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domestic violence

    PREVENTION

    To Stop Domestic Violence, ‘Just Keep Talking About It’

    Advocates raise voices against the silence of abuse

    By

    Shirley Smith, co-founder of the Outer Cape Committee Against Domestic Abuse (OCCADA), was in court helping a woman who had asked the judge to order additional child support from her former husband. The judge looked at the well-dressed woman before him and said, “Why? You will just spend it on clothes.”

    That was 15 years ago. Smith, who is 86, is still seething.

    “This woman was tall and elegant and had a great sense of style,” she recalled.

    Shirley Smith, founder of the Outer Cape Committee Against Domestic Abuse, near her home in Chatham. (Photo courtesy Shirley Smith)

    Smith and Martha Ingrum, another OCCADA founder, were not going to stand for that. The pair worked with George Ellison — a retired Vermont district court judge and the committee’s only man — to get that judge recused from the case, and they succeeded.

    It was a small victory. The judge, whom Smith would not name because “I may have to appear before him one day,” is still on the bench, she said.

    Independence House, the Cape’s main advocacy organization against domestic and sexual violence, will hold an all-day free Prevention Conference on Friday, Oct. 1 (register at independencehouse.org) to kick off a new wave of activism on the Cape, said Chris Morin, Independence House’s director of prevention.

    Domestic violence thrives in an atmosphere of secrecy and isolation, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic, advocates said.

    They worry about what has been happening behind closed doors. Friday’s conference will be the first since 2018.

    Difficult Data

    The police in three of the four Outer Cape towns report that the number of domestic abuse calls they received in 2020 decreased. This includes calls that lead to arrests as well as other calls, such as those seeking police help with filing for a restraining order.

    The Provincetown police received 48 domestic disturbance calls in 2020, down from 58 calls in both 2019 and 2018. In Wellfleet, 24 such calls were recorded in 2020, compared to 37 in 2019 and 42 in 2018. The Eastham police received 37 calls in 2020, a drop from 51 in 2019 and 72 in 2018.

    Only the Truro police responded to more calls last year: there were 53 in 2020, versus 49 in 2019 and 36 in 2018.

    But it is hard to interpret these numbers, said Wellfleet Police Chief Michael Hurley, because domestic violence is often “captured at other venues,” such as in school, at a partner’s workplace, or through counseling sessions.

    “And, in 2020, people didn’t want cops at the house, bringing the virus to their doors,” Hurley added. “Also, the courts claim they were open — but it was not very welcoming.” That’s why some advocates think the amount of domestic violence did not decline, despite the drop in the number of calls.

    The conference this week will focus on policy changes in schools and workplaces, and also on the intersection between domestic violence, sexism, and racism.

    “We have clients who are not taken seriously in the court,” Morin said. “Patriarchy is still very much alive. Domestic violence is an epidemic — so, why hasn’t any form of prevention stopped it? There is a lot of evidence that women’s voices are not heard, especially Black women’s voices.”

    Smith said that, 28 years ago, when she and five other women from the Outer Cape started OCCADA, they got almost no attention in court. A group member would often sit with the victim who appeared before the judge.

    “They were very patronizing to us,” Smith said. “We were ‘a bunch of women.’ ”

    As soon as Judge Ellison joined the group, however, “People sat up and listened,” Smith said.

    Over the years, the committee enlisted many local police officers to serve as board members, among them former Wellfleet Police Sgt. Arthur “Arty” Parker and former Truro Police Chief Kyle Takakjian.

    Advocacy Group Emerges

    Smith helped form OCCADA in 1993 while working in Truro with her longtime boyfriend, the late Richard Aiken, at Jack’s Gas. They sold gas, and then just firewood — but always frozen Milky Ways — until 2006. For many, it was a place to sit and talk with Aiken and Smith. “It was like being a bartender or a hairdresser,” Smith said. “People really opened up.”

    When a member of her own family said she was being abused, Smith discovered there were no domestic violence resources in Truro. That’s when she called on Martha Ingrum, Anika Costa, Martha Nagy, Roberta Lema, and Peggotty Gilson to form the group with her. Ellison soon joined. He died in 2012, and most of the remaining board members are elderly. “We do need younger members,” Smith said.

