Man throws woman off overpass, jumps to his death
 

This is CRAZY... and really really sad... and it happened just yesterday in the Dallas area :(

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The rest of the article can be found here:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Southwest....ap/index.html

How terribly, terribly sad!

What is it going to take for people to take domestic violence seriously?

What could you argue about so heatedly that would make you want to pull someone out of a car & push them off an overpass?

I wonder if he jumped because he didn't want to go to jail?

When it starts happening to men. In short, never.

What's to say that they don't?

It's just an impossible situation for law enforcement to do anything about sometimes. The woman has to actually admit that she's being abused. That's usually the toughest part.

I can say that on two levels:

1) My father was once a Police Commissioner for our small town. Officers did ANYTHING to avoid going to a domestic, because that's considered one of the times an officer is most likely to be killed.

2) I'm a survivor of domestic violence. My exhusband was extremely violent, even to the point of throwing me down the stairs while I was pregnant, killing our child. I could tell you stories that would curl your hair - but the police only ever came the one time. I am NOT a weak person, but a steady dose of put-downs turns you into one. Never again!


In many cities, if ANYONE calls in a domestic, the abuser (man or woman) MUST spend the night in jail. That law should be in all communities!

1) surprises me. I understand taht domestic calls are some of the most common types that they get at the PD. Often, the police show up and the woman ends up not pressing charges (for fear or other reasons).

2) I hope he's locked up for a long time (but I'll guess that he probably walked). I was always sympathetic of those women that hire out hits on their abusive spouse. Some guys just "need killin' ".

I agree with that law.

agreed.

Another big challenge is the truly crazy abuser who will stop at nothing. The law punishes bad behavior far more than it deters it. Too often you see abusers who have been arrested and even convicted violate restraining orders and do whatever it takes to kill the abused. Far too often they will not stop for anything.

Two thoughts: Emotional abuse is seriously under rated when it comes to a topic. And that can be abuse women give men also.

Also . .. If its bad, leave. If you don't leave, I am not going to sympathize with you if you kill your husband or contract his death, it takes less effort to leave.

It's hard to have an answer for people like that. If you go to the extreme and permenantly imprison all people that are involved in domestic violence, not only would you add to overcrowded prisons, you'd also end up imprisoning a lot of people that could be rehabilitated through therapy.

It's also a problem that VPO's are OFTEN abused by people (often women in my experience). I work in family law. We have two clients that have had 5 VPO's filed against them -- in both cases these VPO's were dismissed because of the fact that our clients had documentation placing them elsewhere (one was out of state and even had a plane ticket stub to prove it.

The problem with all of it is that people cry wolf so often that courts and the police can't tell what's real and what isn't.

Seriously, that is an ignorant statement.

It's not that easy. It's not easy for a woman to leave when she is completely financially dependent on a man and has no resources of her own to fund leaving. It's not easy when he has cut her off from her friends and family -- her entire support network -- so she has no one to turn to for help, and believe me, this is very common in abusive relationships. It's not easy to leave when your self esteem has been worn down after years of being abused and told that you are crap and that nobody will believe you. It's not easy to leave when the police don't do crap to help you. It's not easy to leave when you try to leave and he finds you and beats you more than ever before, or when you know he'll be able to find you no matter where you go, and he's threatened to kill you if you ever do leave.

If you don't know jack about the dynamics of an abusive relationship, you'd be better off to educate yourself than make comments that indicate your lack of understanding.

I see your point, James, but if the abusive spouse is truly a nutcase and he comes after the woman he may hurt her far worse than he did before she left. Abusers will use this as a threat to keep their spouses from fleeing; and the really sick ones will act on it.

[slightly off topic]

That whole Bobby Brown/Whitney Houston melodrama just disgusts me. He abuses her, she calls the police, he's arrested, she shows up at his court appearances holding his hand. If a woman with all of the options she has stays with her abuser, imagine how hard it is for a woman with nowhere safe to go to leave.

[/slightly off topic]

You're saying that Whitney Houston is representative of other women?

i completely agree. and even with friends there for you it's not the easiest thing to do. i watched and tried to help a friend through months of abuse from a guy she dated. and it was painful for me. i wanted nothing to do but help her. and finally she allowed us after he pushed her out a window. but this was months after it had started. so don't just say if you're in one leave. it's not easy to just get up and do that for most.

Oh Lord, no! I was just pointing out the fact that lots of the time women don't escape abusive relationships because they don't have the financial means to do so safely. Then there's Ms. "Crack-is-Wack" who has all the money she could ever need yet she continues to function as her husband's punching bag.

Well abuse usually follows a slippery slope.

Leave earlier. Leave before its years and years of abuse.

Ultimately, you have a personal choice and responsibility. So yes, there might be enormous financial repurcussions, but killing your spouse preferentially to leaving just seems really hard to justify.

James, I'm sure you didn't know this...but a woman is more likely to be KILLED by her abusive spouse when she's trying to leave. It's not that many victims aren't trying.

