Tag: domestic violence

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Opinion Viewpoint

Domestic Violence: From Awareness to Action

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. But awareness needs to be about more than purple ribbons and catchy phrases. The truth is that people are walking around this community as functioning abuse victims. People are dying to get out of their abusive situations but truly don’t know how, are not aware of options, or fear they will be judged and not have any support. The end result? Many are dying an emotional death, and sometimes, ultimately, a physical one as well.

Awareness has to be accompanied by action. There are a number of ways in which to move from conversation to change on this issue. Here are a couple of points that continue to stand out as concerns when I speak with individuals and agencies here and around the country.

First, society has to have a clearer understanding of what domestic violence is. According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women, domestic violence is a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner.

The key is to understand that abuse is more than physical. It can be spiritual, financial, emotional, sexual, and psychological. There are far too many of us who still think that domestic abuse is only physical. When I give presentations regarding abuse, I am always sure to inform them that the physical abuse is usually secondary. It is extremely rare that you will have someone tell you that an abuser just walked up and hit them out of the blue. Upon further discussion about the days, weeks, months, or even years before the actual physical assault, there was something said or done by the abuser that led to his or her feeling comfortable enough to hit the victim. Oftentimes, it’s a comment or an action that is taken lightly and not viewed as an actual warning sign that physical harm is forthcoming.

Second, and equally important, is the message that we’re sending the victims themselves. I am so tired of people telling victims to just leave. We are doing them a disservice when we do that without offering them some sort of plan of when to do it or how to do it safely. I have yet to meet a victim who understood he or she was being victimized and didn’t know it was necessary to leave the abusive situation.

Contrary to popular belief, it is really just not that simple. There are a lot of financial, emotional, physical, and demographic challenges associated with leaving. Not to mention that the victim is in additional danger when they do leave, because that’s the time when abusers become the most agitated. They are losing their power and control over the victim.

What services are available for victims? Are we adequately listening to their voices and addressing their needs for holistic success?

I remember sitting at a stoplight one day, and a gentleman pulled up next to me. He told me that my tire looked very low and kept going. My intent was to go to the nearest gas station, because I could tell that something was wrong. Well, as fate would have it, I drove up another block or so, and the tire actually blew. About 30 minutes later, a man stopped and asked if I needed help. He not only put the temporary tire on my car, but he also followed me to a tire shop and bought me a new one.

The point is, far too often, we see problems that we don’t take seriously. We don’t make it our business to investigate the situation a little deeper. Or we will point out the problem with good intentions but not follow up to ensure that it has been adequately resolved. We assume someone else will step in.

I use my voice through a number of physical and social outlets on a regular basis to bring awareness all year long. But with awareness comes accountability and action, which I embrace by talking with victims, referring them to organizations that can assist them, and providing them with tangible resources, such as clothing and toiletries.

The media provide us with enough information that we should all be aware that domestic violence exists. Let us use that information as an opportunity to become even more educated about it, learn about the many types of abuse, and, finally, how we can put what we know into action, so that victims can transition into survivors who see that hope, help, and holistic healing is possible.

Joyce Kyles is a nationally credentialed advocate, speaker, trainer, author, and survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault.

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News The Fly-By

New Initiative Aims to Curb Domestic Violence

Kamekio Lewis still remembers the night her former boyfriend chased after her with a knife as she ran barefoot through a neighborhood. When she slipped and fell, she was captured, dragged through the nearby woods by her hair, and brutally beaten.

“He took me to an abandoned house,” Lewis recalled. “My mom ended up finding me some kind of way the next day. Charges were filed: kidnapping [and] assault. I ended up having to be hospitalized. I had a concussion.”

Lewis’ abusive relationship lasted more than two years before she escaped by entering the army. She hasn’t looked back since.

A new comprehensive response to domestic violence, called the Blueprint for Safety, has been launched to aid people in situations like Lewis’. The initiative is intended to assist victims from the time they experience domestic violence and contact a 911 operator through law enforcement’s response and the offender’s prosecution.

Lewis’ story of domestic abuse is all too common. There were 247,069 reports of domestic violence offenses made to the Tennessee Incident Based Reporting System (TIBRS) program from 2011 to 2013. More than 70 percent of victims were women. Across the nation, one in four women is projected to report domestic abuse at some point in their lives. Domestic violence typically involves physical, emotional, verbal, economic, and/or sexual abuse by one person against their spouse or partner.