    Silent Suffering

    Domestic violence is almost as intractable as it was 30 years ago, professionals say. Eastham Police Lt. Robert “Gus” Schnitzer said domestic calls are the most dangerous because of the passions and complexity involved.

    Schnitzer said he has responded to one home more than 20 times, and he warns against complacency in such situations. That next call, he said, may be the one where the victim is finally ready to leave.

    Staff at Independence House “gathered” virtually for sexual assault prevention in April 2020. (Photo courtesy Independence House)

    “Some of these people think, if the cops come, my life is over anyway,” said Schnitzer. “My partner is done with me, the kids hate me, and I will lose my job. So, they think they have nothing to lose.” In this scenario, they may consider “death by cop,” he added — that is, attempting to commit suicide by provoking an officer.

    Still, police response has changed radically since the 1990s. Up until then, Schnitzer said, most cops had to be pressed even to write up a report on a domestic violence call, which they would often misclassify as a “fight.”

    Now, the police reports are extensive, and the “preferred response” is to arrest the aggressor, Schnitzer said.

    But the cases often fall apart in court because, in the end, the victim won’t testify against her or his spouse. Judges need to wake up to the complexities of such cases, Smith said. They still assign perpetrators to mandatory 12-step groups, wrongly believing that substance abuse is the root cause of domestic violence. Because of this, Smith believes lifetime judicial appointments in Massachusetts should be eliminated.

    What can the public do? Talk about it and raise awareness.

    “I remember at one point,” Smith said, “I was really getting discouraged and Arty Parker said, ‘Shirl, just keep talking about it. That is what the abusers don’t want.’ ”

    TRUE CRIME

    Finding Amato Dangerous, Judge Denies Bail

    Defense minimizes violence with a well-worn argument

    By

    ORLEANS — At an Oct. 8 dangerousness hearing, Orleans District Court Judge Robert A. Welsh ordered Joseph Amato, 45, of Provincetown, held without bail at the Barnstable County Correctional Facility for 120 days.

    Welsh’s ruling represents the strongest legal action taken against Amato or his husband, Christian Peters, to date. For more than a decade, the two men have been embroiled in a cycle of domestic abuse; they’ve accumulated nine case files and 13 varied iterations of assault charges dating back to July 2010.

    But despite the severity and frequency of their mutual violence, Amato and Peters have managed to evade conviction in every instance. Time and again, prosecution has been halted by the exercise of their marital privilege: an evidentiary exception protecting one spouse from being forced to testify against the other.

    Now, though, may have come a turning point.

    Provincetown police most recently arrested Amato on Sept. 30, after Peters reported that Amato had stabbed him in the neck. The police found a broken, bloodied bottle on the scene, and Peters was airlifted to Mass. General Hospital in Boston. Amato was charged with domestic assault and battery, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury, and two unrelated drug offenses.

    Until now, Amato and Peters have faced misdemeanors. Assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury, though, is a felony. That offered the district attorney’s office the chance to request a 58A petition.

    In the event of a felony charge, the commonwealth can request that a defendant be detained for 120 days, without bail, as he awaits trial. The success of the petition hinges on a dangerousness hearing, in which a judge decides whether a defendant poses a danger to his victim or to the community — and, accordingly, whether to release him or keep him in custody.

    At Amato’s Oct. 8 hearing, prosecutors submitted each of the previous police reports as evidence, then played a recording of Peters’s Sept. 30 911 call for the court.

    Peters informed the dispatcher that “my husband stabbed my neck.” He repeated himself, through sobs, for just over eight minutes.

    But defense attorney Scott Gleason of Haverhill argued that Amato had not, in fact, stabbed his husband. Gleason asked Peters — who sat in the back of the courtroom, next to Amato’s mother and cousin — to display his neck wound to the court.

    “I think anyone can see it’s not a stab wound,” said Gleason. “What I would suggest to the court is there was a fall to the floor. That’s the only way I would suggest that someone could have sustained this injury, is in the process of a fall.”

    Gleason said that Peters — who, on the night of the incident, told the dispatcher and police officers on the scene that Amato had stabbed him — agreed with this version of events.

