GOFFSTOWN — It could be months until what caused the death of inmate Kristin Ruggiero is officially known, but one new development in the case was confirmed Thursday: she knew that the state Supreme Court had rejected the appeal of her conviction for falsifying evidence.
Ruggiero was found dead Wednesday in the New Hampshire State Prison for Women in Goffstown about 90 minutes after the state’s Supreme Court released its decision online. Corrections staff found her suffering what appeared to be a seizure in her room at approximately 10:30 a.m., and she quickly became unresponsive.
Prison medical staff attempted to resuscitate Ruggiero without success, and she was transported to Catholic Medical Center in Manchester where she was pronounced dead.
Ruggiero, 36, was convicted in Rockingham County Superior Court of multiple counts of falsifying physical evidence and was serving seven to 14 years. She was admitted to the women’s prison on Aug. 19, 2010, and would have been eligible for parole on Jan. 7, 2018.
The New Hampshire State Police and Corrections Investigation Bureau are investigating the circumstances surrounding her death.
“An autopsy was scheduled to take place (Thursday) morning,” said Capt. Dave Parenteau, with the Investigative Services branch of the state police. “Due to the nature of the toxicology tests, it could take up to three months before we receive a cause of death from the medical examiner’s office. Until we have a cause, we won’t have anything further to release on the investigation.”
Staff at the medical examiner’s office confirmed the potential three-month time frame for results to be made public, and confirmed that an autopsy had been performed.
Defense Attorney Mark Sisti confirmed that he had spoken with Ruggiero Wednesday morning and informed her of the Supreme Court’s decision. He would not discuss the nature of that conversation or her reaction to the decision.
Ruggiero was convicted of using a cell phone that she had registered in the name of her ex-husband, Jeffrey Ruggiero, and sending threatening messages to herself and falsely reporting to police that her ex had sent them. She sent the messages after obtaining a restraining order against him.
Jeffrey Ruggiero was convicted in April 2008 of threatening, sending obscene material and violating a protective order based on Ruggiero’s allegations against him. A Superior Court judge would clear Jeffrey Ruggiero’s name by annulling his convictions in September 2010.
The trial jury that convicted Kristin Ruggiero determined she had sent the messages to herself after Jeffrey and Jean Ruggiero recorded messages and texts she had sent to him, which law enforcement officials were able to match up with phone numbers used to send the made-up threats to herself.
Sisti argued during her appeal that the evidence should have been thrown out under RSA 570-A:6, because Kristin Ruggiero’s consent was not obtained by Jeffrey and Jean Ruggiero in South Carolina before they made the recordings. New Hampshire requires the consent of all parties before a recording is made, but South Carolina does not. Sisti argued that his client, as a New Hampshire resident, would have the expectation of privacy regarding the recordings.
But in the Supreme Court’s decision, justices wrote that no law was broken, because the calls were legally intercepted in South Carolina. They also pointed out that Kristin Ruggiero was a resident of California at the time she made the calls, and not living in New Hampshire.
Kristin Ruggiero Dead in State Prison Hours After Conviction Affirmed
By PAUL FEELY
Dec 28, 2011
GOFFSTOWN – Kristen Ruggiero was found dead today in the New Hampshire State Prison for Women in Goffstown, the same day that the state’s Supreme Court upheld her conviction for falsifying evidence to set up her ex-husband.
New Hampshire Department of Corrections spokesperson Jeffrey Lyons has confirmed that at approximately 10:30 a.m. today corrections staff responded to a report of an inmate suffering a seizure in her room. Lyons said the inmate, identified as Ruggiero, became unresponsive.
He stated that medical staff attempted to resuscitate the inmate without success, and that she was transported to Catholic Medical Center in Manchester where she was pronounced dead.
Ruggiero, 36 was convicted in Rockingham County Superior Court of multiple counts of falsifying physical evidence and was serving consecutive sentences of 3 ½ – 7 years in prison. She was admitted to the women’s prison on August 19, 2010. She would have been eligible for parole on January 7, 2018.
The news of her death came just hours after the Supreme Court released its decision regarding her appeal.
In the decision, Chief Justice Linda Stewart Dalianis writes, “there was sufficient evidence upon which a rational jury could find the defendant guilty of each of the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Warning to Women: The Government Wants to Turn You into a Rape Victim
Carey Roberts
December 30, 2011
Ladies, looking to celebrate New Year’s Eve in grand style? Plan to cut loose at the gala event? Indulge in some free bubbly? Maybe a romantic fling to welcome in 2012?
