We had a tragedy a few miles south of where I live, there was a divorce proceding and the husband was violent, and the wife got a protective order keeping the husband away but you know what happens with those orders any way he shot her when she came home and then shot himself. What I cannot understand is why when you know some one is mean and violent is why not arm yourself and get profecient with the weapon and at least have a fighting chance at a normal life because folks should not have to live in fear of another person.

Or why not remove yourself from the situation... ie: stay with a friend or family until its completed rather than staying in the house. I mean, you may lose out on some things by leaving, but its better to lose items then your life. People do odd things for odd reasons... no one will ever know, unless youre that person. I also think protective orders are almost useless, because no authority can babysit.

Its sad though and no one deserves it...

It is because some have bought into the fact that a piece of paper will protect you, and they have listened to the liberal press and gov't officials who preach that "Guns kill people" and that the police are there to protect you! That's why things like this happen and most folks don't want to be bothered with learning to defend themselves be it because their too busy or just lazy!
It's hi-time people learned that nobodys going to help them when they're in trouble! The police are overburdened enough as it is without worrying about a wrongful death suit by another disgruntled ex-spouse who only wanted to be left alone and not see anyone get hurt.
Some of us here have seen the evil man can do and learned from it! But unfortunatly most have not and those continue to believe that evil can be stopped by paper or words. Dale

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They had a lady from a womens shelter on the news saying the same thing, to get away from the problem for a few days and they had room but she never contacted them, it truly is a sad sad thing and mkes you wish you could do something to prevent this from happening. Jeff

Actually, I never cease to be amazed at how often protective orders work. Guy can get arrested a dozen times for domestic violence assault, serve a load of time in jail and/or prison for it, and one day somebody hands him a piece of paper telling him to stop and he does. People are weird.

We just had a similar event in south Louisiana this week. There was an order of protection (restraining order) but the man went to the work place of the lady, argued with her and then shot her dead in the middle of a restaurant. A CCW permitee pulled and shot the perp. The perp was hit but then shot the CCW permitee before walking to the parking lot and committed suicide.

http://www.katc.com/news/2-die-1-inj...na-restaurant/

People need to understand that a protective order is not a bullet proof vest or a body guard. It is a piece of paper and not an assurance the person will not commit harm.

The police cannot protect everyone. Self protection or family protection is up to the individual.

The piece of paper is to protect the "system" not the complainant.

An important detail generally lost in the political hubris of domestic violence policy.

1st: The protective order is worth the paper it's printed on

2nd: I can't understand it. I've told my wife a number of times; she'll know without any question that I've lost it and am seriously angry at her if I just turn and walk away without saying a word and don't come back for awhile until I'm cooled down. I just don't understand killing someone and then yourself. Just doesn't make sense to me. Stupid.

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"... shall not be infringed."

We had a horrible domestic murder situation in my small city a few years back. Violent soon to be ex-husband Broke the door down on the aparment his ex-wife, her new boyfriend, her daughter, and her boyfriend were staying in. He through gas all over and lite them on fire. Only bright spot was the ******* got gas on himself and burned to death. The daughters boyfriend was the only survivor and he got burned really bad.
Domestic violence is the leading cause of murder around here.

It is not the duty of any LEO to protect ANYBODY, so says the Supreme Court of the US.

Law enforcement means well, and will do what they can, but one's security and safety rests solely on their own shoulders. If someone is in an unsafe situation, they need to rectify that situation and get to a place where they are safe. The government can't and won't guarantee an individual's safety.

Plane, train and bus tickets are cheap insurance if someone is truly in fear for their life. Mr Smith, Mr Wesson, and Mr Colt will also help if one is inclined to ask for their help.

If they want to get out of the danger zone we will go to their home with them to get what they need to move out. We will then escort them out of the area. We don't have the manpower to watch them 24/7 when they are too stubborn to leave. Even if the perp is arrested, and the perp is not always the man, they have a right to bail and will get back out. In this state it takes a third conviction for domestic violence before it becomes a felony and sometimes even after that the perp is sending threatening messages from behind bars. Over the years I've seen several of these murder/ suicide situations and every one of them could have been prevented if someone had just gotten out of the danger zone. Most domestic situation murders are not followed by suicide but they attract a lot more attention when they are.

As someone whose case load consists primarily of family law cases for victims of domestic violence, these stories always ring home because I've seen most of these sorts of fact patterns play out and have names/faces of the parties and the kids to go along with 'em.

One thing to keep in mind, and I know that this won't sit well with the bleeding heart wing of my profession and most Domestic Violence shelters/advocates/etc., but the reason that folks who are victims of DV don't take the proper and affirmative steps necessary to address the problem and ensure their safety is that they themselves are damaged goods, damaged in ways which are complimentary to the damage that turned the abuser into an abuser. This is why they got together with the abuser in the first place; they don't see the problem the way we do, and as such don't see the solutions the way we do. Unless and until you address the underlying pathology that got the people together, you will not see a proper resolution being taken; you may, however, see the abused party turn on you after they get back with the abuser, yet again.

