Domestic Violence- Between the honeymoon and the hurt

Maybe it is my age, but more and more I have conversations with clients, friends, and acquaintances who have survived domestic violence.  I note my age because they are now in stable, loving relationships and discuss their ordeal like an incident of I survived.  

In a conversation not long ago, a friend told me how her first husband had thrown her down a flight of steps and caused her to miscarry.  They ad previously lost an infant at six months, what would be ruled a SIDS death, but both she and the police suspected her husband but could not prove it.  The miscarriage caused her to take action and get out.  This level of violence may seem shocking to you unless you have lived it or have investigated these cases.  In my experience, some of the things that women endure at the hands of their abuser is more torture than abuse.  The woman, often because of previous abuse in childhood or just one manipulative man, learns how to put on a happy face and go about her day. Instead of confiding in someone that can help her, she often goes to much greater lengths to conceal the truth than she would if she was the abuser.  This is how shame motivates.

People who are not in abusive relationships, including me early in my law enforcement career, often say "why doesn't she just leave".  Imagine right now, as you are sitting here today that you decide to just leave your life behind, because that is essentially what it is.  Not only that, but you are at your weakest emotional point ever.  Where would you go, what would you do with your kids, which stuff would you take, do you have your own vehicle, do you make enough to support yourself?  Plus dozens of other questions.  Now factor into that trying to avoid your spouse or significant other.  They know your friends and family. They know all about you.  You probably share a bank account, both of your names are on the lease mortgage, both on the vehicles.  You can quickly see how if you were feeling the best you ever have this would be very overwhelming at the least.

Then there is the knowledge that when you finally decide to leave, they will be angrier than ever and if he finds you the level of violence will be greater than ever and you are afraid he will kill you, your kids, friends, and family.  I hope by now you can see why women just resign themselves to living in hell,

Abuse from those that are supposed to love us the most is in my opinion the biggest issue in our culture.  It is hard enough to get over a being a onetime victim of a stranger, but being abused by someone you see everyday and knowing it will happen again tortures souls.  This is what fuels our nation's drug and alcohol problems, especially among women.

So in the case of domestic abuse, what are we to do?  Well the first thing is to admit and accept that you are solely responsible for your well being.  That means that at all times you need to protect yourself as a human being.  You do your best to stay away from stupid people, places, and things.

Even though we have spent billions and tried, domestic violence cannot be cured by laws and law enforcement.  If a fire gets out of control in your house, the fire department can come and put it out.  But if you make a habit of leaving oily rags in your garage or smoking in bed, they cannot save you from that, and eventually they will not make it in time.  It's up to you.

If the abuser is charged with domestic violence, or you have an exparte or protection from abuse against him, these things will not protect you.  Paper cannot protect you from a punch, much less death.  You have to make the decision that you will not be abused anymore.  Nobody has the right to hurt you no matter who they are or whatever relation they are to you.

You need training to protect yourself.  One of the first things we cover in class is use of force.  We have seen time and time again abused women go to prison because they killed their abuser when there was no imminent threat.  You cannot use force against someone based on what has happened in the past or may happen in the future.

So between the honeymoon and the next hurt, make your exit strategy and seek training on how to physically protect yourself from a bigger, stronger attacker. The foundation of this training cannot be a gun, knife, pepper spray, or any other mechanical tool, because you cannot have these things with you all the time. Make your decision to protect yourself today.

How domestic violence spills into the workplace....how to protect yourself

Like most police officers, I worked my fair share of domestics.  They were always one of the toughest types of calls to manage due to the emotions involved.  Years ago, police would just tell the couple to knock it off or find one of them somewhere else to go for the night.  That changed at some point and many states went to a preferred arrest policy in which if someone had marks on them that made the officers believe they were the victim, they were charged.  In my experience, this was about as useful as telling them to knock it off, but made the courts and lawyers some money and removed some of the liability from the police.

