Domestic Violence And Crazy Girlfriend In Florida

Hi scared
Your situation just sucks and I'm sorry to hear that you have to go thru this. Get a GREAT lawyer, not an average one.

In this case...when you get the "b" out of your hive, don't take her back.

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Quoting Scared08

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Yet another question:

What's the deal with this temperary injunction she's filed? Why is it she can freely call all over town searching for me last night, finally find me at my hotel, and call my room.... yet I cant call, write, email or be within 500 feet of her at any given moment??? Not even to check to make sure my babies (dogs) are being fed and doing ok....

Did anyone bring their thinking cap today? I sure could use some advice...

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If you do not want her to call or harass you, you have to file a restraining order on her. In that order ask for visitation of the pets.

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Quoting Scared08

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I've done my research over the last week, and let me tell you... I am appauled at the fact that there are 7 completely different organizations within this county and the surrounding counties, that will come to the aid of only a woman in this situation... or the situation my soon to be forgotten live in girlfriend is in, but not a single hint of an organization that will cater to only a man. I would think that anyone, regardless of race, religion or sex, would also be dissapointed to learn this.

What has this beautiful country we all live in and refer to as "The Land of The Free and Home of The Brave" become? Should we really continue to pride ourselves on this phrase we claim as our own? From one American to another... the confidence I feel, in living my own life within this country is slowly deminishing.

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Missy and others have given great advice - so I'll just give a few comments on this section.

Having worked as an advocate in a domestic violence program here in Florida, (and with hundreds of OTHER shelters across the country via my organization), I completely understand your frustration and feeling that only women get services. HOWEVER, that's not actually the case in MOST places. Women and children DO get to reside in the emergency shelters, because quite frankly they treat the shelter like home, running around in their underwear (or less) and it's excessively unwise to have men living with lots of under-supervised children. There have also been too many cases of abusers pretending to be victims, just to gain access to the shelter to find their ex (one successfully gained access to a shelter last year and shot his ex and a shelter worker). Shelters are run not only like prisons - but secret prisons at that - with MASSIVE amounts of security - and the dynamic of mixing genders won't work (remember these aren't hotels - most are shelters are buildings converted from some prior use - and the most common layout is a big room with lots of bunk beds - some are even just single family homes in the middle of some neighborhood).

Now with that said, most programs DO make their services available to men - but the process is a little different. Remember, at the scene of a crime, the POLICE are usually the ones who suggest shelter in the first place, they are the ones who call ahead, find space, and transport the victim and any children involved. It's VERY rare that a non-profit program has transportation available, due to expense and liability issues and safety issues for the advocates themselves. In our program, no victim could ever approach the shelter on their own. They HAD to go to the police department and the police would escort them or they would follow the police in their own car to the shelter - AFTER the officer confirmed their identity. Why? Because ONE time of an abuser getting his sister to act like a victim so he could "come along to help carry her stuff" in order to hunt down his victim was enough.

So when we had male victims, we had them do the same thing - they went to the police department and one of our advocates went to them. If shelter was one of their needs, we either provided taxi service to a friend or family member (just like we would do with a woman), or we'd put them up in a hotel as our budget would allow (or the local general men's shelter when it didn't since we had "priority" agreements to get our referrals in) - and they were able to receive the same counseling, legal advocacy, court accompanyment, crime victim compensation, and case management as the women - they just received the service at our administrative offices instead of under the shelter roof.

The key phrase in all of the above is "as the budget would allow". If anyone doubts that 90+ percent of non-grant funding for domestic violence programs comes from women (in particular sororities, girl scout troops, the local women's Lions Clubs, the women's auxilary of local churches, etc.), contact your local program or look up their 990's or annual reports online and SEE where the money that supports the programs comes from. There HAVE actually been four different full domestic violence shelters for men that I'm aware of (2 in California, one in Denver, and the 4th escapes me at the moment) - but they all had one thing in common: not only did they get almost ZERO funding from men, but the one in Denver had exactly TWO clients in a year. How can you justify running a whole program (buying a shelter, paying a staff, etc.) for two clients? You can't. It folded. They all folded. There even used to be a national domestic violence hotline specifically for men (run by a woman, actually), that is now "unisex". Same scenario.

