Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Murder-Suicide Reported At Winter Haven Hospital –CRIMES COMMITTED AGAINST OTHERS ARE NOT TRAGEDIES-THEY ARE OUTRAGES!! Stop it!

Why do they always say “Tragedies” v the real fact that they “OUTRAGES” like they want to all sugar coat the epidemic of men murdering their families as if-What could have MADE ‘him’ do it (poor baby)? v he was a freeking sociopath and needs to NOT be Glorified..?

ahhh I recall the whole “family Preservation thing” right up till “Death do US Part” 

….and death indeed.

In every single murder suicide- I read- :

”he was such a nice guy”- “the family was quiet”-or, there were “health issue”—or “he” just lost his job- or he was going through a “custody battle”- or.. or.. or.. and the media bites this shit hook line and sink… Blame Every one and Every thing but the source- why must WE keep protecting those who murder?

Stop it- it is an Outrage- Crimes committed against others are NOT tragedies- they OUTRAGES!!

http://www.cfnews13.com/News/Local/2010/5/10/murdersuicide_reported_at_winter_haven_hospital.html

Murder-Suicide Reported At Winter Haven Hospital

Tuesday, May 11, 2010 1:02:05 AM

WINTER HAVEN -- A murder-suicide was reported in a patient's room at Winter Haven Hospital Monday afternoon.

Witnesses heard gunshots on the 5th floor of the hospital in the medical surgery unit, just after 1:20 p.m.

Police say a 77-year-old man shot his sick wife to death.

The patient was identified as 76-year-old Patrricia Duckworth. Her husband, Raymond Duckworth, 77, was visiting her. 

"It's a tragedy," said hospital vice president Joel Thomas. "Everybody here on our whole staff are obviously shaken. Our hearts go out to the family members who are affected here."

The hospital was not evacuated, but the floor where the shooting happened was locked down for most of Monday night.

This story is from our Bright House Networks partner, Bay News 9.

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at 8:30 AM

Sunday, May 9, 2010

CONFIRMED: PROTECTIVE MOTHERS WERE RIGHT

A special Mothers Day Article

By Barry Goldstein

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For many years, protective mothers have complained about a broken custody court system giving custody to abusive fathers. The courts dismissed the complaints by saying they came from disgruntled litigants. Now, a new book based on multi-disciplinary research has confirmed that common mistakes in the custody courts have resulted in thousands of children being forced to live with abusers. Domestic Violence, Abuse and Child Custody: Legal Strategies and Policy Issues, co-edited by Dr. Mo Therese Hannah and Barry Goldstein includes chapters by over 25 of the leading experts in domestic violence and custody in the U.S. and Canada including judges, lawyers, psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists, journalists and domestic violence advocates. Although the writers come from different disciplines and professional experience, there is remarkable agreement that the courts' failure to use up-to-date research is responsible for placing children at risk and undermining laws designed to prevent domestic violence.

The custody court system developed practices to respond to domestic violence allegations over thirty years ago at a time when there was no research. The courts relied on popular assumptions such as the belief domestic violence was caused by mental illness, substance abuse and the victims' behavior. They assumed domestic violence only involved physical abuse and children were unaffected unless directly assaulted. All of these and many other assumptions relied on by the courts have proven wrong, but the court continues to use outdated and discredited practices. Even worse, after hearing misinformation constantly repeated for over thirty years the myths and stereotypes are so deeply ingrained that courts often don't believe accurate information based upon up-to-date research because it is so different from what they have heard repeated their entire professional careers. Hopefully by putting all the research together in one volume, the book will force the courts to take a fresh look at practices that have worked so poorly for children.

Most cases are settled more or less amicably. The problem is with the 3.8% of contested custody cases that continue to trial and usually far beyond. The courts think of these as "high conflict" cases and literally they are, but 90% of these cases involve abusive fathers which is why they can't be settled. Male supremacist groups have developed an unspeakably cruel tactic of encouraging abusers to go after the children as a way to pressure the mother to return, punish her for leaving and avoid child support. As a result, the courts repeatedly see cases in which fathers who had little involvement with the children before the separation suddenly seeking custody, but the court system has been slow to recognize the tactic or respond to it. Judges have constantly been told that children do better with both parents in their lives but not that this is untrue if one of the parents is abusive.

