Fresno’s domestic violence rate tops California’s big cities. What’s behind the numbers?
Kimieona Holt, a 26-year-old intensive-care nurse at a Fresno hospital, was a victim of domestic violence who was trying to move on from an abusive relationship with her ex-boyfriend, the father of their infant daughter.
But in May, she was murdered by her abuser, who shot her in a southeast Fresno home just a day after a judge granted Holt a restraining order. Her ex-boyfriend took his own life minutes later as police officers closed in on him.
After 2018 passed with no murders blamed on domestic violence in Fresno, Holt’s death was one of four Fresno homicides blamed by police on domestic violence in 2019, and one of nine throughout Fresno County. Through the first six months of 2019, the Fresno Police Department reports that it fielded 2,628 “verified” calls for help related to domestic violence.
That pace would just about equal 2018, when almost 5,500 calls came in to dispatchers. And it translates to the highest rate of domestic violence calls to police among any of California’s other large cities – a distinction that ranks it above its more populous counterparts Los Angeles, San Jose, San Diego and San Francisco.
Collectively, law enforcement agencies in Fresno County received more than 7,150 domestic violence calls last year. That’s the seventh-most calls among the state’s 58 counties. The county’s rate of seven calls per 1,000 residents was the eighth-highest rate in the state, according to data from the California Department of Justice.
In the 10 years from 2009 through 2018, Fresno police fielded more than 52,000 domestic violence calls, representing the lion’s share of nearly 70,000 calls countywide.
Advocates for victims of domestic abuse say the high rates of calls in Fresno and Fresno County may not be as bleak as they appear.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily a higher rate of domestic violence,” said Mario Gonzalez, deputy director of Centro La Familia, a nonprofit that provides a wide range of social services – including domestic violence advocacy – to the Valley’s Latino community. “From our perspective, I think it’s a positive thing. It means more people are coming forward, more people are willing to report to law enforcement and seek out the protection, from law enforcement, for the abuse they’ve gone through.”
Leaders at the Marjaree Mason Center, an emergency shelter for victims of domestic violence, said that while 2018 saw a significant number of incidents in Fresno and Fresno County, there are even more this year.
“We have seen a significant increase in 2019,” said Nicole Linder, executive director of the Marjaree Mason Center. “But that can be looked at in a really positive way in that people are calling and getting help.”
More abuse, or just more reports?
Fresno County District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp said that although her office is handling a higher volume of domestic violence cases – about 25% more than last year – “it’s one of those things where we have to ask, ‘Are people more aware and they’re reporting more, or is it really happening more?”
“I don’t necessarily know that we’re seeing a 25% uptick in the number of people who are actually beating up their partners,” she added. “I think we have some tremendous things here in Fresno on the positive side” in prompting more victims to report abuse.
“I think domestic violence is like a silent epidemic of all kinds of things that clash and exacerbate each other: traditions, gender roles, drug abuse, alcoholism, mental health, child abuse,” Smittcamp said. “All of those things interweave in different scenarios, and every case is different and every victim is different.”
Police and advocates agree, however, that in many instances, the first time that a victim calls police or an emergency shelter to report domestic violence is not the first time that they’ve been abused.
“By the time we get the call, it’s not the first incident that they were a victim of domestic violence,” said John Viveros, a sergeant who supervises the Fresno Police Department’s domestic violence unit. “Often when we go out there as patrol officers, we’ll be told by the victim, ‘This isn’t the first time he’s assaulted me – but I’m drawing the line here.’”
The severity of calls fielded by police range from restraining-order violations to “the heinous, end-up-in-the-hospital” cases, Viveros added.
Holt’s murder was something of a wake-up call for the community about the sometimes deadly consequences of domestic abuse. Her death showed domestic violence could affect anyone at any time, without any particular rhyme or reason. It also triggered an increase of calls from victims who feared they could be the next person killed by someone they love.
“We saw a lot of people reach out for help” after Holt was killed, Linder said. “When these incidents happen, we see surges in victims reaching out for help because it scares them to think, ‘That could be me.’”
Smittcamp agreed. “Sometimes people are in domestic violence relationships and they don’t realize it because there are generations of the same type of behavior in their family,” she said. “Maybe their mother had the same type of situation, so they just think, OK, this is kind of the way it is.”
“But when they see or hear someone else’s story identified as domestic violence, and it ends up in a tragic situation, it does make people say, ‘Hey, I need help,’” Smittcamp added.
What’s happening in the Valley?
While domestic violence knows no particular social, demographic or geographic distinctions, Fresno and Fresno County are affected by some factors, including poverty and substance abuse, that can strain or fracture a loving relationship.
