Topeka Kansas: Successfully Votes Making "Domestic Violence Legal"

By Susan Murphy Milano

In Topeka, Kansas on October 11, 2011, members of the City Council voted and successfully repealed the city's ordinance banning domestic violence during National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Talk about a punch, a kick and slap for victims of intimate partner violence by city government’s financial misconduct as their excuse for not wanting to do their jobs. At the center of dysfunction, the absent District Attorney Chad Taylor, who is refusing to prosecute domestic violence crimes in the city.

During the two hour televised council meeting, the one sided discussion from 7 of the 10 elected members amounted to nothing more than political finger pointing. Leading the charge, and ultimately dictating the vote, was Interim City Manager Dan Stanley, brow beating those during the hearing into submission of his way or the highway. It was classic manipulation "101" presented in a live stream real time format.

According to National Advocate, organizer and expert Claudine Dombrowski, in attendance at the City Council meeting, “I witnessed the Council of elected officials support the decriminalization of domestic violence within the city limits of Topeka and berate speakers, who were survivors and victims. The elected council members temper tantrums during the meeting and finger pointing were disgusting.”

Approximately 24 years ago, after years of lobbying by victims, advocates and families of those slain by their partner, legislation was signed by Governors nation-wide making domestic violence a crime. The pen used to sign the bill, was not filled with ink, but the blood of all those who lives were lost at the hands of those professing to love them.

This "stunt" today will cost Topeka more than the mere 10% budget shortfall cited by city officials as the reason not to prosecute. Expect an increase in intimate partner related missing persons cases (providing they will still be allowed to make a report) and count on more funerals for those victims whom the police did not respond.

This certainly gives new meaning to creating prevention and awareness during National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, doesn't it?

· “16,800 homicides (that are reported) attributed to intimate partner homicide per year, 2.2 million medically treated injuries costing $37 BILLION per year.

· The cost of intimate partner violence exceeds $5.8 billion dollars each year; $4.1 billion of which is for medical and mental health services.”

· Almost one-third of female homicide victims that are reported in police records are killed by an intimate partner.

· In 70-80% of intimate partner homicides, no matter which partner was killed, the man physically abused the woman before the murder.

· Less than one-fifth of victims reporting an injury from intimate partner violence sought medical treatment following the injury.

· Intimate partner violence results in more than 18.5 million mental health care visits each year.

NCDAV reporting sourced from: The Cost of Violence in the United States. 2007. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Centers for Injury Prevention and Control. Atlanta, GA
NCDAV reporting sourced from: The Cost of Violence in the United States. 2007. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Centers for Injury Prevention and Control. Atlanta, GA
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports “Crime in the United States, 2000,” (2001)
NCDAV report sourced from: Campbell, et al. (2003). “Assessing Risk Factors for Intimate Partner Homicide.” Intimate Partner Homicide, NIJ Journal, 250, 14-19. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Intimate Partner Violence in the United States,” December 2006
Costs of Intimate Partner Violence against Women in the United States. 2003.

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Susan Murphy Milano is a staff member of the Institute for Relational Harm Reduction and Public Pathology Education. She is a specialist with intimate partner violence prevention strategies and high risk cases and available for personal consultations through the Institute. She is also part of the team at Management Resources Limited of New York.

Susan is the author of "Time's Up: A Guide on How to Leave and Survive Abusive and Stalking Relationships,"Moving out, Moving on, and Defending Out Lives. Susan is the host of The Susan Murphy Milano Show, "Time's Up!" . She is a regular contributor to the nationally syndicated "The Roth Show" with Dr Laurie Roth and a co-host on Crime Wire.

"My Cry For Help"

By Susan Murphy-Milano

I am posting this in hopes you will take a moment to help me.

I can jump up and down all day long and never drive the point across enough that violence in the home is the slaughter of innocent victims and their children dying at the hands of men who believe they hold the ultimate power to play God, killing and erasing human lives.

I am embarrassed to this day, although more than 20 years have passed to say how I became an expert in the issue of abuse, stalking and intimate partner homicide and officer related domestic violence. I am ashamed to have grown up in a home where the man who gave me life, a law enforcement officer, my father, regularly terrorized and beat my mother.

As a small child the only aide I could offer my mom was to pull the chair from the kitchen table up to the telephone so I could call someone for help while my father was beating my mother bloody. The moment I found my mom’s body lying in her own pool of blood dead of a single gunshot wound to the head I lost my entire world.

After my parents died I would create a world like no other, a world I knew all too well. A world under my watch a woman and her child would no longer be terrorized, beaten or living in constant fear. A world where prosecutors and law enforcement did their jobs when I took a victim's case of stalking or domestic violence. A world where when a woman was murdered I stood with the family demanding answers and justice. A world where thousands of victim’s calls for help regardless of the hour were answered and directed to services 24/7 and are thriving because of it today. A world created because I refused to allow another woman like my mother to die on my watch.

Fast forward to my life today, twenty years later working towards the same goals with a mad scientist like fever to come up with the cure. A cure created to protect victims of domestic violence and stalking alive away from dangerous controlling and potentially lethal abusers. A cure, that if I cannot prevent a tragedy because I am unable to be there personally directing the victim to safety, at least when they are found murdered, or they are reporte d missing by the loving husband or concerned boyfriend, justice will prevail even from the grave.

Yes, the cure is here and now available.
Spread the word about the prescription. I need your help to accomplish this important milestone. Without you the victims will continue filling the cemetaries.

I could ask you to do a shout-out to Oprah, Gayle King, Jane Velez- Mitchell, Anderson Cooper, Bill O’Reilly, Lis Wheil or Nancy Grace that may be effective if your email can get past the spam filter, providing its read, and a live person responds, but that is not as powerful as your voice.

Each time you read a story on the Internet of another stalking or domestic violence related death post a comment with the link to the “Time’s Up” book and Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit and Video which has step-by-step instructions in Chapter 4 for a victim to create (example of the video is below). Let others know the prescription is now available for world-wide use to every victim of stalking and domestic violence. Send an email each time to a reporter after you see a story on domestic violence and tell them about the prescription. Write the producers of news and crime shows so they mention it each time they discuss a tragic case where another woman has been murdered and the person of interest has yet to be arrested. Ask bloggers, Internet sites the drudge report, huffington post, smoking gun, mom logic or reporters, radio show personalities to consider writing a review on the information and strategies in the book. Also, if you would, leave a comment on Amazon.com.

Time’s Up' is more than a manual, a handbook, it’s more than just another book, it’s a ‘Lifesaver,’ a surefire roadmap chocked full of ways to document evidence and protect yourself; in protecting yourself, you are also protecting your children from a life with an abuser. With your help we will eventually see a copy of ‘Time’s Up’ in every library, every police department, every school, every church and every shelter where those who need help can utilize it and protect themselves from an abuser.

"Times Up" needs national exposure. It wasn't written to impress the professionals. It was written to save lives.” Peter Hyatt, Investigator, State of Maine Statement Analysis Labratory for Scientific Interrogation.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Since this was written in 2010 there is a new website available where victims and advocates alike can get information about the Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit: Document The Abuse.Com





Been there, done that…” Susan Murphy- Milano has turned a tired phrase into demonstrable realism through the gift of her newly published book, "TIME'S UP: A GUIDE ON HOW TO LEAVE AND SURVIVE ABUSIVE AND STALKING RELATIONSHIPS