Since retiring and moving to the private sector in 2007, my work with businesses, as a bouncer, and with women in recovery has provided me with a much different perspective on domestic violence.  It is a social cancer that cannot be effectually dealt with by laws created to protect people and their property from strangers, not those they live with. As with molestation, if you talk to enough women candidly you will be shocked at how many of them have been the victim of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse at the hands of someone they were in a romantic relationship with.  Statistically this means that there is a good chance that there are one or more women that you interact with personally or professionally every day that is currently being abused.

Experience tells us that the most dangerous time for these women is when they make the decision to leave.  This is also the most dangerous time for their family, friends, and especially coworkers.  In many cases, most of their family and close friends know or have a very good idea what is going on and will be likely aware that the woman is in the process of leaving.  Not so for employers and coworkers.  Embarrassment is one of the biggest psychological issues that keep a woman from leaving.  Think about it, who would want their coworkers much less their boss knowing that they were being abused.  Over time they have perfected the art of putting on a happy face no matter what is going on at home because they need to earn a living.  The abuser knows this. One of the first things a woman has to figure out is where to hide while court papers are served or she figures out what her next move is.  The abuser knows this and that is why so many assaults and murders of abuse victims take place at the court house or the abused’s workplace.  The state of mind of the abuser by this point is that anyone who is friendly with the abused is working with her against him.

For someone that has been at a place of employment for any period of time, it is likely that their spouse is familiar with their coworkers and will attract little suspicion if they just happen to show up at work.  This is especially true at the start and end of the day or lunchtime when people are typically coming and going.

There are no shortage of stories in the news of coworkers being killed by the spouse of a coworker when they showed up to kill their spouse.  The question is how we avoid that.  Here are some quick tips-

·        Know that emotional baseline of everyone in your office.

·        Watch how they respond to the presence of their significant other.

·        Take note of how they relate to each other at company functions.

·        If you believe their life is in danger, report it to your boss.

Back to the embarrassment issue, even in cases where the woman has an ex parte order or a protection from abuse order against her spouse, they almost never share it with their boss or company security.  Part of the victimology of abuse victims is that they have been made to feel isolated to the point where they feel that nobody can help or protect them from the abuser.

If this information is shared with the employer, a balance must be struck between confidentiality and the welfare of those in the business place.  If your company does not have internal security, one of the managers should be serving as the liaison with the local police and hopefully have a specific point of contact with them.  Sometimes all it takes to create some peace of mind is to have an officer sit on the lot at the beginning and end of the day.  Due to manpower restrictions, you need to understand that this is not going to be an everyday thing and that they will often only do this if they deem the threat credible.

The overall well being of a workplace ultimately relies on the attitude of the employees about such things, not on their security or even the police.

In our next post we will discuss how to survive an active shooter if you are unarmed.

What you need to understand about calling 911

Every year, approximately 240,000 calls are made to 911 through over 6,000 call centers.  The FCC estimates that approximately 70% of those calls are from cell phones.  When 911 began in 1968, all phone numbers were tied to a physical address. Obviously, this is not the case anymore.  More and more homes do not even have a land line and solely rely on their cell phones.  Emergency communications professionals and the FCC are trying to play catch up, but admit that they are nowhere close and at best we have a patchwork of quick fixes.  In an emergency, the illusion of 911 being your security blanket could get you killed.

No matter where you are in the US, if you call 911, the first question you will hear is “where is your emergency”.  It is the single most vital piece of information you will need to provide.  In the best case scenario, you know where you are and help is on the way.  But, we know that best case scenarios cannot be counted on, especially in an emergency.  As required by the FCC, if you call 911 the GPS in your phone immediately turns on whether you had it turned on or not. If you cannot speak, or the call is dropped, the closest tower can sometimes provide the longitude and latitude of your location within 50 meters.  Notice that I said sometimes.  Even if it works and you are at a fixed location, they have been known to be a mile or more off.  You also need to understand that the tower does not give your elevation.  It is pinning you down to street level location.  If you are in an office building, not only can they not tell what floor you are on, but it is likely because of being in a building and up high that you are pinging between towers or not hitting any at all.