We had a divorce case recently where wife was violently and habitually abused over the course of many years. After months of contentious court hearings, mediation, and other stuff that made the case into a massive headache, the judge ended up talking the wife out of the divorce from the bench on the day it was set to be finalized; we can debate whether the judge pressured her into this or whether the victim-wife just waffled one final time at the last minute. Regardless, they stayed married, living separately in the same neighborhood. Husband started stalking/pestering wife again soon thereafter. Wife files a half-### petition for a protection order (on her own, not through my office) after allowing her last one to lapse (why?!); the petition gets denied. Earlier this month, husband barges into wife's residence, stabs and guts wife's new boyfriend, and runs off. He later kills himself in his car after being stopped by police. In this case a protection order wouldn't have done any good, since the guy was nuts, but the woman was nuts, too, for living with her boyfriend in the same neighborhood as her insane husband. The boyfriend is supposed to live.

Protection orders are very useful tools, especially as part of the mix in addressing custody and visitation, but they do not ensure anything in terms of safety. Sure, they may help control behavior sometimes, but this is only because the abuser wants to stop. The truly pathological abusers, the nuts, they won't stop until they're in a box, be it a concrete one with bars or one a couple meters deep in the soil.

Most victims who elect to rely on protection orders are nowhere near ready, in terms of their own psychological situation, to take the real, affirmative steps to ensure their own safety, because that will require owning up to, accepting, and making peace with the choices (and they were choices) that put them in the position they're in. And, honestly, a lot of them actually like the attention that comes from being a victim, getting services and sympathy from the Domestic Violence service agencies, and in having a ready-made excuse for every other failing in their lives.

The other wrinkle in this mix is that many victims, once they have D.V. service providers helping them out or once they have an attorney in the accompanying divorce or custody case, suddenly feel empowered and start pushing the abuser's buttons because they now feel protected by their advocate or attorney. For some this is a conscious choice, but for most, it is subconscious. The psychologists sometimes think this is a good thing - the victim becoming empowered and is pushing back - but these are the ones that worry me, as the attorney, because the victim is basically poking at a caged animal that often sees the victim and/or their attorney as a equally suitable targets for retaliation once they are no longer caged.

An order of protection is just an official document explaining why you shot the person who violated it.

1. Police have no legal duty to protect individuals.
2. Police have no legal liability when they fail to protect individuals.
3. Police have virtually no physical ability to protect individuals.

Barring an official police protection detail assigned specifically to you, if you're not willing and able to protect yourself, you're just not going to get protected at all. That goes for the best police department in America and the worst. They could pass a federal law REQUIRING the police to protect you as an individual, and it still wouldn't actually be POSSIBLE... at least not without them NOT protecting somebody else.

And regarding the victims, some of them are smart and get the heck out of dodge. WAY too many keep either coming back to the guy who beats the **** out of them, or let him come back into striking distance of them, even AFTER they get orders of protection. I had an upstairs neighbor back in the '90s whom I repeatedly called the cops on because I could hear him beating the **** out of his wife/girlfriend. Every time, she'd say he didn't hit her. The only thing that stopped him from beating her to death (temporarily, at least) was when I saw him climb out onto a ledge. I called the cops, who ordered him back in, then grabbed him when he refused. He made the mistake of kicking the cop who pulled him in. The last time I saw that imbecile, he was handcuffed in the back of a squad car, banging his head on the side glass, a la "COPS". They moved out after that, but I have NO doubt that she willingly continued on in her MOS as "punching bag". Some people you just can't help, because they just won't help themselves.

If you want to meet the next generation of abusers/abused look to the children of these folks. That's where the learning takes place. The boys learn to use physical violence to get their way, something that frequently shows up in schools as bullying. The girls learn more subtle ways of coping, such as verbal skills and how to act in certain situations. All to often, however, the skills these girls are learning are geared toward abusive men (their father and how their mother deals with his behavior) and they have little or no experience in dealing with someone who is "pro social". Hence they are attracted to the "bad boys" since that's all they know. It comes down to power and control and men try to obtain it by physical means. The problems get worse when the woman stands up to the negative behavior and the man feels it's necessary to escalate the violence to achieve his objective and regain "control" of the situation. When the man finds nothing is working, and he has lost total control of the situation, that's when it becomes most dangerous. This is why parents are the most important factor in a child's life. For better of worse we're the role models for them and what they learn from us is what they bring to their lives as adults. It's a complicated subject but one that's not going away in our lifetime.

