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.