I can't begin to guess if this dynamic is because many men are too macho or too embarassed to seek help, or if the problem is exactly the same as the problem that women face: everyone wants services once THEY are the one in crisis - but never once in their life did THEY do anything to support that cause or ensure that services would be available. Shelters get full. Fire codes say that you can only have so many people sleeping on the floor (yep, we had to do that a LOT). Resources are limited so the most serious and dangerous cases get priority and let's face it - statistically speaking, women aren't the ones who go to the ends of the earth to hunt and gun down their ex's. Biased, yes - but factual. (Men are also more likely to have control of financial resources and NOT be burdened with children, so they typically have a greater number of options available.), and THAT is the bottom line of why DV programs - the shelter based programs in particular, cater to women.

But if I get 100 or so emails in a week, about half of them are from men, and those get the same attention and service that the ones from women get (and sometimes no indication is given either way).

If the programs in your area are specifically telling you that they refuse to provide service to you because you are male, get ahold of their 990's or annual reports and find out who is funding them and complain. Or volunteer to be on their board of directors and change it from the inside. Or tell your congressman or the big wigs at your town's foundations to fund a program for men. Or write to Tiffany Carr, Executive Director of the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence and make a formal complaint and put someone on the spot. Or call those programs and specifically ask to speak to their executive director and find out if this is their program's policy, or if someone was just trying to brush you off (remember a lot of shelters use volunteers with minimal training to answer the phone and it wouldn't be unheard of for a volunteer to just assume they should turn you down based on gender - you might be the only man that's ever called them for service as noted above).

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Quoting aardvarc

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Now with that said, most programs DO make their services available to men - but the process is a little different. Remember, at the scene of a crime, the POLICE are usually the ones who suggest shelter in the first place, they are the ones who call ahead, find space, and transport the victim and any children involved. It's VERY rare that a non-profit program has transportation available, due to expense and liability issues and safety issues for the advocates themselves. In our program, no victim could ever approach the shelter on their own. They HAD to go to the police department and the police would escort them or they would follow the police in their own car to the shelter - AFTER the officer confirmed their identity. Why? Because ONE time of an abuser getting his sister to act like a victim so he could "come along to help carry her stuff" in order to hunt down his victim was enough.

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As an informative note on this area, this is quite the opposite in California. The police might make a call, but it will be a program staffer or volunteer that usually makes the arrangements for housing or transportation (unless you are in one of the three out of 58 counties that do NOT have DV programs ... like mine). There are a number of reasons for this, not the least of which appears to be that the presence of the police at the shelter can tend to "dime off" the shelter's location to neighbors and to suspects. I heard of one such stalker once that chased officer's (by scanner) to DV calls in the hopes of following the police to the shelter assuming they would transport someone to the same one his ex was in.

Obviously, this may vary by state and jurisdiction, but out here most arrangements are made by the shelter staff or volunteers and the police rarely conduct transportation. Also, many programs out here DO allow victims to approach them independently. However, they will usually make them report any physical violence to the police before services are provided. Non-violent "abuse" is outside the realm of CA's criminal statutes, so they won't usually call us for those.

Though I recall getting really suspicious at one shelter program when every victim used virtually the same wording and quoted the 273.5 (felony DV) statute almost verbatim when making their statement. As it turned out, staffers coached the victims what to say and how to say it ... it became quite a stink until they straightened things out.

In any event, thought you might be interested to know that CA often does it a little differently. I have no idea how it works in other states, though.

- Carl

UPDATE:
She phoned a friend of mine back in my home town and claimed she was going to vacate my home on 4-5-08 and call the sherrifs office and let them know she was leaving my dogs there. (inside dogs)

She also claims she wants to drop all the charges, but doesn't know how. Now, I am playing it cool... I'm not speaking to her, nor am I requesting anyone else talk to her, but I have said things to this friend of mine whom she is speaking to regularly, knowing some things will be repeated.

I know her well enough to know now that she has calmed down, it most likely has hit her as to exactly what she has done here. This friend of mine said "She is going to call the sherrif and see what she can do about dropping the charges, but she doesnt know how without getting herself in trouble for filing a false report." Is there any way around this for her? I'm in no way protecting her! At this point I could'nt care less... however, if it's true that she wants to do these things, I'm willing to do whatever it takes to help her along. I mean... this gives me my life back, right?

I'm still curious about the above quote... any advice? It's Sunday, I'm in the office... and cant get legal rep. until tomorrow. But rest assured, I will have some type of legal representation. However, on the temperary injunction, I most likely will not. I've been told being as how she has vacated the property, and informed a sherrif of this, and the call was documented, I should just be able to get my home back. The 500 feet distance from her, well I couldn't care less if I ever see her again.

Advice on what?

She may want the charges dropped, but it isn't in her hands anymore.

It is not unusual for an alleged victim to want to change their story.

