WHAT IS A PANDEMIC?
by John Welter,
Chief of Police
Casey Gwinn,
President, National Family Justice Center Alliance
The swine flu could still spread to a pandemic.
It’s a serious health issue. But
we’ve been living with a larger pandemic for many years now and it’s time we
pay equal attention to it. I share
the opinion of my good friend and professional colleague, Casey Gwinn, retired
SD City Attorney and founder of the Family Justice Center Alliance in his
following article. Sadly, his
statistics are already out of date. We
continue to see more deaths every week.
This week I have been
reflecting on those that would choose to ignore the importance of dealing with
domestic violence in America. After over 30 years of the modern domestic
violence movement, we still struggle for funding, we face budget cuts and
reductions when the economy goes bad (though domestic violence rises) and we
rarely are the primary focus of public policy makers in America. This week
the news is consumed with coverage of the swine flu, an important public health
issue in America. As of May 2, there have been 167 confirmed cases of the
swine flu in the United States and one death. But there has been little
news about the mass killings of 68 people across America in the last 52 days,
with men doing all the killing and virtually all related to men with a history
of violence against women.
Public health officials in the United States fear a global pandemic from the
so-called H1-N1 virus. A pandemic is defined as a global outbreak of
disease that causes serious illness or death and then spreads easily from person
to person worldwide. Pandemics differ from seasonal outbreaks of an
illness. The news this week quoted many officials talking about high
levels of illness, death, social disruption, and economic loss from pandemics.
We must all be vigilant about addressing swine flu in the days ahead. But
the pandemic of violence by men against women, men, and children has killed more
people in the last 52 days in America than swine flu. This pandemic has
been going on now for hundreds of years causing high levels of mental and
physical illness, death, social disruption, and economic loss.
There have been 12 mass killings in the last 52 days in the United States.
In 11 of the 12, the killer had a history of abuse against women or they were
directly related to or defined as domestic violence. 68 people have been
killed in those mass killings including 20 children and 7 police officers.
Let's honor those who have been killed in the pandemic of domestic violence
flu by identifying their killer and listing them:
March 10 - Michael McLendon, 28, killed ten people, including his mother,
grandmother, aunt and uncle, and the wife and child of a local sheriff's deputy
in rural
Alabama
. He then killed himself. The worst mass killing in the history of
Alabama killed: Virginia White, 74; James White, 55; Tracy Wise, 34; Dean Wise,
15; James Starling, 34; Lisa McClendon, Michael's mom; Bruce Maloy, 51; Andrea
Myers, 31; and Corrine Gracy Myers, 18 months.
March 21 - Lovelle Mixon, a parolee with a history of violence against women,
sexual assault, and other violent crimes shot and killed four heroic Oakland
police officers - Sgt. Mark Dunakin, 40; Officer John Hege, 41, SWAT Sgt. Ervin
Romans, 43; and SWAT Sgt. Daniel Sakai, 35 before he was shot and killed by
police.
March 29 - Robert Stewart, 45, shot and killed eight people at Pinelake Health
and Rehab Center in Robbins,
North Carolina
. He came to the center seeking to kill his wife, Wanda Neal, 43, a
nurse's assistant. She was working in the Alzheimers Unit when he entered
the facility and survived after herding residents into the TV Room and locking
the door. The dead included: Tessie Garner, 88; Lillian Dunn, 89, Jessie
Musser, 88; Bessie Hendrick, 78; John Goldston, 78; Margaret Johnson, 89; Louise
Decker, 98; and Jerry Avent, 39. Jerry was a newly hired nurse at the
facility. He was shot 27 times but continued protecting patients until the
final shot. Police estimated his efforts saved at least ten others
patients and staff members.
March 30 - Devan Kalathat killed six people in a murder-suicide in Santa Clara,
California including his children. During his rampage he shot his wife,
but she still clings to life in critical condition. Police identified the
victims as Kalathat's children: 11-year-old Akhil Dev and 4-year-old Negha Dev;
Kalathat's brother-in-law Ashok Appu Poothemkandi, 35, Poothemkandi's wife,
Suchitra Sivaraman, 25; and the Poothemkandis' infant daughter, Ahana Ashok.