Back a few years ago we had a high profile homicide, being this area is fairly small. A woman was leaving her husband who had turned increasingly erratic. She went to the police station to try to get an order or protection. Only three blocks from the police station she pulled into a gas station, she had her 12 year old daughter with her. The husband pulled into the gas station and blocked the wife's car in, got out with a .30-30 and shot his wife three times in the head. The husband later said that he was so enraged he never saw his daughter in the car, or even knew after the first shot she had gotten out and ran into the gas station. The husband later took off for the Canadian border but got stopped only a few miles from it. He is now doing 25 to life. The order of protection was useless, as all are. One of the most common things I see people going to jail for is criminal contempt, which is violating an order of protection. I would guess at least two or three people a week get brought in for that. Again, they are a useless piece of paper.

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Happens 3 or 4 times a week around here. Makes a column inch in the local fishwrap. Joe

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Wisdom chases me; I'm faster

SO has one of these "protective orders" against ex-husband that is in prison. It sits right below her Lady Smith at night in the cubby hole in the bed. And she isn't afraid to use the LS if need be!

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2000 rounds so far

Obviously not completely useless - you have seen people going to jail for violating them. Just not all that helpful to the potential victim, and a likely distraction from more important things like Greyhounds or Smith and Wessons.

As I see it they are only useful for one thing, to give the Police something to charge an abuser with when he is "stalking" his victim. This is only helpful in the cases where no actual violence is done to the victim and she is just being harassed, at least the offender can be charged with something in that case.
I agree with computeruser in that a lot of Women feel so beaten down that they somehow think they deserve what they are getting. I am a licensed Private Investigator and also provide security protection services. I have talked to dozens of Women over the years who were being victimized by their partners. The interesting thing is the patterns of abuse are remarkably similar. It's like the names change but the stories are all the same. These Women are almost always terrified, and I have on occasion moved in with them to provide armed bodyguard services (a situation Missus P&R Fan just LOVES). It almost breaks my heart to see them suffer so because some piece of scum has victimized them, and they are always relieved to have protection. Unfortunately not everyone can avail themselves of these services, and many don't have access to firearms, and even if they did they have no training in their use. I also suspect many could not pull the trigger on their abusers anyway, because they see themselves as a big part of the problem. I know to those of us reading this that sounds absurd, but you need to understand, that is what the abuser has made them believe, and they do it so well.
The protective order will not protect anyone. In a few cases it might help, but those are not the most dangerous ones. As someone who was raised to always be a gentleman and treat Women with respect this enrages me. I think I am in good company on that.
Jim

Do stop signs stop cars? A few years I recall I recall an editorial in the Wall Street Journal at the time of the debate over the Brady Bill. They cited the case of a woman in Virginia (?) who got a restraining order against an abusive boyfriend/husband. Since there was no Brady Bill in effect yet the same day she bought a firearm for personal protection-and used it a day or so later.

I believe it was Mark Moritz who proposed amending AZ law so that persons protected by an order of protection would have an affirmative defense against a homicide charge, if the order was violated, e.g., if the abuser violated the order's terms, such as "shall not come within 100 yards of the ("protectee")", the protectee could use deadly force with immunity from prosecution, or, said another way, that violating any aspect of the order would be prima facie evidence of murderous intent, and justify killing the offender.

Of course, not many victims would be willing or able to take advantage of this, but it strikes me as sound policy. I was once summoned to protective duty by a relative involved in a domestic violence situation. Once the boyfriend was served, his very next action was to violate the order by approaching one of her children, completely ignoring the order's prohibitions. This became a tactical nightmare, with clueless family members unable to comprehend even the rudiments of perimeter security and defensive strategies and tactics, a story for another thread...

I pretty much do death penalty cases and two of the last three I tried to verdict involved a guy killing his Signifigant other while a protective order was in force. I have two right now that are pending-guy kills wife/girlfriend with a protective order in place.
Computeruser hit the nail on the head with his post. I wish I had some answers.

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So, what do you think of the notion mentioned in my previous post...???

Really no problem-but in all honesty in Louisiana we already have a law that provides an affirmative defense in the case of a home invasion or self defense whether or not a restraining order is involved. I still agree with steveinvermont and computeruser-they have set forth two of the biggest issues with domestic violence.

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I am kind of confused here, I guess in other parts of the Counrty it is hard to get an order of protection. In NYC, they give them out like water and they are usually abused by the women. I have seen OOP's where husband and wife life together, but the OOP states "Shall not curse in the household". I have had women call 911 to have their husbands arrested for cursing. Or the infamous scenario where the ex comes for the weekend, as soon as he is out of money, she calls the Police because he is in the house, violating the OOP. In NYC the OOP is the most abused legal document.

It is here as well. You just do the very best you can

I got no answers-does anybody?????

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