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Reposted from The Union Democrat:
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month in Tuolumne County, but domestic violence happens every month of the year, and it happens 365 days a year, Pam Orebaugh with the nonprofit Center for a Non Violent Community of Sonora said Tuesday in Courthouse Square in downtown Sonora.
Dixie Sky, a victim advocate for the Tuolumne County District Attorney’s Office, says her domestic violence case numbers have remained the same in recent years, but the cases have become exponentially more violent, with instances of strangulation and strangulation attempts.
“I have the same number of cases this year as two years ago, but they’re more violent now,” Sky said Tuesday in Courthouse Square. “The amount of violence has exponentially exploded. It’s the same number of cases, but they have become extremely violent.”
When Sky and other victim advocates work with domestic violence victims who have been hit, they are seeing more near-death experiences, Sky said. There are a lot more strangulations and strangulation attempts, and more domestic violence incidents that could result in death.
Nationally, individuals who experience nonlethal strangulation by their intimate partners are 750% more likely to be murdered by that partner with a firearm in future, Tuolumne County District Attorney Cassandra Jenecke told the county’s elected Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.
So far this year, there has been one attempted homicide in Tuolumne County involving strangulation, Jenecke said. The most recent domestic violence homicide in the county was in 2020, Jenecke said.
While the lack of available, affordable housing and housing the homeless are among the biggest issues in Tuolumne County right now, domestic violence is the leading cause of homelessness for women, Orebaugh said.
Orebaugh, Sky, and others, including Lynne Hamilton, a resident of Oakdale who works for the Center for a Non Violent Community in Sonora, spent time Tuesday placing purple ribbons on trees in Courthouse Square and on posts along Washington Street in downtown Sonora to signify October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
Purple is a color used by domestic violence awareness advocates because it was one of the colors used by women’s suffrage activists who fought to ensure women’s right to vote a century ago and make the Nineteenth Amendment part of the U.S. Constitution in August 1920, Jenecke said.
Purple is also the color used by National Coalition Against Domestic Violence organizers of the first Day of Unity that preceded Domestic Violence Awareness observations observed in October 1981.
There have been 201 new reports of domestic violence in Tuolumne County since October 2021, Jenecke said. The county provides more than 5,000 services to those individuals. Services provided by the District Attorney’s Office and the county government are separate from services provided by the Center for a Non Violent Community in Sonora, Jenecke and Orebaugh said.]
Orebaugh emphasized to the Board of Supervisors that the domestic violence survivors who approach Jenecke for victim services and criminal prosecutions represent people who choose to go to law enforcement. Orebaugh and others who work at the Center for a Non Violent Community in Sonora see more than 200 people a year, of all ages, genders, and orientations, and they provide just as many services to those individuals.
“The fear of going to law enforcement is rampant,” Orebaugh said. “Because there are people who are afraid to go to law enforcement. At the Center of a Non Violent Community we don’t require that you report anything to law enforcement.”
The nonprofit sheltered 87 people in fiscal year 2020-21, Orebaugh said, a total of 54 adults and 33 children.
“We only have one house, and six transitional housing units that are single-family homes,” Orebaugh told the elected supervisors. “So we are doing everything we can. But I strongly encourage you to find ways to increase available and affordable housing in our community. Domestic violence is the number one cause of homelessness for women. And it’s one of the biggest barriers we face getting survivors stability and safety.”
Domestic violence affects men, women, children and whole families, Orebaugh said. Jenecke and Orebaugh both addressed the Board of Supervisors before they voted to recognize October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month in Tuolumne County.
For more information about the nonprofit Center for a Non Violent Community in Sonora or to make donations, visit https://nonviolentcommunity.org/.
Contact Guy McCarthy at gmccarthy@uniondemocrat.net or (209) 770-0405. Follow him on Twitter at @GuyMcCarthy.