Last Thursday, Shelby County’s Blueprint for Safety initiative was introduced during a news conference at the Urban Child Institute. Members of city and county government, local law enforcement, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District’s office, Shelby County District Attorney General’s office, General Sessions Division 10, and the Family Safety Center will collectively implement the program.

The initiative seeks to enhance services provided by 911 dispatchers, law enforcement, and victim/witness services to domestic violence victims. It will also strengthen the rehabilitative efforts provided to offenders by the county’s domestic violence court.

The Blueprint for Safety is being funded by a $300,000 federal grant administered through the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office on Violence Against Women (OVM).

“The Blueprint for Safety is an approach to domestic violence cases that coordinates agency responses around the shared goals of safety and justice,” said Bea Hanson, principal deputy director of OVM. “It closes the gaps between what victims of violent crime need from the criminal justice system and the way in which the system is currently responding. The whole point of the Blueprint is to make sure that we’re keeping victims safe and holding offenders accountable.”

Memphis is the fourth city to adopt the DOJ’s Blueprint for Safety model. The initiative is already being implemented in St. Paul and Duluth, Minnesota, as well as New Orleans, Louisiana.

Although it was revealed during the news conference that around 8,000 domestic violence cases occur in the Memphis area annually, the offense appears to be on the decline. According to Operation: Safe Community data, reported cases of domestic violence have decreased more than 16 percent locally since 2011.

The Family Safety Center has been connecting victims of domestic violence with civil, criminal, health, and social services since 2012.

Olliette Murry-Drobot, executive director of Family Safety Center, said the nonprofit would play a central role in helping fully implement and sustain the Blueprint for Safety initiative.

“[We] work closest with victims and have direct knowledge of the impact that the criminal justice system has in the lives of victims,” Murry-Drobot said. “Our tasks are to keep the criminal justice system focused on the experiences of victims and to ensure that their responses keep those experiences at the center of what they do.”

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News News Blog

Blueprint for Safety Initiative Seeks to Combat Domestic Violence

CREDIT: Louis Goggans

Louis Goggans

Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell discusses the Blueprint for Safety initiative.


The city’s frigid temperature didn’t hinder a medium-sized crowd from attending the launch of a new comprehensive response to domestic violence at the Urban Child Institute (UCI) today.

After a three-year planning stage, Shelby County’s “Blueprint for Safety” initiative was introduced during a Thursday morning news conference. The initiative seeks to enhance services provided by 911 dispatchers, law enforcement, and victim/witness services to domestic violence victims. The Blueprint for Safety will also strengthen the rehabilitative efforts provided to offenders by the city’s domestic violence court, pretrial services, and probation.

Stakeholders for the initiative include city and county governments, local law enforcement, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District’s office, the Shelby County District Attorney General’s office, General Sessions Division 10, the Family Safety Center, and other non-profit agencies.

Representatives from several of the aforementioned entities took turns speaking at a podium about their role in the initiative and the adverse circumstances of domestic violence.

Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell said one of Blueprint for Safety’s main goals is to enlighten the public on the frequency of domestic violence cases locally.

“We have some 8,000 domestic violence cases here in the local area annually,” Luttrell said. “This blueprint helps us to differentiate the cases and the elevated risk and work collectively with all of the service providers as we try to focus on the plight of the victim. What I particularly appreciate about this plan is how it pulls together the dispatchers, law enforcement officers, the firefighters, and correctional officers in our jails and prisons. It brings all of the players that are involved in touching the elements of crime together for kind purpose.”

The Blueprint for Safety initiative is being funded by a $300,000 federal grant administered through the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office on Violence Against Women.

Memphis is the fourth city to adopt the DOJ’s Blueprint for Safety model. The initiative is already being implemented in both St. Paul and Duluth, Minnesota as well as New Orleans, Louisiana.

For more information on the Blueprint for Safety initiative, read next week’s issue of the Memphis Flyer.

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From My Seat Sports

Make a Fist!

When each of my daughters reached second grade, I taught them how to make a fist. And deliver a punch. Thumb curled on the outside, wrist firm, knuckles forward. Drive with your shoulder. They’d seen plenty of Spider-Man cartoons and read their share of Wonder Woman comic books. They knew what a punch was. But they needed to know how to deliver one. I let each of them treat my open right palm like the Green Goblin’s snarling face. The sting felt good.

