Relentless Stalkers: Abusers repeatedly violate restraining orders and get away with it (Columbus, Ohio)

This is Part II of a series in the Columbus [Ohio] Dispatch. It's called DOMESTIC SILENCE: THE TRUTH ABOUT ABUSE IN OHIO.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/11/16/Protection.ART_ART_11-16-09_A1_4LFLAAH.html?sid=101

DISPATCH INVESTIGATION
Relentless stalkers
Some abusers repeatedly violate restraining orders, and the legal system often lets them get away with it
Monday, November 16, 2009 3:00 AM
By Jill Riepenhoff, Mike Wagner and Stephanie Czekalinski

Kristi didn't realize what had stirred her from a sound sleep, but she awakened to a creepy feeling.

She opened her eyes and he was there -- right there in her second-story bedroom, despite a court order telling him to stay away. He watched her expression transform in a split second from peaceful slumber to terror.

The man's entry into Kristi's Columbus home was as silent as falling snow.

He didn't hit her. He stared.

Kristi remained calm to avoid waking the children, then he vanished like a puff of smoke.

After he left, Kristi discovered that he had unplugged the telephone, cutting off her lifeline. She always finds it unplugged after his intrusions.

Kristi has lost count of the times she has awakened to see him hovering inches from her face -- far more than his criminal record indicates.

"Now he preys on the emotional part. I think it's worse than the physical abuse," said Kristi, 37, who didn't want her full name publicized to shield her children from ridicule and avoid repercussions from her estranged husband and his family. He declined to comment.

Kristi is one of more than 18,000 victims of domestic violence who have asked Franklin County judges since 2000 to order abusers to stay away.

In the past nine years, the number of domestic-violence victims seeking protection orders in Ohio has nearly doubled. In Franklin County, it has more than doubled.

Advocates for victims of domestic violence trumpet the security offered by civil-protection orders, also called CPOs, because offenders can be arrested immediately if they violate the terms.

But Kristi's CPOs have not given her peace.

For 11 years, she suffered. He punched her, beat her with an ax handle, twisted her wrist until it snapped and broke her nose five times.

"There were times when we would just be talking, not arguing. Then out of the blue he would say, 'You fat bitch. I hate you,' " she recalled. Then, bam! His fist slammed into her nose. "When you're younger, you're thinking he's going to change. I'm going to make him change."

She freed herself by enrolling in a domestic-violence class at the urging of Franklin County Children Services. She obtained the first protection order five years ago. When it expired in March, she got a second.

But the protection orders don't keep him away. He has taken her car at times so that she can't go to work. He has sneaked into her bedroom. He has stood in her backyard and stared. He has slept in her garage. One time, he threatened, "I will crush your skull into the ground."

This past spring, she and the kids came home from a concert to find him sitting in the living room.

Police have charged the man with violating the order nine times, but judges convicted him in only four cases. He spent a total of 17 days in jail, all on misdemeanors.

Most times, Kristi doesn't call the police, because it's too much trouble and nothing seems to stop him.

"I've just accepted that he could be 80 years old and walking with a cane, and he will show up," she said.

Kristi now sleeps with a knife nearby.

Gaps in protection

When a victim is ready to leave an abusive relationship, a protection order can help foster a safe transition. The petition requesting an order is free and can be completed without an attorney. A judge must approve the petition, but only after testimony from the victim and the accused.

Offenders can be arrested immediately if they go to a victim's home or workplace, if they harm family pets, if they call on the telephone, or if they damage personal property. Orders last five years.

"CPOs are there for the protection of the victims, their safety, and it's good that more of them are realizing that," said Franklin County Municipal Judge Carrie Glaeden. "Some victims don't want their (partner) to go to jail for various reasons, but many of them just want them to stay away."

Several judges who handle the onslaught of domestic-violence cases said the increase in CPOs is proof that education and awareness campaigns about domestic violence are working.

"CPOs put a lot of these abusers on the radar in the system," said Franklin County Municipal Judge Amy Salerno. "And a key is whether these people violate the CPOs. If they do, it gives us the ability to increase the penalty against them when they end up back in our courtrooms."

But the county's handling of the worst offenders doesn't reflect those intentions.

Violations by repeat offenders often are treated as misdemeanors, according to a Dispatch investigation of Franklin County's most-arrested batterers, including Kristi's estranged husband. In about 80 percent of cases involving those with at least five domestic-violence-related arrests since 2000, protection-order violations were treated as misdemeanors.