I've noticed a lot of ignorant statements coming from you about rape, domestic violence, and just relationships in general. I'm beginning to think you have very little experience (hitting on girls half your age doesn't count) in the ways of relationships.

I am not sure disagreeing with you is ignorant. Or not toeing the party line on issues others find emotional.

Most abusive relationships don't start out extremely abusive. Leaveing earlier seems a better solution that being killed or killing someone else.

Now if you want to talk about a failure of social models, in that many people cannot evaluate or differentiate between varies degrees of relationships or dangers; Or that many people don't know how to respond correctly to unfamiliar situations and how that can lead to a series of wrong decisions that can be very detrimental that would be more useful . . .

But a lot of the viewpoints are merely politically correct.

Also, I am not sure where I made snide and untrue comments about you in this thread, point them out to me please.

No, most abusive relationships do not start abusive. That gives the chance for the abuser and the victim to bond. The "victim" looks back on the good times and even in the worst of times hopes they'll return. There's even a chance that they love each other. Many women blame themselves for being abused (If I didn't make him mad, he wouldn't have hit me.) There are also financial considerations, not to mention religious beliefs come into play.
Emotional abuse is a whole other game. It's just as vicious as physical abuse, but the abused person feels terrible because there's no physical/tangible evidence of the abuse. It's hard for someone to realize they are being emotionally abused. The abuser's constant verbal abuse cuts the person down until she/he feels like the most insignificant pointless being on the face of the planet. This does nothing but reinforce in his/her mind that no one else could ever love him/her so the only option is to stay. It's a vicious cycle.

You will never truly understand what it is like. Don't pretend you know or understand.

Not really.
I hope you weren't justifying such acts on the part of a woman. It's one thing to [legitimately IMO of course) vilify the abuser but quite another to try and justify capital punishment at the hands of the spouse. There are helplines (which can only offer little comfort admittedly) and shelters, which can be a halfway place. The solution you seem to think is 'understandable' (?!), cannot be so.

Also, Physical abuse victims are NOT always women. Women can abuse men, it is just not talked about so much for obvious reasons. Also, within lesbian relationships there can be physical/emotional abuse, again not talked about so much.

I wasn't justifying anything. I said that I found this statement ignorant because it reflects a complete lack of understanding of the dynamics of an abusive relationship, i.e., it implies that leaving is easy:

Also . .. If its bad, leave. If you don't leave, I am not going to sympathize with you if you kill your husband or contract his death, it takes less effort to leave.

I said that it is often not easy to leave an abusive relationship, not that killing anyone is understandable. Where exactly did you get that from what I said?

James' comment - which you re-quoted in the prev. post was that "...If you don't leave, I am not going to sympathize with you if you kill your husband or contract his death, it takes less effort to leave. you suggested that was ignorant. Perhaps killing someone would be at least 'quicker' though. James was talking about murder [by a spouse] being hard to sympathise with under even difficult circumstances; since you quoted that point it was a logical assumption the subsequent reply referred to it.
Also I think you were reading something into the comment you quoted when you suggest he says it's "easy to just leave". What he said was that the woman SHOULD leave.

You are truly a good friend! The first things most abusers do is to isolate their "victim" from his/her family & friends.

Very few men or women go into a relationship with a potential abuser knowingly. It's usually after some sort of commitment that the degradation begins - slowly, then building up until the "victim" no longer believes in him/herself. If the "victim" tries to leave, the abuser will promise anything to stop him/her - and then, there's the "honeymoon" period. All is good. All is loving. All is perfect.

And then something happens. The "victim" overcooks the pasta, or buys the wrong brand of toilet tissue, and the abuser brings the "victim" down to the depths again. Sometimes, he/she can get away, and stay away. That's also when he/she is most likely to be killed. Protection Orders mean nothing to the abuser, except more jail time. Shelters are almost always full to capacity, and lucky is the "victim" who has a secret friend where he/she can hide.

I put the word "victim" in quotes because I feel that we need more education on this topic, so there are more survivors and less victims. I am not a victim, I am a survivor (although my daughter was a victim). We need to get this topic out in the open, and teach our younger people how NOT to get involved in an abusive relationship, or to become an abuser. I don't pretend to know exactly how to do this, but I know a duck when I see it.

As for Whitney Houston, I'd say shame on her for being such a poster girl for domestic violence, but I have this strange feeling that she needs more prayers and less condemnation.

Sorry for getting emotional.

My first marriage ended up being abusive. When we met, no problems at all, it was a fun, loving relationship. It was very intense from the beginning. We met our sophomore year of college. Our senior year, he started with insults, little digs here and there that were hurtful. I will admit, I did not have a lot of self esteem back then either. We got engaged right before we graduated and I became totally absorbed in planning my dream wedding. More and more hurtful things were being said. I brought it up in our Catholic premarital meetings with the priest. My fiance said he was just joking with his comments and I took things too seriously. The priest agreed with him! We got married.