Hold on there, because the federal Centers for Disease Control has decided alcohol and sex don’t mix. To drive home this point, the CDC has radically expanded its definition of rape. No, this isn’t some crazy end-of-year gag — it’s the real deal.
A couple weeks ago the U.S. Centers for Disease Control issued a report on partner violence and sexual assault: http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf . The CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey decrees that “alcohol/drug facilitated completed penetration” is now rape. (You can see the government agency’s X-rated definition at the bottom of this column.)
Consider these scenarios:
While getting ready for the big event, Mary flirtatiously comments to her husband that a novel New Year’s Resolution would be to make love every night for the whole year. During the carefree celebration, she finishes off a couple bottles of champagne. After the midnight countdown, the couple takes a taxi home, where they make good on her resolution.
Nicole goes with a girlfriend to the party, where she happens to run in to one of her old flames. He’s not into the hard stuff, but with her needling and coaxing, both of them are soon joking and laughing like old times. During the wee-hours of the morning, Nicole grabs his necktie and orders, “You’re coming to my place.” There they have sex.
Like previous years, Gail and her husband of six years plan to get juiced at the New Year’s Eve party, followed by what she smirkingly calls, “making whoopee.” At the stroke of midnight, the two share a lingering, romantic kiss. A few minutes into the new year, they retire to their hotel room for sex.
In the first scenario, Mary proposed the love-making idea, then willingly over-indulged in alcohol. In the second case, Nicole pressured her ex-boyfriend into drinking high-alcohol content beverages and then coming to her apartment. And in the third example, Gail suggested she and her husband celebrate their long-established New Year’s Eve drinking and mating tradition.
In all three scenarios, the women gave their consent — expressed or implied — before they sipped the first drop of liquor.
Do these examples represent typical, if over-wrought New Year’s Eve frolics? Ninety-nine percent of Americans would say ‘yes,’ even if they themselves don’t approve of alcoholic over-indulgence.
And what is the verdict of the Centers for Disease Control?
Count One: Guilty of Rape
Count Two: Guilty of Rape
Count Three: Guilty of Rape
That’s right, because all three cases represent “alcohol/drug facilitated completed penetration.” It doesn’t matter that the three women gave their consent in advance — it’s still rape, insists the CDC.
And even though the female is the clear initiator in the first two scenarios, the CDC will still count her as the rape victim, and her paramour as the rapist.
So abuse-reduction advocates can now claim — with a perfectly straight face — that “Nearly 1 in 5 women (18.3%)…in the United States have been raped at some time in their lives,” as the CDC states on page 1 of its report. Of course that hyper-inflated claim does little for the credibility of real rape victims.
Rigging definitions to create bogus victims is old-hat to the abuse industry. It’s worked like a charm to expand the well-heeled domestic violence industry.
And now they have fresh ammunition to push for tough laws to crack-down on the newly-minted “epidemic of rape,” and pressure lawmakers to fork over billions for a raft of abuse-prevention programs.
According to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, rape includes “alcohol/drug facilitated completed penetration,” which is counted if the respondent answers “yes” to any of these statements:
“When you were drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent, how many people ever…
- had vaginal sex with you? By vaginal sex, we mean that (if female: a man or boy put his penis in your vagina) (if male, a woman or girl made you put your penis in her vagina)?
- (if male) made you perform anal sex, meaning that they made you put your penis into their anus?
- made you receive anal sex, meaning they put their penis into your anus?
- made you perform oral sex, meaning that they put their penis in your mouth or made you penetrate their vagina or anus with your mouth?
- made you receive oral sex, meaning that they put their mouth on your (if male: penis) (if female: vagina) or anus?
Jodi Arias Case: Twists And Delays In Alleged Femme Fatale’s Murder Trial
By David Lohr
Dec. 29, 2011
The trial of Jodi Ann Arias, set to begin Feb. 1, could be the biggest court proceeding since Casey Anthony.
The 32-year-old photographer is accused of shooting her lover in the face, stabbing him 27 times, and slitting his throat from ear to ear.
The dead man, Travis Alexander, was found in the shower of his Mesa., Ariz., apartment five days later.
CNN and TruTV have both been gearing up for major coverage. Even Dr. Drew Pinsky has chimed in, recently comparing Arias to Casey Anthony.
One problem: The would-be legal event of 2012 may not even happen in 2012. The Huffington Post has learned it could be another 12 months before the case goes before a jury.