I’ve held off writing about the Ray Rice affair (and the Adrian Peterson affair, for that matter), hoping to deliver some thoughts with emotion removed from my delivery. I’ve been married to the same woman for 20 years. I’m the father of two daughters. My only sibling is a woman. 

Seeing what Rice did to his then-fiancee in an elevator last February made nerves fire that I don’t often access. Janay Palmer being dragged from that elevator by Rice — the coward clueless how to handle his now-public atrocity — elicited thoughts I don’t often allow to dance in my brain. But those nerves continue to fire, and those thoughts dance randomly, especially when I look at my wife and daughters and consider the three most valuable elements of my life.

First, the disheartening reality of domestic abuse: it’s near us all. An abused woman lives a short drive from your home, whether you know her or not, whether you know she’s abused or not. Violence is pervasive, in one form or another. Has been since the first troglodyte wielded the first club. For the majority of human beings who refrain from lashing out with a fist, knife, or gun, this is a grim, cynical view. Domestic violence can be stopped. It’s our responsibility to make sure it’s stopped. And now.

But the contributing factors to domestic violence are simply too numerous and, frankly, too scattered for any movement — no matter how publicly driven — to completely eradicate the pain and agony caused. When there is no more poverty, violence will end. When there are no more unwanted children, violence will end. When there is no more religious discord, violence will end. This is like catching every leaf that falls from that massive maple tree in your front yard, each leaf with a blood-drawing razor’s edge. No, domestic violence can’t be eradicated.

We can shine light, though, on the atrocity. And this is where, irony of ironies, we have the NFL to thank. I’ll venture to guess that the security camera that caught Rice delivering his infamous left hook captured at least one more violent act on that very same Atlantic City elevator last February. And a few more since. How many of those were picked up by TMZ, though, and shared for the world to see? 

Had Rice been a contractor from Hoboken accompanying his girlfriend for a casino date, would sports columnists near and far be considering — and writing about — the severity of domestic violence in our world today? The NFL, for good or ill, is a looking-glass for modern American culture. 

Those who represent the NFL “Shield” become highly glorified lab rats, capable of lifting spirits on a visit to a children’s hospital, and capable of the same dark breakdowns that fracture
families in our own neighborhoods.

Neither of my daughters has delivered a punch to date. My hope is that they never will. Honestly, if they find themselves in a situation where that first punch is required, I’ll have larger concerns as their father. (Knowing modern gun culture for what it is, I’d be the last person to recommend a woman striking her abuser until it’s her last chance for survival.) But having a sense of their own strength, their own toughness, is a component of my daughters’ character I consider important for the days I’m not around. 

Women of strength, one at a time, are the antidote to domestic violence. These women know how to make a fist, and they will know when it’s time to leave.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Domestic Violence Is Big Issue In Memphis

Just before news of the Ray Rice domestic-violence scandal broke nationally, Memphis saw its own share of domestic violence-related deaths.

In the span of a week earlier this month, three women in Memphis were killed by partners or former partners with a history of domestic abuse.

On the tail-end of those seven days, Rice of the Baltimore Ravens was indefinitely suspended by the NFL after a video acquired by gossip website TMZ showed Rice punching his then-fiancée (who’s now his wife) in the face, knocking her unconscious. What transpired afterward is a nationwide discussion about domestic violence.

Here in Memphis, Tasha Thomas was shot to death in the parking lot of a daycare center on September 2nd by her estranged husband Charles. He had been arrested for his most recent threats toward her at a baby shower and was released on bond. His long history of domestic violence toward Tasha ended in two deaths when Charles shot himself after killing her. She was in the process of divorcing him at the time of her death.

On September 5th, Alejandra Leos was shot in the back, just steps away from her front door in North Memphis, by her live-in boyfriend Marshall Pegues. According to police, Pegues and Leos were arguing before he killed her, shooting her three times as she tried to flee on a bicycle after the argument. Pegues was arrested for first-degree murder.

On September 8th, Torhonda Cathey, a former Shelby County Schools employee, was shot by her ex-boyfriend in the parking lot of Target on Colonial Road. Ronald Ellis, a Memphis firefighter, confronted Cathey outside of her car, shooting her multiple times as she tried to run away. She later died from her injuries. Ellis was found in Georgia and arrested.