In the typical case, the mother is the primary parent. She complains about the father's abuse and he counters by claiming alienation. Primary attachment refers to the parent who does most of the child care in the first couple of years of a child's life. If the child is separated from their primary attachment figure, the child is more likely to commit suicide, suffer depression, have low self-esteem and other harmful attributes. Children who witness domestic violence are more likely to engage in a wide range of dysfunctional behaviors when they are older and their developmental progress is interfered with. On the other hand, it is common even in intact families for parents to make negative statements about the other parent and there is no research that alienation causes long-term harm to children.

At the same time, in our still sexist society, mothers continue to do most of the child care so claims of primary attachment are virtually always true and often not contested by the father. Contrary to popular myths, women rarely make false allegations of abuse so that at least 98% of a mother's allegations of abuse in custody cases are accurate. Fathers on the other hand, are 16 times more likely to make false allegations in contested custody cases than mothers. This is not because women are so much more honest, but that most fathers in custody cases are abusers using the children to maintain control of their ex-partner and they seem to believe they are entitled to use any tactics to win custody.

Accordingly most allegations of alienation by fathers in custody cases are false. In other words the allegations by the mothers have the most consequences for the children and are most likely to be true, but the courts are paying more attention to the allegations by the fathers that are likely to be false and of little consequence to the children.

The book can be used by mothers and their attorneys to challenge the common mistakes made in domestic violence cases. One of the big problems is that because of the original mistaken assumption that domestic violence is caused by mental health or substance abuse issues, the courts have relied on mental health professionals who have little or no understanding or training in domestic violence. They rarely have any familiarity with up-to-date research and instead frequently rely on myths and stereotypes.

Although professional ethics require psychologists and psychiatrists to consult with an expert if they are handling a case involving an issue in which they lack expertise, evaluators and other court professionals routinely ignore this requirement by pretending they have expertise even with only an hour or two of training.

Evaluators often rely on psychological tests to create the illusion of a scientific basis for their opinions. These tests were developed for a population very different from the parents seen in custody court. When advocates for mothers tell courts that most abusers tend to be manipulative or mothers rarely make deliberately false allegations they respond by saying they are judging THIS case and cannot rely on probabilities. Under the best of circumstances the psychological tests are accurate between 55-65% of the time. So what happens if the mother is part of the 35-45% for which it is not accurate? Even worse factors like domestic violence or the pressure of going through a contested custody case reduce the accuracy significantly.

Furthermore, many of the tests are gender biased and criticize women but not men for the same responses. Of course the evaluators rarely inform courts of this information and most attorneys don't know enough to raise these issues.

A critical problem that does not receive the attention it deserves is that judges and the professionals they rely on repeatedly fail to recognize domestic violence because they don't know what to look for. Judge Mike Brigner wrote a chapter for the book in which he discusses his training of judges about domestic violence. They constantly ask him what to do about women who are lying. When he asks what they mean they refer to women who return to their abuser, seek protective orders, but don't follow-up or don't have police or medical reports after alleged assaults. In reality battered mothers do all these things for safety and other good reasons, but when ignorant professionals use this to discredit allegations of abuse, they have no chance to get it right.

Another common example is when judges, lawyers or evaluators watch fathers interact with the children. If the children show no fear, it convinces these professionals that the abuse allegations must be false. What the children understand is that their father would never hurt them in front of witnesses, especially someone he is trying to impress and in fact they could be punished if they showed fear. At the same time the mental health professionals are discrediting valid allegations based on information that is not probative, they tend to look only for physical abuse and miss many other domestic violence tactics that demonstrate the control and coercion he practices.

The mistaken practices give the courts little chance to recognize the father's abuse, but it is even worse than that. The mental health professionals often use their failure to recognize domestic violence as an excuse to pathologize the mother. She is often called delusional or paranoid because she believes something they missed. This or the assumption she is deliberately trying to interfere with the father's relationship with the children often results in extreme outcomes in which the mother is given supervised or no visitation based on the court's mistakes.