“They [the defense] are starting over with new counsel,” said Jerry Cobb, a spokesman for the Maricopa County attorney’s office.
Cobb says the entire defense team will be replaced. This comes after Arias had asked the court for permission to represent herself, only to ask later for legal counsel.
Arias had been represented by Victoria Washington, who filed a motion to withdraw from the case on Dec. 16. Six days later, the motion was granted.
“It looks like right now, it will be pushed to 2013,” Cobb says.
More should be known after a case management hearing next week.
The case has already been more than three years in preparation, and details remain as disturbing today as they were in 2008. In September of that year, Arias was arrested for the brutal slaying of Alexander and instantly commanded headlines around the world, especially after details became public.
According to Alexander’s friends, he and Arias met at a conference in Las Vegas in 2007.
Alexander was a 30-year-old motivational speaker and legal-insurance salesman.
Arias, then 28, was living in Yreka, Calif., and was trying to make it as a saleswoman and an independent photographer. The two hit it off and began dating in February 2007.
“Shortly after they began hanging out, his business [and] income began to suffer,” Alexander’s close friend Sky Hughes told The Huffington Post. “She made it impossible for him to live a normal life.”
“My childhood unfortunately was very much like any child’s that had drug addict parents,” he wrote.
“My father was never around, which left my siblings and I to the fate given by my mother. A good woman, with the intent at an early age to be a loving mom. A few poor decisions changed that. As she progressively got more involved in drugs she progressively got less capable of raising children.”
Alexander and his six siblings were eventually taken in by their grandmother. It was through her that he was introduced to the Mormon faith. He maintained that faith into adulthood and became a devout practitioner, something Arias allegedly tried to emulate when they were dating. Alexander’s friends, however, were not convinced by her conversion.
“There was something very off about her. She was extremely obsessed with him,” Hughes said, adding, “She liked him a lot more than he liked her.”
Despite living 400 miles apart, the couple managed to make it work. For a few months, anyway. It was not until after the relationship soured that Arias moved to Mesa. Although no longer dating, the couple maintained a physical relationship.
In 2008, Arias moved back home to Yreka. Nevertheless, she continued to keep a watchful eye on Alexander, Hughes alleged.
“She would break into his email — multiple times — [and] when he began dating another girl, she snuck into the house and watched them sleeping — they had fallen asleep on an oversized bean bag watching a movie,” Hughes said.
“He would be at his girlfriend’s house and someone would knock and run — he knew it was her. His tires were slashed twice and he ‘knew’ it was her. His girlfriend’s tires were slashed, and again he knew it was her … If Travis began talking to a girl or took a girl on a date, it was shortly after that Jodi would friend them on MySpace and began talking to them.”
Hughes added: “To say Jodi was creepy and obsessed with Travis would be a huge understatement.”
Whatever the relationship between Alexander and Arias was, it all ended on June 9, 2008. On that day Alexander’s friends, concerned because they had not heard from him for several days, went to his home in the 11400 block of East Queensborough Ave. It was inside the 4,500-square foot home that they made a horrific discovery.
“A friend of ours is dead in his bedroom. His roommate just went in there and said there’s a lot of blood,” one of Alexander’s friends said in a call to 911.
Asked by the dispatcher if Alexander had “been threatened by anyone” recently, the caller replied: “Yes, he has. He has an ex-girlfriend that’s been bothering him, and following him and slashing tires and things like that.”
When police arrived on the scene, they found Alexander’s naked body inside his standup shower. Advanced decomposition suggested he had been dead for several days. Large amounts of blood were discovered throughout the master bathroom, as well as on the floors, walls and sink area.
It was ultimately discovered that Alexander had been shot in the right brow with a .25-caliber gun — the bullet was found lodged in his left cheek — and had been stabbed 27 times. Someone had also cut his throat from ear to ear. Numerous other injuries to his body suggested Alexander had attempted to fight back, police said.
Investigators found several vital clues inside Alexander’s bedroom and bathroom. A spent .25-caliber shell casing was located on the floor near the sink, a hair and a small latent print in blood was found near the entrance of the bathroom hall, and a digital camera was found in the washing machine in the downstairs laundry room. The camera appeared as though it had been run through the wash cycle.
An examination of Alexander’s cellphone and computer revealed neither device had been used in the past five days.
When questioned by police, Alexander’s friends and family members left no doubt about whom they considered the prime suspect.
