Next time you hear someone ask, “Why doesn’t she just leave?” when told of a woman suffering in an abusive relationship, bring up Kimaya Motley Roberson of Conyers. She’s recovering from several gunshot wounds. Her 10-year-old daughter is still in the hospital with a wound to her head. They were shot Sept. 20, allegedly by Roberson’s estranged husband, who she was trying to divorce.
Studies show that the most dangerous time for women in relationships with battering men is when they try to leave. That is when the man feels he is losing control and attempts to get it back with fists, knives, or in too many cases, guns.
Roberson’s husband already had been arrested on a charge of battering her. He was out of jail on probation when he allegedly stole a car, got a gun and went looking for his wife. He knew where she would be that morning: She was dropping her daughter off at the school bus stop before going to work as a kindergarten teacher. He shot them both, he told police.
“My life was falling apart,” he whined when police arrested him, this time on a charge of aggravated assault. “He was a nice guy,” said his co-worker. “I don’t know what went through him.”
The outrage of this case is that there is nothing particularly unusual about it except that the victims aren’t dead. Seventy-four women (and four men) were killed last year in Georgia — victims of “domestic violence incidents.” Even the phrase we use to describe these brutal murders neatens up the ragged, bleeding edges of what is an epidemic in the state.
Sixty-six children were present in these incidents. Three of them were killed. Friends, other family members, co-workers and new partners were also witnesses and sometimes victims in these cases, according to the 2010 Georgia Domestic Violence Fatality Review.
At Georgia Legal Services, our lawyers work with hundreds of women every year trying to help them get out of these dangerous, often life-threatening situations. We counsel them about safety planning, about keeping a bag packed in the car so they can run away if they have to, about changing their routines so the batterer can’t find them, about getting temporary or permanent protective orders to put up at least a judicial barrier between them and their batterers.
All of that helps, sometimes a great deal. New statistics show that protective orders reduce or eliminate the violence in about 75 percent of the cases. But not all of them.
If a woman has a regular job, if her children go to school regularly — in other words, if she’s trying to live a normal life — she can’t hide or run or yank her children out of school.
When a kindergarten teacher can’t drop her daughter off at the school bus stop without being in danger of being shot by a man who already has been convicted of battering her in the past, there is something deeply wrong with the system we use to address these crimes.
Men who beat or stab or shoot their wives or girlfriends must be treated under the law just like men who beat or stab or shoot perfect strangers on the street. They are not nice guys, no matter how charming they may seem to their co-workers. They are violent criminals and should be treated as such.
But sadly, until their victims are dead, or nearly so, the judicial system does not punish them as harshly as other violent criminals.
Our lawyers are working now on a case in which a man held his wife at gunpoint and threatened to kill her. He was not sent to jail, but was fitted with an electronic ankle bracelet so the court could keep track of his whereabouts. He appealed that ruling because he’s offended by having to wear it. If he had pointed a gun at a complete stranger in a store, he’d have been sent to prison for years.
What do women in Georgia have to do to make themselves heard?
It is a crime and an outrage that so many men threaten, injure and ultimately kill their wives and girlfriends every year. The message that these men are violent criminals and should go to jail should be voiced loud and clear, not just by their victims, but also by the police, the courts and the media. Maybe then, these men would hear it and hesitate before picking up that gun.
Vicky Kimbrell is the family law specialist attorney at Georgia Legal Services. Susan Wells is the public information specialist at Georgia Legal Services.
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