In her chapter on retaliation and manipulation, Joan Zorza says that in light of the frequency in which courts fail to recognize domestic violence they should avoid retaliating or penalizing mothers who continue to believe the allegations of abuse after the court finds against them. This recommendation can be used to ask courts to modify orders with extreme results when there is no proof the mother is unsafe.

Some child protective agencies have participated in programs in which they work with the local domestic violence agency. The train each other and when there is a case with possible domestic violence issues, the child protective caseworkers consult with domestic violence advocates. This helps them recognize and respond more appropriately to domestic violence cases. This should be considered best practices and needs to be expanded to the custody courts.

The custody courts do a particularly bad job of responding to allegations of sexual abuse. By the time a child reaches the age of 18, one-third of the girls and one-sixth of the boys have been sexually abused. The myth is that rape and sexual abuse are mostly committed by strangers but in fact 83% of the time it is someone they know, often the father. Courts don't want to believe a father could do something so heinous especially if he is successful in other parts of his life. Accordingly a very high percentage of sexual abuse allegations result in custody to the alleged abuser.

One of the problems is that sexual abuse of children is very hard to prove. Often there is no physical evidence particularly if the child does not reveal it immediately. Younger children may not have the language to describe what was done to them and older children may have been threatened or don't want someone they love to get in trouble. Few of the evaluators relied on by courts have expertise in child sexual abuse. What is a mother supposed to do when the child's behavior or other clues suggest sexual abuse? If she does nothing she is placing the safety and well-being of her child at risk, but if she asks for an investigation she can lose custody.

We have seen many cases in which a child acts out because the father violated the child's boundaries such as by sleeping with the child. The father did not inappropriately touch the child. The issue could easily be handled by instructing the father to change his routine and it would be totally safe for the father to continue with normal visitation. This would be a win-win situation, but instead courts and the unqualified professionals they rely on assume the mother is making deliberately false allegations and so separate the child from their primary attachment figure and deny the child a relationship with her.

The book also takes on Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) which is one of the major reasons courts get so many cases wrong. Dr. Paul Fink past president of the American Psychiatric Association wrote a chapter about PAS and Nancy Erickson who is an attorney and law professor who went back to school to become a psychologist wrote about how to challenge false allegations of PAS. Richard Gardner concocted PAS based on his belief system which included many statements to the effect that sex between adults and children is appropriate. Many of his quotations are in the chapter and can be cited to judges who presumably will not want to be associated with such behavior.

There is no scientific basis to PAS and it is not recognized by any reputable professional organization. It is based on the myth that most allegations of abuse are false. Psychologists are starting to lose their licenses for using PAS because they are in effect diagnosing something that does not exist. As PAS has become more discredited, abusers and the professionals they pay to support them have started using PAS by other names such as parental alienation or just alienation. It the idea is to assume allegations of abuse must be wrong or to justify giving custody to the alleged abuser and supervised or no visitation to the protective mothers they are using the discredited PAS by another name.

Professor Garland Waller wrote a chapter about the failure of the media to cover the crisis in the custody court system. She writes about the tipping point when enough information reaches the public so that they will no longer tolerate frequent court mistakes that place children in jeopardy. We believe this book can move us towards the tipping point and hope those committed to ending the injustice in the custody court system will consider some of the following actions to help us reach the tipping point.

1. Inform the courts in your area about this book. They can find additional information atwww.domesticviolenceabuseandchildcustody.com Ask the courts to use the research in the book to train judges and other court personnel and to reform practices that the research demonstrates are working poorly for children.

2. Contact your local media to cover the crisis in the custody court system by using the research in the book to understand the harm the courts are doing to children. If you want to seek publicity for your case use the book to show the context and national problem and then your case illustrates how it played out in a local case. When there are local domestic violence stories bring the information in the book to the reporters.

3. If you have local colleges, universities or law schools in the area, ask them to incorporate the research from the book into the curriculum and to sponsor programs about the custody courts based on this research.

4. Ask local and college libraries to obtain a copy of the book. This would be particularly helpful for protective mothers who cannot afford to purchase the book.