    “Mr. Peters insists there was no act of any stabbing,” said the lawyer. “He’s described to me that he took a piece of glass and pulled it out from behind his head. He didn’t know what it was. It just started to bleed.”

    Domestic violence is a crime notoriously difficult to prosecute in large part because victims who were willing initially to be transparent with police often change their stories to protect their abusers, said Ann Burke, a violence recovery program advocate at Fenway Health, a Boston-based LGBTQ+ health care provider.

    Physical violence between intimate partners, said Burke, usually comes on the heels of a campaign of intimidation, isolation, financial manipulation, and emotional abuse, all of which make a victim feel like losing his partner would mean losing his only support system.

    “They’ve been together for 18 years, and Mr. Peters desperately wants his husband home with him,” Gleason told the court. “I know he supports his husband 100 percent.”

    The effects of isolation have particular weight in the gay community. Straight couples are significantly more likely than gay ones to have separate groups of friends, Burke said. The fact that gay victims of domestic violence often share their abuser’s network makes them even less likely to accuse partners of wrongdoing. Gleason cited that shared community in his argument.

    “Mr. Peters and Mr. Amato own their own business together,” said Gleason. “They clean houses together. They have many clients and friends in the area. Their clients are all fully in support of the both of them.”

    The prosecutors brushed off Gleason’s claim that Peters had fallen on a broken bottle. They again cited Peters’s 911 call, as well as the observation in Provincetown Police Officer Emmett Catanese’s report that a wound on Peters’s forearm was consistent with a defensive injury.

    And they described in detail “a history between these two that does seem to be escalating in injuries,” asking Judge Welsh to find Amato dangerous based on his extensive record.

    Welsh agreed. He dismissed Gleason’s argument that there had been no stabling. “It’s fairly clear to the court that Mr. Peters was stabbed,” he said, and, citing an “escalating history of violence,” ordered Amato’s continued detention.

    Amato will next appear in virtual court on Nov. 6, via Zoom, for a pretrial conference.

    Neither attorney Gleason nor the district attorney’s office would comment on the case. But the prosecution made it clear in court that — breaking with their past decisions — they would forge ahead with Amato’s case even if Peters exercises his marital privilege.

    “With respect to the victim’s position, because of the nature of this case and the significant history, we fully intend to prosecute it based on the evidence at this point,” they said.

    TRUE CRIME

    A Decade-Long Pattern of Abuse Continues

    ‘Marital privilege’ helps to perpetuate a cycle of domestic violence

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The call came last Wednesday night, just over halfway into Police Officer Emmett Catanese’s 3 to 11 p.m. shift. On the line was Christian Peters, 50. He was at home in the East End and said Joe Amato, 45, his partner, had just stabbed him.

    Catanese, Officer Joseph D’Andrea, and Officer Aaron Kacergis arrived on the scene to find Peters standing over the kitchen sink, bleeding profusely from the neck and his right arm, wrote Catanese in his report. In the bedroom, Catanese found a broken bottle on a set of bloodied sheets.

    The severity of Peters’s injuries made it difficult for him to speak, the officer wrote. But he managed to communicate this much before rescue personnel loaded him into an ambulance: he’d just been “lying there” when Amato attacked him.

    To Catanese, the specifics of this incident were new. The general situation, though, wasn’t. “I am familiar,” he wrote, “with both Peters and Amato through numerous previous calls of domestic violence at this residence.”

    For more than a decade, Amato and Peters (né Costa) have shared an East End third-floor walk-up. For more than a decade, that apartment has seen a relentless cycle of violence and forgiveness.

    The Provincetown police have responded nine times to reports of domestic abuse between Amato and Peters since July 2010. Peters has faced charges of disorderly conduct, destruction of property, and four instances of assault and battery. Amato has been charged with assault with intent to murder or maim, assault with a dangerous weapon, resisting arrest, and seven instances of domestic assault and battery.

    Both men have reported their partners to the police. Both have required hospitalization for their injuries. Both have told authorities that violence is a constant element of their relationship.

    But neither man, at any point, has been found guilty of a crime.

    “When it comes to issues like this,” said Ann Burke, an advocate in the violence recovery program at Fenway Health, a Boston-based LGBT health care, research, and advocacy organization, “the criminal justice system often doesn’t operate the way that we think it should.”