“[Arias] was totally obsessed with him,” Hughes said. “She wouldn’t let him go. Whenever he would try to sever all ties, she would threaten to kill herself … He would tell her he didn’t want anything to do with her, and she would show up at his house. We knew it was her. We didn’t want it to be her, but [we] just knew it was.”
The day after Alexander’s body was found, police contacted Arias and questioned her about his murder.
“Jodi stated she last saw Travis in April of 2008,” a police officer wrote in a probable cause document. “She admitted they had been seeing each other as boyfriend and girlfriend for over five months but had officially broken up in June of 2007, after some jealously issues on the part of both of them. After they broke up, they continued to have a sexual relationship, but kept it quiet from people they knew. She said she last spoke to Travis on Tuesday 6-03-08.”
Later that day, at 10:54 p.m., Arias posted the following message to her MySpace page: “misses Travis. See you soon, my friend, but not soon enough.”
Alexander’s friends were devastated by his murder.
“He was a light to his family and friends, and he loved them all very much. His death has left a void in all of our lives,” Hughes said.
“Travis wasn’t perfect — none of us are — but he was a really incredible human being. But when you know where he came from, how he grew up, you couldn’t help but admire him and be in continual awe of all that he accomplished in his short life, as well as his dreams of helping youth that struggle in life.”
On June 17, 2008, Arias went to the Mesa Police Headquarters and was voluntarily fingerprinted. She also gave investigators a sample of her saliva for DNA testing.
While waiting for the lab test results to come back, investigators were notified that several shocking images, some of which had been deleted, were recovered from the memory card of the camera found in Alexander’s washing machine.
The deleted pictures were of Alexander, naked in the shower, just before his death. He appeared to be posing for the photographs; however, other photos, which were dark and grainy, “were of a subject on the floor of the bathroom bleeding profusely,” police said.
Six other photos, time-stamped that same day, allegedly show Arias on Alexander’s bed. According to police, “all were nude pictures,” and in some she was in “provocative sexual poses.”
As a result of the photos, an investigator wrote: “Jodi was lying about not seeing Travis since April of 2008. This also proves that Jodi was the last person I can prove had contact with Travis prior to his death.”
Travis Alexander was laid to rest in Olivewood Memorial Park in Riverside on June 21, 2008. Five days later, investigators were notified that the hair and bloody print found inside Alexander’s home belonged to Arias. DNA typing results also indicated the blood was a mixture of Arias’ and Alexander’s.
Arias celebrated her 29th birthday on July 9, 2008. Unbeknownst to her, a grand jury in California indicted her that same day on first-degree murder charges in the death of Travis Alexander. Six days later, Mesa police detectives and Siskiyou County sheriff’s deputies arrested Arias at her northern California home. Arias was booked in the Siskiyou County Jail on suspicion of first-degree murder. She was held there until September 2008, when she was extradited to Arizona.
Following her arrest, Arias changed her initial story. She admitted she was present when Alexander was murdered, but said his death occurred during a home invasion. Arias said the two were having fun playing with his new camera when things took a sudden turn.
“I heard a really loud pop. And the next thing I remember, I was lying next to the bathtub and Travis was screaming,” Arias said in a 2009 interview with “48 Hours.” “At that point, I sort of was just trying to come around and kind of orientate myself to what was going on,” Arias explained. “And I looked up and I just — I saw two other individuals in the bathroom. And they were both coming toward us.”
The intruders, whom she described as a man and women dressed in black, were armed with a knife and a gun. At one point, she said the man pointed the gun at her but she was miraculously spared.
“He pulled the trigger. And nothing happened with the gun. And so I just grabbed my purse, which was on the floor at that point, and I ran down the stairs and out of there and I left [Travis] there … I pushed past him and — and his gun. And I just didn’t look back.”
Arias said she kept driving and never called police.
“It was — I was terrified. And I was scared for my life. And I think there was a naive belief that I could pretend like it didn’t really happen,” Arias said.
On Tuesday, Arias’ younger sister, Angela Arias, said her sister’s statements during the “48 Hours” interview were lies, and that Alexander’s death was an act of self-defense on her sister’s part during an incidence of domestic violence.
“She was not under oath when she spoke on TV and yes, she lied,” Angela Arias wrote on Facebook after The Huffington Post sent her a request for comment. “But, it was because she was so in love with that man she did not want people to know what a monster he really was. She wanted everyone to believe that he was as amazing as they thought he was.”
Arias’ third story is detailed in recent court documents as part of a request she made to admit electronic copies of letters allegedly written by Alexander between November 27, 2006, and May 27, 2008.
