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The Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr and Willacy county district attorneys brought home the cycle of domestic violence on Tuesday, tracing behavior common to such cases in a program at the Brownsville Events Center.
Domestic violence is so common that the telltale signs are well known to district attorneys, sheriff’s deputies, police officers, jailers, judges and parole and probation officers across the Rio Grande Valley and elsewhere.
Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz recited the indicators with no difficulty as he led off the program by telling about commonplace discussions that turn into disagreements, escalate into arguments and end up with a perpetrator who is usually a male assaulting a victim, usually his spouse, girlfriend or ex.
She or someone at the scene calls the authorities and the perpetrator ends up in jail. After that, state law requires a protective order to shield the victim from further violence, but almost always by the next day the victim calls the authorities wanting to have the protective order vacated, Saenz said.
Saenz said that before he became district attorney he was a magistrate judge who every morning went to the Cameron County Carrizales-Rucker Detention Center in Olmito to arraign the men who had landed in jail the night before on domestic violence charges.
“Law enforcement will have to respond and they will see the evidence that an assault occurred. I am reminded that sometimes it’s a man that is also the victim, I recognize that, but for the most part it’s a woman, somebody’s mother, somebody’s sister. It’s somebody’s tia,” Saenz said, calling out the men his officers come into contact with during such incidents to stop operating as though it is somehow OK to hit a woman.
“Us guys need to step up, but there he is on Sunday drinking a beer with the guys after hitting his wife,” Saenz said.
When confronted about domestic violence, the response by many men comes down to “she’s my wife,” as though she were his property and he was entitled to hit her if he thought that was appropriate.
In Saenz’s words and those of the other Valley DAs, it’s not OK.
Willacy County District Attorney Annette Hinojosa commended a program by a group of elementary school young men at Pittman Elementary School in Raymondville, who on Monday wore T shirts saying, “Real Men Don’t Hit” to her event in Raymondville.
“We’ve come to know our Caballeros from Pittman Elementary,” Hinojosa said. “They’re teaching them values. Obviously they’re caballeros so they’re teaching them how to be gentlemen. I think in the next couple of weeks they’re going to be teaching them how to tie a tie. It’s a small group of young men from Raymondville, 9 years old. … You’re never too young to start learning and understanding and appreciating what it means to not hit a woman,” she said.
“They usually wear a white shirt with a red bandana, so yesterday at my event in Raymondville when they wore T shirts with Pittman Elementary and “Real Men Don’t Hit,” we were surprised,” Hinojosa said, setting a marker down with those who believe in the impact of learning cultural values at a young age.
Terry Palacios, the Hidalgo County district attorney, said he and his three counterparts organize the Rio Grande Valley District Attorney’s Coalition Against Domestic Violence each year to work together to solve the problem at its roots.
“It takes every one of us working together to stop this community problem,” Palacios said.
Starr County District Attorney Allen “Gocha” Ramirez bemoaned the loss of civility in today’s society, naming social media as a culprit and saying he would rather see young men being taken under someone’s wing and taught how to be gentlemen than having them spend hours a day watching YouTube videos and checking their social media.
“Everybody knows somebody who has been a victim of domestic violence. It’s incumbent on us to teach our kids that you don’t hit your wife, and it all starts with young people,” he said.