5. Cite the book in court cases and appeals. Use the research to challenge unqualified evaluators and other court professionals and to obtain experts who can put this research into evidence.

6. Use the book to inform legislators of the problems in the court. Ask them to hold hearings and sponsor legislation to protect children and prevent abuse. We will soon have legislative proposals available based on the research in the book.

7. Work together with domestic violence agencies, women's groups and anyone else sympathetic to the cause.

8. Come up with your own ideas. We cannot tolerate a system that continues to place children in jeopardy because they fail to use the up-to-date research now available.

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at 7:15 AM

Saturday, May 8, 2010

The Myth of the "Battered Husband Syndrome

NOMAS | National Organization for Men Against Sexismiled under Ending Men's Violence, Paper.

By Jack C. Straton, Ph.D.

The most recurrent backlash against women's safety is the myth that men are battered as often as women. Suzanne Steinmetz [1] created this myth with her 1977 study of 57 couples, in which four wives were seriously beaten but no husbands were beaten. By a convoluted thought process [2] she concluded that her finding of zero battered husbands implied that men just don't report abuse and therefore 250,000 American husbands [3] are battered each year by their wives[4], a figure that exploded to 12million in the subsequent media feeding frenzy [5].

Men have never before been shy in making their needs known, so it is peculiar that in 17 years, this supposedly huge contingent of "battered men" has never revealed itself in the flesh. Could it be that it simply does not exist? Indeed, a careful analysis of domestic violence, using everything from common experience to medical studies to U.S. National Crime Survey data, shows that only three [6]to four [7] percent of inter-spousal violence involves attacks on men by their female partners.

In the myth's latest incarnation, Katherine Dunn (The New Republic, 8/1/94) is unable to counter these hard scientific data so she turns to disputed sociological studies by Murray Straus and Richard Gelles [8,9] for "proof" that violence rates are almost equal. She first implies that these studies are unassailable by calling the authors "two of the most respected researchers in the field of domestic violence." Then she cynically attempts to undercut Straus' critics by labeling them as" advocacy groups." In fact Straus' critics are unimpeachable scientists of both genders, such as Emerson and Russell Dobash [10,11] and Edward Gondolf [12], who say his studies are bad science, with findings and conclusions that are contradictory, inconsistent, and unwarranted [13,14,15].

There are three major flaws in Straus' work. The first is that he used a set of questions that cannot discriminate between intent and effect [16]. This socalled Conflict Tactics Scale (or CTS) equates a woman pushing a man in self-defense to a man pushing a woman down the stairs [17]. It labels a mother as violent if she defends her daughter from the father's sexual molestation. It combines categories
such as "hitting" and "trying to hit" despite the important difference between them [18].

Because it looks at only one year, this study equates a single slap by a woman to a man's 15 year history of domestic terrorism. Even Steinmetz herself says the CTS studies ignore the difference between a slap that stings and a punch that causes permanent injury [19]. Indeed, after analyzing the results of the U.S. National Crime Surveys, sociologist Martin Schwartz concluded that 92% of those seeking medical care from a private physician for injuries received in a spousal assault are women [20]. The NCS study shows that one man is hospitalized for injuries received in a spousal assault for every 46 women hospitalized [21].

Even if we ignore all of the reviously mentioned flaws in Straus' CTS studies, they are bad science on a second set of grounds. Straus interviewed only one partner, but other studies [22,23] that independently interviewed both partners found that their accounts of the violence did not match. Also a study by Richard Gelles and John Harrop [24] using the CTS failed to find any difference in self-reporting of violence against children by step-parents versus birth-parents — in vivid contrast to the actual findings that a step-parent is up to 100 times more likely to assault a small child
than is a birth parent [25,26]. Any research technique that contains a 10,000 percent systematic error is totally unreliable.