“Defendant had previously attributed the crime to intruders. She now argues that all of the letters must be admitted to support her domestic violence defense,” prosecutors wrote in a motion to preclude the letters. “Defendant argues that the letters are relevant to her claim of self-defense and that she was a victim of previous ‘sexual and physical abuse’ by Mr. Alexander.”
Arias, according to prosecutors, is claiming Alexander “became angry when she dropped his camera” and she was forced to kill him in self-defense. Angela Arias made reference to this defense in a Facebook post Tuesday.
“My sister is innocent of the crime they are accusing her of … She did kill Travis but it was not in cold blood, it was not for revenge, it was because she was afraid for her life,” Angela Arias wrote.
Jodi Arias is also claiming that Alexander admitted in the letters that he was a pedophile. But, according to Cobb, the prosecutor’s office was able to show the letters were not all they were alleged to be.
“They did a scientific examination of the letters and concluded they had been forged,” Cobb told The Huffington Post.
Drama in the case continued in August, when Arias told Judge Sherry Stephens of Maricopa County Superior Court that she wanted to represent herself.
“Do you have any experience?” Stephens asked. “Do you have a law license? Have you even read the statute you’re accused of?”
Arias answered “no” to each question.
Nevertheless, Stephens granted the request but had her public defenders, Victoria Washington and Kirk Nurmi, remain on as advisory council.
Less than a week later, Arias’ request to have Alexander’s alleged letters admitted into evidence was denied. Afterwards, Arias told Judge Stephens she was “over her head.” The judge then reinstated her defense counsel.
While the latest monkey wrench — the turnover in defense council — will delay the case even longer, more drama is likely to come, according to Pat Brown, founder of the Pat Brown Criminal Profiling Agency.
“Jodi Arias exhibits a good deal of psychopathic traits in her behaviors,” Brown told The Huffington Post. “When she was getting her mug shot taken, she explained her smiling demeanor as a result of ruminating over what Travis would think of the situation.”
Brown added: “She employs a distorted mirror image in explaining how someone else would view the situation. It isn’t that Jodi Arias is psychotic and disconnected from reality; it is that only her reality matters … Arias is an actor in her own drama and as long as she is clapping for her performance, she is happy. If convicted of murder, I can guarantee Jodi Arias will have a great time in prison, amusing herself quite nicely as she moves on to Act Two.”
Hughes agreed with Brown.
“The bottom line is Jodi Arias went to Arizona to kill Travis Alexander,” she said. “After she slaughtered him, she immediately began trying to cover her tracks. She is a despicable human being and evidently hasn’t found enough satisfaction [in] slaughtering Travis. Now she is set on ruining his name with disgusting and abhorrent lies. If you knew Travis, you would realize how heartbreaking it is to watch and listen to what she is doing to him.”
Hughes said that she hopes prosecutors succeed in getting the death penalty for Arias.
“I can’t think of anything scarier than her being let out,” Hughes said. “She would date again — someone’s son, brother, friend. She slaughtered an innocent person because he didn’t want to be with her. She has no soul, no accountability. As long as she is alive, those she has contact with are not safe. She is extremely evil, and she deserves the death penalty.”
“Sexual assaults are serious crimes, therefore, victims should not report false sexual assault claims.
Regrettable sex, absent or late for muster with a rape excuse, caught cheating on your spouse or significant other, or becoming pregnant by someone you do not want to be the father of your child are not excuses to report rape and are unacceptable.” +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NCIS Aims to Prevent Sexual Assault
December 29, 2011
NORFOLK — In an effort to bring attention to the sexual assault prevention awareness campaign, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) issued important guidelines and tips on how individuals can report and prevent sexual assault crimes through NCIS’ Crime Reduction Program, Dec. 26.
The increased prevention awareness campaign is a proactive effort to reduce sexual assaults across the Department of the Navy. NCIS Special Agent Leatrice DeBruhl-Daniels is assigned as the FY12-1st quarter campaign representative for Hampton Roads.
Sexual assault is defined as sexual abuse of an individual by the use of force, threat, or intimidation. Rape, sodomy, sexual battery and attempts to commit these crimes are examples of sexual assault offenses.
Sexual assaults are more prevalent with those who recently enlisted or are away from home for the first time. In many cases, the situations involve alcohol.
Sexual assault crimes are not necessarily isolated on-base. Crimes may also occur in other jurisdictions where local police departments may assume the case – NCIS is still notified.
In the Department of Defense Fiscal Year 2010 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military, there were 2,617 service members who reported they had been a victim of sexual assault.