Like I said earlier, 911 was designed to send emergency services to fixed locations.  There is a high probability that when you call 911 on your phone you will be walking or driving.  If you are driving, your location is changing rapidly and you are going to be pinging against different towers.  In this case, if you cannot give your location because you don’t know where you are, because for an example you have been abducted, it is unlikely that emergency services will be able to keep up with you.

Something else that many don’t realize is that in most cases you cannot text 911. That means in a situation such as a burglar in your house, or an active shooter in your school, if you are hiding, trying to be quiet, you will need to try to call 911, and possibly alert the attacker to your hiding place.

Taking the above information into consideration, here is our advice-
• Don’t rush to call 911- Putting your head down to do so does not give you a “time out” from reality.  Just because you are on the phone does not mean you cannot get hit, shot, or struck by a car as you stumble around an accident scene.

• Call 911 when it is safe to do so- preferably from a fixed location where you don’t have to move from.  This is going to require you to take action to protect or treat yourself or someone else before calling 911.  A person will not start breathing or stop bleeding because you are calling 911.  If you don’t have personal protection and preparedness skill sets, now is the time to get them.

• Landmarks, landmarks, landmarks- from experience I can tell you that police will usually find a landmark faster than an address.  If you are in a vehicle, try to tell them what you are coming up to instead of what you just passed.  Even at that rate you will likely be past that point, continue to update if possible. Business names are easier to read at a distance than street signs.  If you cannot see any buildings, let them know roads you are coming up to.

• If you cannot talk- send a text to someone that you know will most likely answer.  The text should look something like this “CALL 911, ANYTOWN USA”  This is going to require them to call their local 911 and tell the dispatcher that they got a 911 text from someone in ANYTOWN USA.  They will have to put you in contact with that call center.  When they answer you back, you can say something along the lines of “201 EAST ELM ST 3RD FLOOR ACTIVE SHOOTER I AM IN A CLOSET”

• Giving information- whether talking or texting during an emergency, take a breath, think about what you are going to say and type before doing so.  Share as much information as possible with the least amount of words.  The longer the dispatcher is listening to you, the longer it takes for her to send the appropriate assets your way.  They can get the details as they have units heading in your direction.

• Texting pictures- if you find yourself in an unfamiliar building and can take a picture out of a window and text it, emergencies can use that to pin point your location.

Remember, even a successful call to 911 will only bring emergency services to something that has likely already occurred.  It does nothing to stop what has happened or is happening.  Prepare yourself accordingly.

Whats wrong with your company's ID badges? A lot!

Most would agree that the above picture is an accurate representation of most ID badges in use by businesses and organizations.  ID badges typically serve three basic functions.

• Visually identify wearer by picture and name
• Allow access to certain areas using an embedded chip or color code
• Visually, or through an embedded chip, personnel information

The primary failure of almost every ID badge I have ever seen is that the picture is too small to see at conversational distance.  The reason for this is that all types of information and bar codes that have absolutely nothing to do with quick identification take up the front of the ID badge.

An effective ID badge used for fast identification should have little but the picture on the front, except for the name of the individual underneath.  The name only needs to be able to be read at contact distance, where the picture should be easy recognizable at 7-10 yards.  A colored border around the outside of the picture is a fast and easy way to identify access level or the department that the employee works for.  Humans will pay attention to pictures and colors much more than what is written on the badge.  All other information should be on the back.

Employees should be encouraged to challenge anyone they do not recognize or find in an area that they have no business in.  This attitude must come from the top down.

Another best practice is that badges be worn around the neck on a breakaway lanyard or clipped high on the chest.  This ensures that badges are no obstructed by clothing which often occurs when hung on the waste.

Creating ID badges with a purpose and mandating how and when they be worn is a simple, actionable step into controlling access to your place of business.