    No two cases involving Amato and Peters have been exactly the same. But every case file — save the most recent one on Sept. 30 — includes the same scribbled line: “Dismissed upon the exercise of marital privilege.”

    Marital privilege is one of a handful of exemptions — like doctor-patient confidentiality and priest-penitent privilege — in the rules of evidentiary admissibility in trials. When invoked, marital privilege protects any and all communication between legally married persons; no one can be forced to testify against a spouse.

    The inherent intimacy of domestic violence means that successful prosecution often hinges on victim cooperation in the courtroom, said Hema Sarang-Sieminski, policy director at Jane Doe Inc., the Mass. Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence.

    Prosecutors can go forward without the victim’s cooperation, but that requires using other evidence to build the case. Whether that happens can depend on “what the D.A.’s stand is on domestic violence,” said Burke. “How willing are they to do the work to press forward on a case that’s just become a lot more difficult?” she asked.

    Ten years of violence between Amato and Peters means there may be a sizable collection of witness reports, medical records, and photographs that could bolster a case.

    But “decades of scholarship,” said Sarang-Sieminski, “show that for a survivor who’s had their agency taken away from them, pressing ahead with prosecution they don’t want to go forward with can be really harmful, deterring future outreach to programs and law enforcement.”

    Physical abuse is rarely an isolated incident, said Burke, which is why so many victims of intimate partner violence shy away from testifying against their abusers. Typically, it comes on the heels of a campaign of intimidation, isolation, and emotional and psychological abuse.

    Because of those behaviors, by the time an incident of physical violence occurs, its target usually feels entirely dependent on his or her abuser. To cooperate with prosecutors would mean losing what feels like the victim’s only support system.

    And, said Burke, mainstream perceptions of domestic violence as affecting only women as victims places men who are victims of intimate partner abuse at a serious disadvantage.

    “It can be very difficult for men to see themselves as victims,” Burke said. “And while, in theory, it’s not so much harder for men to get help than for women, there are fewer agencies and people out there geared at helping men.”

    All of which helps to explain why the Massachusetts court system and Provincetown’s police seem powerless in changing a dangerous pattern — and why Amato is unlikely to face trial on charges of domestic assault and battery and assault with a dangerous weapon.

    Two other charges, though, represent a new development in his and Peters’s history. Searching the East End apartment that Wednesday night, Officer Catanese discovered a sizable collection of Class E steroids and prescription anti-estrogen drugs. Though some of the substances bore prescriptions in Amato’s name, Catanese found no needles or syringes on the scene — indicating, he wrote in his report, that the drugs were not intended for Amato’s personal use.

    Amato thus also faces one charge of possession of Class E drugs, and one of intent to distribute them. Even if invoked, marital privilege can have no bearing on that portion of the case.

    Amato is currently being held without bail in pre-trial detention. He was arraigned Oct. 1 and will next appear in Orleans District Court this Thursday, Oct. 8, for a dangerousness hearing.

    Peters, who was airlifted from Hyannis to Boston on Sept. 30, was discharged from Mass. General Hospital on Oct. 5.

     

    Where to Get Help

    Call Independence House’s 24-hour hotline at 800-439-6507 for an immediate response to any physical or emotional crisis arising from abuse or sexual assault, or stop at offices in Provincetown or Orleans; 857-313-6681 connects you to Fenway Health’s Cape Cod Office; 877-785-2020 provides local resource information, including shelter availability. In an emergency, call 911.

    DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

    When Staying at Home Is Dangerous

    With workplaces shut, friend networks are more crucial than ever

    By

    After Gabbe Rowland escaped a violent, abusive boyfriend, the police and courts got involved. The man who terrorized her is serving a six-year sentence in state prison. But the only way she got away from her abuser, Rowland said, was by going to work, where a supportive employer helped her.

    “I worked for a family-owned hotel,” Rowland said. “There were times I had black eyes and he wouldn’t want me going to work. He’d make me make up an excuse.”

    With most businesses now closed, escaping to work is suddenly not an option for victims of abuse.

    Rowland, a Falmouth native, now advocates for those endangered by domestic violence. She and others are concerned that the stay-at-home advisory is reinforcing the toxic isolation and silence that are part of the cycle of abuse.