Sexual consent must be freely given by a competent person and you cannot force anyone to have sex at any time.
“There is no such thing as drunken consent,” said DeBruhl-Daniels. “Drugs and alcohol will impair a person’s judgment and may increase sexual desire, therefore, a person’s actions may be misunderstood when they are intoxicated. Do what is right morally. If you violate a person’s rights and have sex with them without their permission, you may be subject to charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) Article 120.”
NAVADMIN 122/11 reinforces Navy’s “zero tolerance” sexual assault policy and directs active support from all Sailors – from the deck plates to the blue tile – to successfully eliminate this egregious act from the ranks.
The Navy averages 1.5 reported sexual assaults per day, with aggravated sexual assault accounting for the largest category of offenses reported. Female Sailors have a 20 percent chance of being sexually assaulted during their careers, and the younger they are, the greater the risk of sexual assault.
Under UCMJ Article 120, sexual act crimes, such as rape and aggravated sexual assault, carry very high penalties. Rape itself under the UCMJ can carry a death penalty and the maximum punishment for aggravated sexual assault is 30 years.
“When there is a report of sexual assault, commands are required to report it almost immediately to NCIS,” said Cmdr. Frank D. Hutchison, staff judge advocate.
Once NCIS completes their investigation, the case is turned over to the command for disposition.
“Typically, commands will forward the investigative facts to RLSO for analysis of its prosecutorial merit,” said Hutchison. “… based on the investigation, [we determine] whether there is a case that can be prosecuted under courts-martial or whether it should be handled at a different level. For the vast majority of sexual assault cases, courts-martial is the appropriate forum. Then at that point, RLSO is the prosecution office, and they work hand-in-hand with NCIS from that stage on.”
Victims have a choice of reporting preference as either restricted or unrestricted. Victims who choose to use restricted reporting are only allowed to talk to a victim advocate, sexual assault response coordinator, chaplain or healthcare provider. This ensures that no one without confidentiality knows the details about the case, and it remains confidential until the case is reported to law enforcement, or NCIS, at which time it will automatically become an unrestricted report.
An unrestricted report allows victims to legally pursue the perpetrator. In this option, NCIS, local law enforcement and the command are notified that you are a victim of sexual assault. The command is restricted from conducting their own investigation on the matter, but they will be notified that the event occurred.
Time is of the essence when you have a sexual assault crime, especially if alcohol or some sort of drug influence is involved. The victim should contact NCIS as quickly as possible to investigate their level of consent. Victims should not be afraid of reporting a sexual assault crime to NCIS. Keeping the victim safe is NCIS’ main priority in sexual assault cases. Victims will be notified of key steps within the investigation from case initiation to case closure.
Sexual assaults are serious crimes, therefore, victims should not report false sexual assault claims.
Regrettable sex, absent or late for muster with a rape excuse, caught cheating on your spouse or significant other, or becoming pregnant by someone you do not want to be the father of your child are not excuses to report rape and are unacceptable.
If you or someone you know is in need of help, contact the NCIS hotline at (877) 579-3648 or the Sexual Assault Hotline at (800) 656-HOPE (4673). For more information about sexual assault prevention and response, visit www.sapr.mil/.
Tips on prevention:
* Drink responsibly.
* Have a designated driver
* Know your drinking limits.
* Use a “buddy system” before going out and have a plan.
* Remove your buddy from a risky situation.
* Always be safe
Abused Man Urged to Get Help and Stop Suffering in Silence
Abigail Van Buren
December 22, 2011
DEAR ABBY: On Oct. 19 you printed a letter from “Bruised and Abused,” a man who is dating a woman who becomes physically violent when they argue. I know this is a touchy subject. I have heard from authorities that about half of domestic violence occurs when a woman throws the first blow.
Most women believe, as the abusive girlfriend said, that her attack on him isn’t violence because she’s a woman and he is a man. As difficult as it may be, we need to talk about the role women play in the domestic violence cycle as well as the responsibilities of men. I’m saving the letter from “Bruised” to remind me. — DONALD, A CALIFORNIA DENTIST
DEAR DONALD: Since I printed that letter I have heard from readers telling me my answer didn’t go far enough. (I advised him to end the relationship.) Among those who wrote to me were doctors, members of law enforcement and mental health specialists — as well as former victims. My newspaper readers comment:
DEAR ABBY: Because we are bigger and stronger does not mean we don’t get abused. I was abused by my former wife and an ex-girlfriend before I recognized it for what it was and got myself the help I needed. Nobody else was there for me.