According to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), 288 murders or negligent homicides stemming from domestic violence occurred in Tennessee during a three-year study from 2011 to 2013.

Barbara King, the executive director of the Exchange Club Family Center, works with victims of domestic violence, both adults and children. The children learn how to cope after surviving domestic violence, and the center also offers counseling for parent-victims and even offenders.

“It’s amazing that, even sitting through talking to a teacher or a counselor for a long period of time, it becomes intrinsic, and they can change their parenting behavior,” King said. “We are definitely hearing more about [violence against women]. I think it’s a lot more common to see them speaking up, but the numbers, particularly in Shelby County, are just phenomenal. There are so many cases but only about one-fifth ever gets reported. These couples may appear perfectly fine in public, even the nicer guys. I think people would just rather think it doesn’t exist. And then there’s the ever-present, ‘Why didn’t you just leave?'”

That very question prompted two Twitter hashtags last week — #WhyIStayed and #WhyILeft — which victims used to explain what kept them in abusive relationships and how they finally escaped.

More than 247,000 cases, or individual incidents of domestic violence, were reported in the entire state during the three-year study by the TBI. King mentioned that some victims might not report abuse to police due to fear of safety or lack of financial security, especially when children are involved. Some also may think that the offender will change.

“It’s not very easy for these women to leave,” she said. “She’s lost all self-esteem. She’s lost all sense of self-worth. It’s extremely scary to try and get out.”

King also said the center was working with Tasha Thomas before her death: “We tried to help her all that we could. It’s an incredible tragedy, and her story is not that uncommon.”

Leaving is the crisis point for victims of abuse, according to King.

“When the woman really says she’s leaving, and he’s going to lose power and control, that is the worst and most dangerous time for her,” she said. “He’ll do a lot of things to prevent that from happening. ‘If I can’t have you, nobody can.'”

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News News Blog

City Receives More Than $1 Million in Grants to Combat Gangs, Domestic Violence

Edward Stanton

  • Edward Stanton

From the mob of teens that beat down three people at the Poplar Plaza Kroger to the woman who was shot by her ex-boyfriend in the Colonial Target parking lot, gangs and domestic violence have been making headlines lately.

But two grants awarded by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which collectively exceed $1 million, will be used to combat both of the aforementioned issues.

In a DOJ press release, Edward Stanton, United States Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, disclosed on Wednesday, September 10th, that the City of Memphis had been awarded the “Grant to Encourage Arrest Policies and Enforcement of Protection Orders.” Totaling $900,000, the grant will help enforce protection orders and protect victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.

The City of Memphis, along with the Shelby County Rape Crisis Center, will collaboratively use the grant to “improve post-testing requirements for victim notifications, investigations, and prosecution of increased sexual assault cases resulting from the processing of the backlog of sexual assault kits,” according to the press release.

The city also received a $148,885 “Project Safe Neighborhoods Grant,” which will be used to reduce gang and gun violence locally. In collaboration with the Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) task force, a collective comprised of federal, state, and local law enforcement committed to lowering violent crime, the city will use the grant to “expand its data analysis and tracking capabilities, in order to ensure more efficient and targeted law enforcement efforts against gang and gun violence.”

The grant will also enable the PSN task force and city to collaboratively deter more youth away from the criminal justice system, develop more effective community outreach efforts, and also implement more aggressive prosecutions.

“Events of recent weeks have served as a tragic reminder of the need to protect victims of domestic violence and hold accountable those who commit violent crimes,” Stanton said in a statement. “The new $900,000 grant from the DOJ Office on Violence Against Women will help local authorities process the backlog in sexual assault kits and prosecute those who commit such heinous acts to the fullest extent the law allows. And the Project Safe Neighborhoods grant will bolster our ongoing efforts to track down and bring to justice those who illegally possess and use firearms. Together, these grants total over a million dollars, and they underscore the Department of Justice’s commitment to keeping our citizens safe and protecting victims — especially victims of domestic violence.”

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News The Fly-By

Family Justice

My grandpa and grandma were married for more than 60 years. They met at the start of the “Roaring Twenties” in Chicago. They used their wits and creativity, including the production of bath tub gin in the prohibition era, to build a comfortable life together.