One man, Michael Fugitt, of the Far West Side, has been convicted of violating protection orders seven times, one of them a felony. Even after he spent a year in prison for the felony, he violated the orders two more times, both handled as misdemeanors.

And among Dee Dee Wiliams' nine convictions since 2002, only two were felonies and he spent no time in prison. In fact, for all those convictions, the South Side man has been sentenced to a total of 107 days in jail, an average of less than 12 days per conviction.

Such examples stun and sadden Nancy Neylon, executive director of the Ohio Domestic Violence Network. "If you've got a guy who's violated a CPO a bazillion times, hold him in freakin' jail," she said.

Ohio law does not mandate that repeat offenses result in felonies, but prosecutors have that option. It is left to their discretion.

And there are other flaws with protection orders:

• They can't stop a bullet, a fist or a knife. A Catholic school teacher in Portsmouth was shot by her estranged husband in front of her fifth-grade class last year despite a protection order against him. She survived.

• Teenagers younger than 18 who have been abused by a boyfriend or girlfriend can't get them. Fetuses aren't covered, either. A Columbus mother tried to get a protection order for her unborn child last year. A Franklin County judge ruled that the fetus, whose gestational age was 8 months at the time, was not a person. The baby was born in August, then kidnapped by her abusive father the next month.

• They aren't enforceable until they have been delivered to the abuser by a law-enforcement officer. Franklin County Sheriff Jim Karnes said two deputies who serve protection orders for his office are "bombarded" by the workload and sometimes can't find the batterers.

• No local or state government agency tracks violations, the number of petitions that are dismissed or even the number of orders that are in effect. Knowing those details could help measure effectiveness. The Ohio Supreme Court tracks the number of requests for protection orders but not what happens after that point.

• More than 30 states require police to make an arrest when a civil-protection order is violated. Ohio law only "prefers" that offenders be arrested, giving officers discretion in making an arrest.

• And the process of securing a civil-protection order falls squarely on victims. If a victim fails to show up for a hearing, the protection ends.

Advocates say that's why domestic-relation courts need to be staffed with licensed social workers who can counsel victims when they first apply for protection. At a minimum, social workers could arm victims with phone numbers and help them craft an escape plan if they decide to withdraw the petition.

"But there are very few licensed social workers who even understand domestic violence," said Karen S. Days, president of the Columbus Coalition Against Family Violence. "The cycle is so critical to understand."

One Columbus mother paid dearly for her decision to withdraw her request for not just one but four protection orders.

One chance too many

Tiffany E. Patrick met the dashing Sean O. Brooks in the summer of 2002.

The following April, he slapped her, threw her to the floor while she was holding their newborn daughter and dragged Patrick. Police arrested Brooks, and advocates helped her request a civil-protection order.

But Patrick refused to push the criminal case forward. She dropped her request for protection. He convinced her that he would change.

It was an empty promise.

The following July, she sought a second protection order after he tried to strangle her. Again, she dropped it.

She filed a third petition in March 2005 after he grabbed her face, pinned her down and screamed that he would "kill you and your mother!" But days later, she canceled that petition.

In July 2006, after another violent go-round, she filed again and withdrew it again. She told the judge that she wanted to work things out so that she, Brooks and the kids could be a real family.

But that was a pipe dream. The beatings continued until she found him in bed with another woman in June 2007.

Patrick had had enough. She decided to go it alone, without a CPO.

She found a new home and started a life without him. Patrick, a nurse technician at a specialty hospital, was on the verge of a promotion.

But it all ended on Father's Day two years ago.

Patrick, 31, returned home from a beach outing to find Brooks, 34, inside her house. He came at her with a gun and shot her four times.

One bullet whizzed over their 4-year-old daughter's head and pierced her mom's torso.

As his daughter watched, Brooks turned the gun on himself.

Patrick's mother, Stephanie A. West, didn't know how extensive the abuse was until the night before her daughter died. They had spent the day shopping for appliances for her new house.

Patrick told her about the protection orders. West was just relieved that her daughter finally had pulled away from the relationship.

She said she never liked Brooks, never liked the way he kept Patrick from her, and never liked the way she heard him screaming in the background when she spoke on the phone to her daughter.

But West bit her tongue.

"I wouldn't say anything, because I didn't want to push her farther away," West said. "I knew he was going to hurt her. I didn't think he'd kill my baby like that because she didn't want to be with him."

Then she saw the image of her daughter's house flash on the 11 o'clock news.

West now wonders whether a judge should have done more when Patrick dropped the protection petitions.

"Everybody deserves a chance," West said, "But how many do they get?"

In Patrick's case, it was one too many.