Police say fighting couples set the stage for attacks on
responding officers
Editor’s note: This is the first in an occasional series:
Following the cycle of domestic violence. Today’s focus is on the
challenges facing law enforcement.
While each call police respond to has the potential for
hostility, the one that generates the most dread is domestic
violence.
”
They are the most dangerous calls an officer can go into,
”
said Deputy Serg Palanov, a former patrol deputy and now a
spokesman for the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department.
Police say fighting couples set the stage for attacks on responding officers
Editor’s note: This is the first in an occasional series: Following the cycle of domestic violence. Today’s focus is on the challenges facing law enforcement.
While each call police respond to has the potential for hostility, the one that generates the most dread is domestic violence.
“They are the most dangerous calls an officer can go into,” said Deputy Serg Palanov, a former patrol deputy and now a spokesman for the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department.
Palanov worked as a patrol deputy until December 2005 and remembers vividly some of the domestic violence situations he responded to in his 18 months on patrol.
On one call, he and fellow deputies found a man with a gun, children crying and a house in shambles.
“The hard thing was there were little kids and it was obvious that it had been going on for a long time,” Palanov said. “I thought, ‘my god, it’s been going on for a long time.'”
The walls of the house had holes punched throughout and household items were strewn around the rooms. The victim, a woman, said she thought the man would stop and things would get better.
“Looking from the outside, we could see it was not going to be OK,” Palanov said. “You don’t want to come back the next time to see that person is dead, beaten or killed.”
Law enforcement agencies in Santa Clara County handled 5,600 domestic violence calls in 2005. A Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury report released recently found that Morgan Hill had the highest number of domestic violence calls per 1,000 residents in the county, with Gilroy coming in a close second. Local law enforcement agencies and community outreach programs have been boggled by the findings.
What they do know is that each time an officer or deputy responds to a domestic violence call, there is always the chance that the incident will turn tragically bad in a heartbeat.
Officer Rosie Betanio of the Hollister Police Department and Commander Joe Sampson of the Morgan Hill Police Department said officers respond to domestic violence calls on a regular basis. The Gilroy Police Department did not respond to a request for an interview by press time. Betanio and Sampson agreed with Palanov about the uncertainty when officers arrive on the scene.
“You don’t know whether there are weapons or drug or alcohol involved,” Betanio said. “People are very angry and they are angry toward people who are approaching them.”
Domestic violence is a much more complex crime than assault because of the intimate ties between the suspect and the victim. Domestic violence can occur between married couples, same-sex couples, dating partners or even teenagers.
“It depends on the level of intimacy whether it can be charged,” Palanov said. “There are a lot of things to take into consideration. It’s still predominately males against females, but it goes both ways.”
When calls come in, the 911 dispatchers gather as much information as they can for the responding officers, but they aren’t always able to get information on the involvement of weapons, drugs and alcohol or if children are in the home. Dispatchers do check the history of calls to a location to see if previous complaints of domestic violence have been made.
Still, officers are never sure what they will see when they get to the scene.
“It’s a very volatile situation, when there are two people in a relationship and you don’t know what’s going on,” Palanov said. “You could have one person hurt and another lying in wait for you. It’s a two-person call because you never know. It’s very unlikely that [an officer] would go into it alone.”
At the scene, officers remove children from the room and separate the parties involved. They conduct interviews to gather information about the history of the couple, past abuse and look at signs of physical violence. Regardless of who makes the call to the officers or whether both parties have wounds, Palanov said deputies are trained to identify defensive versus offensive wounds so they know which person to arrest.
One factor that makes the situation so dangerous is that often times the officers have to deal with the victim turning on officers as well as the suspect.
“You can be there trying to separate a couple that minutes before were attacking each other,” Sampson said. “And now they are attacking you. I’ve been in situations when the entire household turns on the officers. Aunts, uncles, teenage children.”
Many victims and their families are reluctant to press charges in domestic violence cases, so California law allows suspects to be arrested and charged without a complaining witness.
“The victim does not have to decide if they want to press charges,” Betanio said. “[An arrest] is automatic. If we see any signs on the victim, we have the right to arrest the primary aggressor.”
The calls can be frustrating for deputies to take, Palanov said, especially when they revisit the same couples. Remaining empathetic is a struggle, but is key to doing the job.
“I never belittle those people,” Palanov said. “If you understand the psychology, it’s so complicated. It’s easy to say just leave, but its not that simple. Even if you are frustrated, you don’t want to show it.”
Officers don’t always understand why people choose to stay in domestically violent situations, but Betanio said officers try their best to understand.
“We are not in their situation. We don’t know their financial status or what they have gone through in the past,” she said. “It’s important that we understand there are stories for both sides and decide at that time what is in the best interest of everybody.”
One thing that helps Morgan Hill officers deal with the frustration of respond to domestic violence calls is knowing that they provide information on counseling services and programs that can help families work through the problems. Officers also provide emergency restraining orders at the scene to protect victims.
But after an arrest, the officers have little power over what happens next.
“Ultimately, it’s their decision as far as moving out or doing something to change it,” Palanov said.
Related Stories:
Cycle hard to break – domestic violence in the court system
Help available for abused women – community resources for domestic violence