“A lot of people don’t realize that Fresno County has one of the highest concentrations of poverty in the nation,” Smittcamp said. “Whenever you have people who are living in stressful circumstances, when people are frustrated, they lash out, and probably nothing frustrates people more than wondering, ‘How am I going to feed my family? How am I going to pay the rent? How am I going to pay the light bill?’”
Smittcamp added that methamphetamine addiction and alcoholism add fuel to the fire. “There’s meth everywhere, and it’s infecting all kinds of neighborhoods,” she said. “Whenever you have meth or alcohol involved, it’s devastating for families.” Smittcamp estimates that 70% to 75% of the domestic violence cases coming through her office involve methamphetamine or other drug use, alcoholism, or some combination of those.
But while poverty and drug use are considered risk factors, it is not confined to what are generally considered less affluent southern areas of Fresno. “It happens all over the city,” said Viveros, the police sergeant. “Earlier this year, around August, both northeast and northwest Fresno were experiencing an uptick, about a 30% increase in cases, and southeast was behind with about a 20% increase.”
“Domestic violence happens in all socioeconomic groups; it happens in all sectors of the city of Fresno as well as the county,” Smittcamp said. “It does not discriminate between race, it does not discriminate for religious or ethnic backgrounds. Domestic violence is a cancer that affects every single person and every single group.”
How much is unreported?
While the volume of calls to police suggests that more victims are reporting domestic abuse, police and advocates believe many cases continue to go unreported.
Victims of domestic violence often feel a sense of shame or embarrassment, Smittcamp said. “When you get your car broken into, it’s not embarrassing; it’s an unfortunate thing,” she said. “But when you’re the victim of domestic violence and your husband or boyfriend or someone who’s supposed to love you is being violent to you, it’s embarrassing and it causes a lot of shame.”
“And it’s the first person you want to forgive, for a lot of reasons,” Linder added. “Nobody gets hit or strangled on a first date. … When you get to the point in a relationship where you’re invested, your heart is already a part of that” before a victim experiences the gradual escalation of abuse from belittling and name calling to emotional and financial control, and then to threats and actual violence.
By that time, many victims tend to see the abusive behavior as normal. “Everyone in the household gets skilled in what the triggers are and try to avoid them,” Linder said. “’Let’s not make Mom or Dad mad.’ They’re going to do the things that are going to lessen the likelihood of triggering something.”
In some cases, victims “don’t want their families to be separated, or the significant other thinks, ‘They didn’t mean it this time,’” Centro La Familia’s Gonzalez said. “Individuals may stay in a relationship because of their kids, or maybe the abuser is the only income they have, or the only person they know in the area and they have no family support or anyone else they can rely on.”
How religion and culture factors in
Victims of domestic violence can also confront religious and cultural pressure over the bonds of marriage.
“Most of our faiths really uphold the value and sanctity of marriage; if you look at the Bible scripture, it talks about, ‘Wives, submit to your husbands,” Linder said.
“For those who come to us and are married, they’ve taken this specific vow about being together and committed in sickness and in health, for better or worse, ‘til death do us part. We take those very seriously. What we don’t talk about is where is that fine line” when “worse” goes too far.
Churches, synagogues and other religious and cultural institutions, however, can help to change that narrative for domestic violence victims “to talk about how we communicate what is OK, and how do we communicate how we’re going to help people, that we are a resource, all of us, for victims,” Linder said. “Those different cultural and religious groups become an additional safe place in our community for survivors.”
In the Latino community, there has been confusion and concern that calling police to report domestic violence could involve someone’s information being passed along to federal immigration officials. “It was a misunderstanding,” said Gonzalez. “A lot of people were in fear or didn’t feel comfortable contacting law enforcement because they thought it would be detrimental to themselves.”
Advocates at the Marjaree Mason Center say they see that same concern from immigrant families. “There is fear that, ‘If I tell anybody, if I tell the police or I tell the school, they’re going to deport me or deport my kids,” Linder said.
But police and advocates have gone to significant efforts to ease those concerns, offering assurance “that reporting does not mean they’re going to get deported,” Gonzalez said. In fact, there is a category of visa called the U Visa that protects undocumented immigrants who are victims of crime, including domestic violence, if they cooperate with the investigation and prosecution of the crime.
“More people are willing to report it to end that cycle of abuse,” Gonzalez said. “More people understand that they have rights in this country, that they have access to those rights, and that those rights will be protected.”
This story was originally published December 27, 2019 at 10:36 AM.