In fact a third independent case can be made against Straus' study. It excluded incidents of violence that occur after separation and divorce, yet these account for 75.9 percent of spouse-on-spouse assaults, with a male perpetrator 93.3 percent of the time, according to the U.S. Department of Justice [27]. The Straus study relied on self-reports of violence by one member of each household, yet men who batter typically under-report their violence by 50 percent [28]. Finally, the CTS does not include sexual assault as a category although more women are raped by their husbands than beaten only [29]. Adjusting Straus' own statistics to include this reality makes the ratio of male to female spousal violence more than 16 to one.

Police and court records persistently indicate that women are 90 to 95 percent of the victims of reported assaults [30]. Promoters of the idea that women are just as abusive as men suggest that these results may be biased because the victims were selfreporting. But Schwartz's analysis of the1973-1982 U.S. National Crime Surveys shows that men who are assaulted by their spouses actually call the police more often than women who were assaulted by their spouses [31].

· In any case, criminal victimization surveyusing random national samples are free of any reporting bias. They give similar results
· The 1973-81 U.S. National Crime Survey, including over a million interviews, found that only 3 to 4 percent of marital assaults involved attacks on men by their female partners [32,33].
· The 1981 and 1987 Canadian surveys [34,35] found that the number of assaults of males was too low to provide reliable estimates.
· The 1982 and 1984 British surveys found that women accounted for all of the victims of marital assaults [36].

This is not to say that men are not harmed in our society, but most often men are harmed by other men. Eighty-seven percent of men murdered in the U.S. are killed by other men [37]. Those doing the killing in
every major and minor war in this and previous centuries have mostly been men! Instead of attempting to undercut services for the enormous number of women who are terrorized by their mates, those who claim to care for men had better address our real enemies; ourselves.

Of course we must have compassion for those relative few men who are harmed by their wives and partners, but it makes logical sense to focus our attention and work on the vast problem of male violence (96 percent of domestic violence) and not get side-tracked by the relatively tiny (4 percent)problem of male victimization. The biggest concern, though, is not the wasted effort on a false issue, it is the fact that batterers, like O.J. Simpson, who think they are the abused spouses are very dangerous during separation and divorce. In one study of spousal homicide, over half of the male defendants were separated from their victims [38]. Arming these men with warped statistics to fuel their already warped world view is unethical, irresponsible, and quite simply lethal.