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Quoting cdwjava

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As an informative note on this area, this is quite the opposite in California. The police might make a call, but it will be a program staffer or volunteer that usually makes the arrangements for housing or transportation ...Obviously, this may vary by state and jurisdiction, but out here most arrangements are made by the shelter staff or volunteers and the police rarely conduct transportation.

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Good points Carl - thanks so much for your response. Things are certainly different not only from state to state, but even county to county within a state. In my county, we're fortunate to have the sheriff as a member of the domestic violence agency's "Founder's Council" and after a record-setting number of deaths several years ago, (and the subsequent formation of a domestic violence task force and fatality review board) it's now standing policy for our deputies and most city officers that for a "just occurred" crime of domestic violence, deputies will bring victims to the shelter if no other safe arrangements can be made (or at least get them to us for safety reasons UNTIL those arrangements can be made). If no particular incident has spurred a victim to seek help (ie law enforcement isn't on scene), our order of events is very similar to yours - we certainly don't anticipate law enforcement to suddenly become a taxi service, I was just specifically addressing situations where either arrest or capias was a done deal and a victim was in immediate crisis. Outside of immediate crisis, we too would expect victims to make their own arrangements to get to us to start the intake process. (Our shelter at that time was directly across the street from law enforcement so it was kind of a "we saw them before they saw us" dynamic where we could size things up before disclosing that they were already there.)

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Also, many programs out here DO allow victims to approach them independently. However, they will usually make them report any physical violence to the police before services are provided. Non-violent "abuse" is outside the realm of CA's criminal statutes, so they won't usually call us for those.

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A lot of programs work this way - and personally, I hate it. Now I'm 100% for accountability, don't get me wrong, and I "get it" that the thinking is that it will force victims to participate in providing accountability for the offender - getting the prosecution ball rolling via the filing of a police report. But the reality of what happens is that victims will refuse service, leaving 5 minutes into the intake interview to return home rather than file a report against the abuser and making things "official". Now they've substantially increased their risk for additional violence (because they left or reached out for help) but haven't benefitted from the receipt of services. Too often the dynamic when you force people into "all or none" situations is that they choose "none" - and end up going from a social services problem to the coroner's problem. One of the things that fatality review boards do as part of their official duties is intense investigation into TO WHOM and HOW did the victim reach out, and how did the responses received (or not received) contribute to circumstances surrounding the fatality. The "all or none" methodology shows up more often than anyone would like to admit. So at least for our program, we STRONGLY suggest the filing of a police report, but we're adamant that services will be provided regardless. Quite often, once they get into a mental place where they realize that they can make it without the abuser, the refusal to file will soften - I guess it's the "you catch more bees with honey" dynamic. (And just as a side note, a lot of times when a report is a prerequesite for ANY type of social service, it's tied to making someone's stats look better for grant reporting, which pisses me off.)

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Though I recall getting really suspicious at one shelter program when every victim used virtually the same wording and quoted the 273.5 (felony DV) statute almost verbatim when making their statement. As it turned out, staffers coached the victims what to say and how to say it ... it became quite a stink until they straightened things out.

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That's really scary. It SHOULD cause a stink, it's rather akin to witness tampering, at a fundamental level. I'd think it points to either burnout on the part of the program workers (jaded and willing to paint outside the lines to "win") or it's a lack of training (or too much crappy training). Just out of curiousity, how or what changed to "straighten things out"? I'd like to address this in one of my future articles for advocates.

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Quoting aardvarc

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Just out of curiousity, how or what changed to "straighten things out"? I'd like to address this in one of my future articles for advocates.

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The short version was that my agency and the DA's office threatened to prosecute for witness tampering or encouraging people to file false reports if the practice was not immediately addressed. Training was changed and advocates were no longer supposed to discuss the victims' statement to police. They had been coached by a small number of counselors that they needed to tell the police that they were injured and had a "complaint of pain" to some part of their body as that was the legal standard at the time for 273.5. Imagine my surprise to hear those words so often ... "He slapped me in the face and I had a 'complaint of pain'." I mean, who says it that way?! This was also back in the days before PC 243(e)(1) and our ability to arrest for a misdemeanor DV not committed in our presence, so we needed either a felony allegation or a citizen's arrest.

It was kept relatively informal, I believe, because they did not want word to leak to defense attorneys that this had happened, because it might force every case that went first to this or one of the other DV advocacy programs in San Diego County to undergo intense and time-consuming examination.

I was not privy to the details as I was only line staff when this came to pass, but as I understand it the internal training program was changed and either a police or a DA representative was brought in to help with their training of staff.

Oddly, that county had a variety of programs ... where I live and work now we have none.

- Carl