangers and misery of domestic violence, still pervasive despite decades of advocacy work, tougher laws and specialized legal units designed to root out the problem.

In addition to highlighting the colossal hurdles of leaving an abuser -- lack of financial independence and threats to the children, to name a couple -- the cases also show the failure of some courts in holding batterers accountable.

National studies have found that 25 percent of women have been abused in a relationship and that 40 percent to 50 percent of female homicide victims were killed by an intimate partner. One glimmer of good news: The number of such deaths -- in Washington and across the country -- has declined over the past 30 years.

"The bottom line is that domestic violence happens stunningly too much," said Merril Cousin, executive director of the King County Coalition Against Domestic Violence. "Only a fraction of the cases ends up with someone dying, but it's far too many."

The rest of the article is a biography--or obituary--of the three dead women. I've talked about at least one of them here before, so I won't belabor the obvious, except to repeat Sam Colt's (possibly apocryphal) slogan:

Be not afraid of any man
No matter what his size
When danger threatens call on me
And I will equalize.

At least no one in this article repeated the dreaded "She was doing everything she was supposed to."

OTOH, there are plenty of pathetic phrases.

Like other friends of domestic-violence victims, Miklosh said he didn't quite know how to help: He and his girlfriend regularly offered Tracey Creamer a place to stay. He once wrestled Jeff away from Tracey during an assault. And he urged each of them to simply end the relationship.

And

Carlos Bonilla wasn't supposed to see his children until he completed a batterer's intervention program, a parenting class and substance-abuse treatment. But there is no record of him completing the programs.

That's a weak link in the system, Starr said.

"Most of the time, there are not consistent hearings to show they are complying," she said. "It puts the burden on the victims of taking them to court. It puts victims in danger because she's holding him accountable."

Freeland believes the argument that led to her sister's death was over Carlos Bonilla's failure to follow court orders.

"That's partly why it's so tragic. I don't think she was afraid of Carlos. I think she was resigned."

There are others.