If she is hitting him, he needs to call the police. If he has marks on him, she will go to jail. Men are too often ashamed to call the police because men think it reflects on their manhood. However, they need to put that shame aside and get the help they need. — JOE IN MISSOURI
DEAR ABBY: I’m a retired cop. “Bruised” asked you if what his girlfriend is doing is domestic abuse. Your reply did not mention that his girlfriend hitting him is domestic abuse. It doesn’t matter if the abuser is male or female, nor the size of the victim.
“Bruised” should call the cops and report this before she goads him into a response that gets him arrested. The courts can mandate the therapy she apparently needs. — RUSS IN HELENA, MONT.
DEAR ABBY: I was a victim. People asked me why I didn’t fight back. I wasn’t raised to hit women.
In the end, my wife put me in the hospital twice and left me blind in my left eye. She spent nine months in jail for everything that happened.
Violence is violence regardless of who is throwing the punches. Tell that man he needs to get out now! God forbid he ends up dead. — BATTERED IN ARIZONA
DEAR ABBY: It doesn’t matter if he is a boy and she is a girl, or that he is bigger and stronger. Women do abuse men. It’s a crime that too often goes unreported. He should contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline (800) 799-7233 or SAFE (Stop Abuse for Everyone) at www.safe4all.org. — CLAUDIA, Ph.D., LONG BEACH, CALIF.
DEAR ABBY: I agree with you that the man needs to leave “Carmen.” But something he wrote in his letter concerns me. He said, “I don’t want to end the relationship, but I think it’s the only way I can make her see things from my perspective.”
This indicates to me that he thinks he can “teach her a lesson” by breaking up with her, and that this would stop her behavior. That would be a huge misconception on his part.
Carmen’s behavior isn’t something that can be modified through a breakup. It is something that will require intense counseling to correct, if it can be corrected at all. The boyfriend needs to end things for good — and run like the wind! — BRUCE IN HOUSTON
DEAR ABBY: Domestic abuse isn’t just male-on-female. It is very often female-on-male, and partner-on-partner in homosexual relationships. “Bruised and Abused” needs to notify the police, get a restraining order and stay away. — STUDENT NURSE IN CHAPEL HILL
A Minot woman was arrested on a domestic violence charge early Sunday morning after she allegedly struck another Minot woman with a folding chair.
According to police, officers responded to a call of two women fighting outside a residence in the 1300 block of Third Street Northeast around 1:50 a.m.
Upon arrival, officers made contact with Mindy Marie Emmel, 21, and a 40-year-old woman who had allegedly been struck in the left side of her head with a folding chair by Emmel. Police said the assault was a continuation of an earlier fight between the two at the Landing Bar.
The victim refused medical treatment. Emmel was arrested on a charge of simple assault-domestic violence, a misdemeanor.
Chatham-Kent police arrested a man and a woman following an alleged domestic dispute in Chatham Monday night. When officers attended an apartment on Richmond Street around 10 p.m., they reported seeing through a front window that a woman was on top of a man, punching him in the head.
The man had a large cut on his head and was covered in blood.
During attempts to place the couple under arrest, both accused kicked officers and the man spat blood in one’s face.
A 39-year-old Chatham woman was charged with assault, obstructing police, and two counts of assaulting a peace officer.
A 43-year-old Dover Township man was charged with two counts of assault with the intent to resist arrest.
One of first-wave feminism’s great achievements in the 1970s was to end the denial surrounding wife abuse in even the “best” homes. Resources for abused women proliferated. Traditional social, judicial and political attitudes toward violence against women were cleansed and reconstructed along feminist-designed lines.
But then a funny thing happened. The closet from which abuse victims were emerging had, everyone assumed, been filled with women. But honest researchers were surprised by the results of their own objective inquiries. They were all finding, independently, that intimate partner violence (IPV) is mostly bidirectional.
But by then the IPV domain was awash in heavily politicized stakeholders. Even peer-reviewed community-based studies providing politically incorrect conclusions were cut off at the pass, their researchers’ names passed over for task force appointments and the writing of training manuals for the judiciary. Neither were internal whistle-blowers suffered gladly. Erin Pizzey, who opened the first refuge for battered women in England in 1971, was “disappeared” from the feminist movement when she revealed what she learned in her own shelter: She committed a heresy by asking women about their own violence, and they told her.