April 4 - Pittsburgh police officers Eric Kelly, Stephen Mayhle, and Paul
Scuillo were shot and killed responding to a "domestic disturbance"
call. They were ambushed by Richard Poplawski when they arrived at the
house. Officer Eric Kelly was not on duty. He was on his way home to
his wife and three daughters when he heard the call on his radio and responded
to support his fellow officers.
April 5 - James Harrison killed his five children in Pierce County, WA while his
wife was at work. Police confirmed that the couple had a domestic violence
incident earlier in the day and the wife had left. The husband demanded
that she return and while she was away he methodically shot Maxine, Samantha,
Heather, Jamie, and James. The first four children were shot in their
beds. The last child was shot as she was running toward the bathroom.
April 5 - Kirby Revelus, 23, killed his 17 year old sister, Samantha and his
five year old sister, Bianca. Police officers responding to a domestic
violence incident shot and killed him as he was trying to kill his 9 year old
sister Sarafina.
April 7 - Kevin Garner fled Greenville, Alabama late in the afternoon after
setting fire to his wife's home and car. Hours later, police found his
wife and daughter, and her sister and her sister's son shot to death inside the
burning home. Garner later shot himself before being apprehended.
April 10 - Two students at Henry Ford Community College were found dead in a
murder-suicide in the Fine Arts Building on campus in Dearborn, Michigan.
Police determined that Anthony Powell, 28, killed Asia McGowan, 20 with a
shotgun and then turned the gun on himself.
April 18 - Christopher Allan Wood, 34, an accountant for a railroad operator,
killed his wife, Frances, and his three children in Middletown, Maryland before
taking his own life with gunshot to the head. Chandler was 5 years old,
Gavin was 4, and his daughter, Fiona, was 2 years old when she was shot and
stabbed by her Dad.
April 19 - William Parente, 59, killed his wife, Betty, 58, and daughters
Catherine, 11, and Stephanie, 19 before killing himself in Garden City, New
York. Each of the victims was killed by asphyxiation and blunt force trauma.
April 25 - University of Georgia professor George Zinkhans shot and killed his
wife, Marie Bruce, and two of her friends from a local community theatre group
in Bogart, Georgia. Two others were seriously injured by bullet fragments.
Her two murdered colleagues were: Ben Teague, 63, and Tom Tanner, 40. More
than 200 police officers are currently searching for him the dense woods near
Bogart, 60 miles east of Atlanta. Police believe Marie was preparing to get a
restraining order, file for divorce, and leave him after a history of domestic
violence.
So, we are not done. We all must re-double our efforts to raise awareness,
call for more resources in the war by men against women and children. We
must call it what it is...it is not Violence Against Women. It is most
often Violence By Men Against Women. All the killers in the mass killings
of the last 52 days have been men.
The next time you hear someone say they cannot afford to keep a Family
Justice Center or domestic violence shelter program open because of the economy,
ask them to read this article. Next time, you hear someone say that we
don't need any new, evolving, innovative approaches to family violence
prevention because our current service delivery models are doing the job well;
ask them to read the list of 68 names from the most recent 52 bloody days of
domestic violence in 2009. Don't be silent; don't let elected officials,
or policy makers, or bureaucrats, or disinterested community members ignore the
tragedy of domestic violence. We must address swine flu in America and
around the world but we must also take guns away from men who are violent and
start spending the time, energy, and money necessary to stop the pandemic of
violence by men against women that is destroying families, killing women, men,
and children, and continuing to destroy the lives of so many.
(Casey Gwinn is the former San Diego
City Attorney. He founded the internationally recognized San Diego Family
Justice Center which is credited with reducing domestic violence homicides in
San Diego by over 60%. He currently serves as the President of the
National Family Justice Center Alliance which is developing specialized,
multi-agency Centers to stop domestic violence across the United States and
around the world. He is the co-author of "Hope for Hurting Families:
Creating Family Justice Centers Across
America
" (Volcano Press). For more information, go to www.familyjusticecenter.org