Like all couples who experience that type of admirable longevity, their relationship didn’t come without highs and lows. Long before the television show Green Acres, we knew grandpa and grandma were exact opposites when it came to preferring an urban or rural setting. Grandma loved overseeing the apartment properties they’d acquired in the Windy City. Grandpa was happy to stay on the farm he bought in central Missouri in the early 1960s.

Periodically, grandma would bite the bullet and make a visit to the farm that would usually extend through the summer. Since the rest of my family had made the move with grandpa, having our feisty and opinionated grandmother there sometimes seemed to put everybody a little on edge. It prompted me to ask grandpa once if he’d ever felt mad enough to hit her. A warm smile came across his face and he replied, “Why would I do that? I love her. I’ve always loved her.”

His words were rolling around in my head as I reported on a two-day conference sponsored by the Family Safety Center, discussing the challenges of domestic violence in Memphis and Shelby County. Ironically, the conference came just hours after a Cordova nail salon owner and her estranged husband had been found shot to death in an incident authorities determined was a domestic murder/suicide.

I’ll be honest. I originally went to the event to track down Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich to pepper her with more questions about untested rape kits. But, while the kits and what’s being done with them is a vital public interest story, domestic violence is a continuing scourge of the human condition, just as startling, just as horrifying. It’s perplexing that it continues to go almost unnoticed, except to those who deal with the often reluctant-to-testify victims.

Casey Gwinn, president of the national Family Justice Center Alliance, laid out some of the compelling statistics. He said that if a husband or boyfriend puts his hands around his wife’s or girlfriend’s neck in anger one time, the chances are 80 percent that the woman will be the victim of a homicide. Children who grow up witnessing that type of violence stand a much higher chance of becoming victims or perpetrators of domestic violence when they reach adulthood.

Reported domestic violence cases in Memphis, Shelby County, and the state of Tennessee are among the highest in the nation. And that’s only the reported cases. As Gwinn observed, most of our statistics on this issue come from studies on white and black victims and perpetrators. Language and cultural barriers probably preclude us from getting the real numbers on Hispanic, Asian, and other ethnic groups, where silence often serves as a shroud for suffering.

This is where we come in. I know, these days, no one wants to get into anybody else’s business because of fear of retribution. But, reflect back on the days when neighbors took care of neighbors. Not seeing them on their porch, walking their dog, or in church, or observing a change in their daily patterns was met with concern. I’m not talking about being nosy. I’m saying be observant.

And if the time comes when a domestic violence victim confides in you, be more than a shoulder to cry on. Alert them to the avenues of help available at the Family Safety Center. Their first objective isn’t to prosecute, but to provide hope and healing and protection. For victims, it’s often not easy to initiate the first step. As the center’s executive director, Olliette Murray-Drabot, told me: “Domestic violence goes beyond a criminal issue. It’s emotional. There are relationships. You’ve got husbands and wives, and girlfriends and boyfriends who have built lives together. So that makes it more challenging.”

Of course, the challenge has forever been how to define “love” in any relationship. Observing my grandparents and their unique approach to crafting a relationship, I can only say it worked for them. They may not have always understood where the other was coming from, but they accepted each other’s differences. And they never failed to end a day together without those three little words that cement any relationship —I love you.

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News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall

Abusive Behavior

While the Fly-team tries to focus its gnat-like attention span on all things local, occasionally it’s healthy to report on things that go on outside the I-240 loop. Too much scandal, murder, and general miscreation can have a negative impact on our collective self-esteem, and at such times it’s helpful to realize that there are places in this world that are more screwed up than Memphis; places full of people who are screwed up beyond belief. Consider, if you will, the strange case of David Allen Pearson of Mooresburg, an East Tennessee hamlet in Hawkins County between Knoxville and Johnson City. Pearson was arrested twice last week, first for hitting his wife with a coffee table and later for smacking her with a ham. News reports fail to mention any injuries sustained in the coffee-table attack, though the ham left a “knot and a red mark.” According to the police, the couple had been arguing about — what else? — beer money.