    Many people in abusive relationships already feel like prisoners in their own homes, she said. “I can only imagine it’s hell on earth right now for someone who is physically, emotionally, or financially abused,” said Rowland.

    Police on the Outer Cape report that the number of domestic violence calls they’ve received since the epidemic took hold in March is unchanged, and may even have decreased. But the New York Times reported on April 17 that law enforcement officials and social workers were alarmed by a drop in such calls.

    “What I’m concerned about is it’s happening and it’s not getting reported,” the New York City police commissioner told the Times.

    Shirley Smith, chair of the Outer Cape Committee on Domestic Violence, agreed.

    “It’s very difficult for people to reach out,” said Smith this week, “so it’s important that if neighbors, friends, and family know about anything, please report it. It’s the children who are the silent victims.”

    With schools closed, adults in abusive relationships may be afraid to leave children at home or may simply have no way to call for help with the abuser now ever-present.

    The courts are processing restraining orders, which can be obtained by going to the courthouse or your police station, said Marion Broidrick, clerk magistrate at Orleans District Court. Accused perpetrators can be arraigned remotely, she said, with the judge, assistant district attorney, and defense attorney all on a videoconference call.

    Calls to Independence House in Hyannis, the main domestic violence advocacy organization on Cape Cod, indicate terrible struggles inside many Cape homes.

    “I think it’s doubly challenging at this time for anyone in an abusive relationship, where their options have become more constrained in finding safety and getting out of the house,” said Executive Director Lysetta Hurge-Putnam.

    Independence House has a 24-hour hotline (see box) to handle emergencies and provide counseling and escape plans for desperate people. But the agency’s seven-room shelter has been full since before the pandemic, Hurge-Putnam said. It currently houses 10 people, including children.

    In March, the hotline was quieter than normal, but by the middle of April the staff was taking more calls and hearing from people with more severe injuries.

    “Counselors who are working from home are hearing that clients are in a lot more crises,” Hurge-Putnam said.

    More marginalized people — immigrants and lower-income residents — are really in trouble, she said. “Physical, emotional, financial, and health care access,” Hurge-Putnam said, “all those resources are down.”

    The best way to help someone who may be in an abusive situation is with frequent phone calls and texts. Friends and family are lifelines.

    “Domestic violence happens in secrecy and isolation, but sometimes a victim will reach out because they are desperate or something transpired where they have been hurt really badly,” Hurge-Putnam said. “Then they will confide in a friend.”

    She suggested having a code word to let a close friend know you’re in crisis. “There are ways to creatively help,” she said. “And,” she added, “use the police.”

    Gabbe Rowland agreed. The police, she said, are aware and well trained to handle domestic violence. Her own experience taught her there is no need to feel shame.

    She was 24 years old in July 2013 when her boyfriend became violent for the first time. For a week, he beat and sexually abused her, shot her up with heroin — though she had never done drugs — and degraded her physically and emotionally.

    Her employer, trying to help, threatened to fire her if she didn’t get away from him. “I always went back to him,” she said. “I didn’t have the strength to tell my parents, although they were two miles away from me.”

    Somewhere deep inside she understood that his aim was to shame her into silence. But she did not let that happen. When she made it back to work after that terrible week, her boss helped her devise a plan of escape.

    “If this was happening to me during a pandemic,” Rowland said, “I wouldn’t have had anyone to tell.”

    Resources for Support

    All are confidential

    • Outer Cape Committee Against Domestic Violence: Occada.com, 508-349-1173
    • Duffy House (housing and health): 508-771-9599
    • Independence House (domestic violence) 24-hour hotline: 800-439-6507
    • Massachusetts Trial Court Helpline (for restraining orders): 833-912-6878
    • Samaritans (emotional support) 24-hour helpline: 877-870-4673
    • Disaster Distress Helpline (24/7 multilingual national hotline): 800-985-5990
    • Bay Cove Community Services (24/7 crisis and evaluation): baycovehumanservices.org, 833-229-2683
    • Provincetown Community Support Liaison: 508-237-7042
    • Provincetown Community WARM line (stress support): 508-309-5848.

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