The most extreme IPV is certainly male-on-female, but hard-core batterers and outright killers are rare. In violence of the mild to moderately severe variety that constitutes most of IPV — shoving, slapping, hitting, punching, throwing objects, even stabbing and burning — both genders initiate and cause harm in equal measure.
Every major survey has borne out this truth. In fact, the most reliable, like Canada’s 1999 General Social Survey, found not only that most male and female violence is reciprocal, but also that the younger the sample, the more violent the women relative to men. A meta-analysis of mor than 80 large-scale surveys notes a widening, and concerning, spread — less male and more female IPV — in the dating cohort.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has just published its National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey to great fanfare. The survey’s central finding is — yep — that men and women inflict and suffer equal rates of IPV, with 6.5% of men and 6.3% of women experiencing partner aggression in the past year. More men (18%) suffer psychological aggression (humiliation, threats of violence, controllingness) than women (14%). Feminists often define IPV as a “pattern of power and control,” but the survey finds that men were 50% more likely to have experienced coercive control than women (15.2% vs 10.7%).
(While the CDC survey does not reference Canadian data, our IPV statistics vary significantly from the U.S.’s in certain respects. “Minor” wife assault rates as measured on the commonly employed Conflict Tactics Scale are identical, but “severe violence” rates in Canada fall as the violence ratchets up. For “kicking” and “hitting,” Canadian rates were 80% of the American rate; for “beat up,” they were 25%; and for “threatened with or used a gun/knife,” they were only 17%.)
By now there is no excuse for the failure of governments at all levels to follow through on — or at least acknowledge — the settled science of bilateral violence. Yet just last week the Justice Institute of British Columbia issued a lengthy report on “Domestic Violence Prevention and Reduction,” and sure enough, it defines domestic violence as “intimate partner violence against women,” recommending only that government work “to bridge gaps in the services and systems designed to protect women and children.”
In Rethinking Domestic Violence (2006), his third in a series of comprehensive interdisciplinary reviews of IPV and related criminal justice research, University of British Columbia psychology professor Don Dutton cuts through the politicized clutter in this domain. Dutton concludes that personality disorder, culture and a background of family dysfunction, not gender, are the best predictors of partner violence. To further IPV harm reduction, Dutton recommends individual psychological treatment or couples therapy to replace the ideology-inspired thought-reform model, imposed only on male abusers, that has been common (and largely ineffective) practice for many years.
Ironically, and unjustly, abused men today are where women were 60 years ago: their ill-treatment is ignored, trivialized or mocked; there are virtually no funded resources for them; and they are expected to suffer partner violence in silence. Which most of them do.
Who will have the courage to bell this politically correct cat? When will revenge end and fairness begin?
FBI to Change Definition of ‘Rape’ for the First Time Since 1929
Activists say the old definition undercounted sexual assaults and discouraged reporting
Rheana Murray
December 8, 2011
The FBI’s definition of “rape” is about to get a long-awaited update, for the first time since 1929.
The revamped description will be broader, pleasing activists who say the current definition leads to the low-balling of sexual assault cases, and also discourages victims to come forward.
An agency panel voted on Tuesday to change the narrow definition that’s currently in use: “Carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.”
The new definition, which will more closely match the ones that police departments around the country already use, will remove the word “forcible,” along with several other amendments.
Rape will now include sex attacks by relatives, and include non-traditional penetration.
According to the FBI’s website, the proposed new definition is “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”
These changes are crucial, according to women’s rights advocates.
Carol Tracy, executive director of the Women’s Law Project, said the modifications will “better inform the public about the prevalence of serious sex crimes and will ultimately drive more resources to apprehend sex offenders,” according to the HuffingtonPost.com.
The modifications will also allow law enforcement agencies to better report the number of rape cases they encounter. As long as the current definition stands, accurately accounting for rapes is tricky.
“We prosecute by one criteria, but we report by another criteria,” said Steve Anderson, chief of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, to the New York Times. “The only people who have a true picture of what’s going on are the people in the sex-crimes unit.”
The agency’s decision comes after several women’s rights campaigns, including one by the “Rape is Rape” foundation, which bombarded the FBI with tens of thousands of emails, all urging to change rape’s definition.
“It’s a great victory,” said Eleanor Smeal, president of Feminist Majority Foundation, which launched the campaign.
“This new definition will mean that, at long last, we will begin to see the full scope of this horrific violence, and that understanding will carry through to increased attention and resources for prevention and action.”
While the panel overwhelming accepted the recommendation, the new definition is still awaiting approval by FBI director Robert Mueller.