As soon as we got married, he became completely controlling. I got reamed out if we had any long distance calls on the phone bill. He "allowed" me $50 a pay period for gas, lunch, spending money, etc. He tried to alienate my friends. The more he tried to control me, the more I fought back. The verbal abuse became more and more horrific. When verbal intimidation didn't work, he started slamming doors, throwing things around , but not at me. I still stood my ground. He invoked rage in me that I didn't know I was capable of as well. I asked him to go to marriage counseling with me, but he wouldn't. I went alone. A few weeks into it, he threw a jelly jar at me. I went to the counselor the next day and said I was done. The counselor helped me make a plan to move out. I was out within two weeks. Then again, I had a full time job, a college degree and very supportive friends.

I found an apartment, ordered furniture and saw an attorney within that two weeks. I made lists of everything I was going to take. We had only been married for 14 months, so I split things up by who gave us what for wedding gifts. He was working days on Saturdays so as soon as he left for work that Saturday, I started packing. My friends showed up to help. I gave them each a room, with a list of what to pack. We moved my stuff to my new apartment, left my car there, and they drove me back to the old apartment so I could tell him when he got home from work. On the counselor's advice, I told him outside the apartment complex, where my friends could see me. He wanted me to come up to the apartment and talk about it and I refused. He wanted my phone number, address, etc. and I wouldn't give it to him.

My lawyer was supposed to wait to file the papers until 10 days after I moved because I was moving to a new county AND it would give him a cooling off period before he had my address and phone number. The stupid attorney filed too early and my ex was served three days after I moved out. It should have been at least two weeks. I was TERRIFIED of how he would react. He had guns because he was a hunter. It was the absolute most scary thing I've ever experienced. I couldn't sleep at all. I would sit in my dark apartment at night and just watch out the window for his truck to show up in my apartment complex. Thankfully, his mom had gone to stay with him for a little while and I think that helped keep him calm through that initial phase. He actually told her that he hadn't treated me very well.

It is NOT easy to leave, it takes so much secrecy and planning and it's very very scary. I grew so strong from the whole experience though. It completely changed my life. If I didn't have a job and financial resources of my own, one of us would have killed each other. His violence was increasing slowly but surely and, as I said earlier, he invoked rage in me that I didn't know I was capable of (and that I haven't felt since!).

Thank goodness for women's shelters. I thank God I didn't have children with that man. I thank God we had little to no real property to deal with. I thank God that I have no idea where this guy is and once the divorce was final, I didn't have to have contact with him ever again.

I pray all the time that other women in those situations can get out safely.

Dee

{{{Hugs}}} for you, Dee.

What was the relationship between this man and woman? According to the article, "The relationship between the two was not immediately known." When I read it, it seemed like road rage. Maybe I am missing something.

According to later news reports, I believe it was his girlfriend. Completely tied up traffic on the US 75/George Bush Turnpike interchange for several hours until the investigation was completed. Luckily, I don't hafta drive anywhere near there coming home from work.

Thanks for the update. It's a very sad story.

Co-sign!

My mother is a survivor of DV. Her second husband (not my father) was an abusive A-HOLE! Back in the 80s when I was growing up in Va Beach, you could call the cops but they would not arrest unless they SAW the abuser hit you.

I didn't matter if you look like you went thru 12 rounds with Mike Tyson.

It didn't matter if the abuser said in front of the cops: "when they leave, I will finish the job"

They would not arrest unless they saw the offender hit the victim.

Who in the f*ck would be stupid enough to hit you in front of a cop? HELLO?! :mad:

Now the state presses charges. Before the victim would have to swear out a warrant...of course most of them wound up dropping the charges :rolleyes:

Thanks! But, is it totally strange for me to say that it was the best thing that ever happened to me? It led me to realize how strong I am, how independent I am and that I can do anything that I put my mind to. That I have friends and family that will support me no matter what! I think we learn more and grow more from our times of adversity. It just doesn't feel like it at the time!

Dee

I still like you, man.

Thank you so much for sharing your stories, Dee and honeychile.

I, like mu_agd, tried to help a friend gain the resources and self-confidence to leave an extremely abusive relationship. I saw a vibrant, self-confident young woman basically cut down to a shell of her former self in less than six months. My own health and well-being was threatened in the process.

I hope those who think that it's just easy, that a woman can just get up and leave, never have to see their mothers, daughters, sisters, or female friends experience domestic violence. Women SHOULD leave--many die trying. But, to say "just leave" indicates a lack of understanding about domestic violence, as well as a lack of understanding about relationship dynamics.

(((((Dee))))))))

I completely agree with you. While I hate what happened, I am a better person now that I know so much more about myself!

I did have to laugh about the secrecy part, though. I had a little stash of money that I was able to save (I was on an allowance, too), and a bag of things I'd need if I had to run tucked behind the books in my bookcase!

DV takes many forms - and none should be marginalized.
I think this incident - and I know that overpass well, because it is a HIGH one, and I am shuddering at the thought of that woman's horrific death - asks a larger question.
Why are people - and spouses - so angry? It's something that seems to have increased over the last generation.

Here we are discussing this and it occurs to me that yesterday was the tenth anniversary of Nicole Brown Simpson's murder. Talk about an outgrowth of uncontrolled rage...