Liar, Liar

A few weeks back, the Flyer took note of the (then unlaunched) Web site Memphisliar.com, a spoof of everybody’s favorite newsweekly. “Hilarity awaits,” the site promised. Since that time, the Liar has launched a few arrows in our general direction, and, we are sorry to announce, hilarity still awaits. So far the Liar has taken swipes at a correction, a guest column about gun ownership, and an “Impeach the President” bumper sticker being sold on the Flyer‘s Web site. “While we’re still not sure what kind of a ‘marketing ploy’ fails to reference the marketer,” the Liar writes, presumably taking us to task for not slapping our brand on the anti-Bush bumper sticker, “we can certainly understand the logic behind advertising bumper stickers in your publication, rather than advertising your publication on bumper stickers.” Aside from the fact that nobody from the Flyer ever actually called the sticker a “marketing ploy,” who would take PR advice from someone who calls himself the Liar?

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News The Fly-By

The Cheat Sheet

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

In what is becoming an all-too-common incident, a student at Kirby High is arrested for bringing a gun to school. He only makes matters worse when police allegedly find marijuana in his backpack as well. We can remember the good old days, when you might bring an odd-looking rock or maybe a weird bug in a jar to school for show-and-tell.

A Millington man has his wife Greg Cravens

arrested when she throws him the TV remote control a bit harder than expected. After he complains, they get into a tussle, and she dumps him out of bed. Police come and arrest the woman for assault. With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, we can think of the perfect gift for the woman: bail.

Though he hasn’t yet announced whether he is staying or going, Grizzlies general manager Jerry West puts his Southwind home up for sale — for almost $4 million. That will help solve a growing problem in Shelby County, one that really doesn’t get the attention it deserves — providing housing for all the area’s multi-millionaires. Sure, it’s just one home, but it’s a start.

The Memphis Zoo is now home to the oldest aardvark in the country. Miss Piggy is 27. Finally, we make a national list and it’s not for something bad.

Every time we report a strange crime, they just get stranger. Burglars break into a home in South Memphis and steal $200 hidden inside a child’s teddy bear. Nothing else is taken. So the question is: How on earth did they know where to look? And in the future, may we suggest a better hiding place — like a bank? And by that, we mean a real bank, not a toy one.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Smart Text

On Monday, October 16th, a text message saved Louise Sowers’ life.

She, her two children, and a friend were sitting in a car at a gas station when Sowers’ ex-boyfriend, Christopher Deener, pulled up beside them. Angry that Sowers was seeing someone else, Deener ordered Sowers into his Chevrolet Impala.

When she refused, Deener grabbed Sowers and forced her and the kids into his car. Once in the vehicle, Deener began driving toward Sowers’ home, threatening to kill her if she didn’t stop dating other people.

Sowers secretly sent a text message to her friend, requesting that she call the police and have them send officers to her home.

“The message she sent to her friend was very [helpful] in the police working fast,” says Joe Griffin, a Memphis Police Department public information officer.

Deener was arrested and charged with simple assault and domestic violence. A handgun was found under the driver’s seat of his car.

Though Sowers owned a cell phone, many domestic-violence victims in Memphis do not. But a new program launched last week will provide cell phones to some of the county’s most high-risk victims.

“Many of these people tend to be a transient population, so we can’t call their homes, and we lose contact with the victim,” says Heidi Verbeek, executive director of the Shelby County Crime Victims Center. “Having a cell phone will ensure that we’re able to make sure they’re okay.”

Traditionally, when victims get protective orders against their abusers, enforcement is difficult. Even when police are called, the abuser usually leaves before officers make the scene.

Last year, while dropping her child off for daycare, Christie Thurmond was shot and killed by her ex-husband, despite a protective order against him. The next day, attorney general Bill Gibbons received a certified letter from Thurmond in which she said she feared for her life.

Domestic violence victims who receive the phones as part of the pilot program are instructed to use them only for emergencies, such as when they come into contact with their abuser, and to check in with the Crime Victims Center twice a week.

For the program, 12 cell phones have been donated by Cricket Communications. Two will be given out each month to domestic-violence victims through April. At that time, the program will be evaluated. If deemed effective in aiding victims and preventing violence, Cricket will donate additional phones.

“Since cell phones are portable, they should be very helpful. A woman may be nowhere near a phone, just like the case where [Sowers] was kidnapped,” says Verbeek.

René Parson, area general manager for Cricket, says the text option can be very helpful in times of trouble and suggests victims use the camera feature on their phones to document abuse.

“We’d also suggest victims dial 911 with the cell phones and leave it on,” says Verbeek. “Then they could use GPS tracking to determine where the call is coming from.”