References
[1] Suzanne Steinmetz, "The battered husband syndrome," Victimology 2, 499-509 (1978).
[2] Mildred Daley Pagelow's comprehensive history, "The 'battered husband syndrome': social problem or much ado about little," in Marital Violence, Norman Johnson,
ed., Sociological review Monograph 31 (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1985), pp. 172-195.
[3] Suzanne Steinmetz, "Wife beating, husband beating – a comparison of the use of physical violence to resolve marital fights," in M. Roy (ed.), Battered Women, (Van
Nostrand Reinhold, New York,1977), p.33.
[4] Time Magazine, "The battered husbands," March 20, 1978, p. 69.
[5] G. Storch, "Claim of 12 million battered husbands takes a beating," Miami Herald, August 7,1978, p. 16.
[6] Deirdre A. Gaquin "Spouse abuse: data from the National Crime Survey," Victimology 2,632-643 (1977/78).
[7] Martin D. Schwartz, "Gender and injury in spousal assaults," Sociological Focus 20, 61-75(1987).
[8] M.A. Straus, R. J. Gelles, and S. Steinmetz, Behind Closed Doors: Violence in the American Family, (Doubleday, 1980), p. 36.
[9] Murray A. Straus, Richard J. Gelles, J of Marriage and the Family 48, 465-479 (1986).
[10] R.E. Dobash and R.P. Dobash, "A context specific approach to researching violence," in N.Johnson (ed.), Marital Violence, Sociological review Monograph
(Newcastle, England, 1981).
[1]1 R. Emerson Dobash and Russell P. Dobash, "The Case of Wife Beating," J of Family Issues 2,439-470 (1981).
[12] Edward G. Gondolf, Social Work 32, 190 (1988).
[13] Elizabeth Pleck, Joseph H. Pleck, Marlyn Grossman, and Pauline B. Bart, Victimology 2, 680-684 (1978).
[14] M. Pagelow, "Double Victimization of battered women." Presented at the meeting of the American Society of Criminology, San Francisco, November, 1980.
[15] Daniel G. Saunders, "Other 'Truths' about Domestic Violence: A Reply to McNeely and Robinson-Simpson," Social Work 32, 179-183 (1988).
[16] P. Newton and G. Gildrnan, "Defining Domestic Violence: Violent Episode or Violent Act?" Paper presented at the American Sociological Association Conference,
Detroit, Illinois, 1983.
[17] Jann Jackson, Social Work 32, 189-190 (1988).
[18] Mildred Daley Pagelow, "The 'battered husband syndrome': social problem or much ado about little," in Marital Violence, Norman Johnson, ed., Sociological review
Monograph 31 (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1985), pp. 172-195 (see p. 178).
[19] Suzanne K. Steinmetz, Am. J. of Psychotherapy 34, 334-350 (1980).
[20] Martin D. Schwartz, "Gender and injury in spousal assaults," Sociological Focus 20, 61-75 (1987).
[21] Daniel G. Saunders, "Other 'Truths' about Domes tic Violence: A Reply to McNeely and Robinson-Simpson," Social Work 32, 179-183 (1988).
[22] Maximiliane E. Szinovacz, "Using couple data as a methodological tool: The case of marital violence," Journal of Marriage and the Family 45, 633-644 (1983).
[23] Ernest N. Jouriles and K. Daniel O'Leary, "Interspousal reliability of marital violence," Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 53, 419-421 (1985), as
analyzed in R. Emerson Dobash, Russell P. Dobash, Margo Wilson, and Martin Daly, "The Myth of Sexual Symmetry in Marital Violence," Social Problems 39, 71-91 (1992).
[24] Richard J. Gelles and John W. Harrop, "The Risk of Abusive Violence Among Children with Nongenetic Caretakers," Family Relations 40, 78-83 (1991).
[25] Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, "Evolutionary Social Psychology and Family Homicide," Science 242, 5219-524 (1988).
[26] R. Emerson Dobash, Russell P. Dobash, Margo Wilson, and Martin Daly, "The Myth of Sexual Symmetry in Marital Violence," Social Problems 39, 71-91 (1992).
[27] U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Family Violence April 1984, p. 4.
[28] J. Edleson and M. Brygger, "Gender Differences in Reporting of Battering Incidences," Family Relations 35, 377-382 (1986).
[29] Diana E. H. Russell, Rape in Marriage (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 19990), p. 90.
[30] R. Emerson Dobash, Russell P. Dobash, Margo Wilson, and Martin Daly, "The Myth of Sexual Symmetry in Marital Violence," Social Problems 39, 71-91 (1992).
[31] Martin D. Schwartz, "Gender and injury in spousal assaults," Sociological Focus 20, 61-75 (1987).
[32] Deirdre A. Gaquin "Spouse abuse: data from the National Crime Survey," Victimology 2, 632-643 (1977/78).
[33] Martin D. Schwartz, "Gender and injury in spousal assaults," Sociological Focus 20, 61-75 (1987).
[34] Solicitor General of Canada, "Female victims of crime." Canadian Urban Victimization Survey Bulletin No. 4. (Programs Branch/Research and statistics Group, Ottawa, 1985).
[35] Vincent F. Sacco and Holly Johnson, Patterns of Criminal Victimization (Statistics Canada, Ottawa, 1990).
[36] A. Worrall and Ken Pease, Patterns in Criminal Homicide: Evidence from the 1982 British crime Survey (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1986).
[37] U.S. Department of Justice, Crime in the United States: Uniform Crime Reports, 1991, pp. 17.
[38] G.W. Bernard, H. Vera, M.I. Vera, and G. Newman, "Till Death Do Us Part: A Study of Spouse Murder," Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 10 (1982).

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at 7:01 PM

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

“Domestic Violence, Abuse and Child Custody” Documentary Special Viewing Event’s (CO)

In conjunction with The MOTHERS DAY SILENT VIGIL AT THE WHITE HOUSE

Mothers Of Lost Children To Gather For White House Vigil On Mothers Day

Domestic Violence 8.5x11

Download Flyer here:

Domestic Violence 8

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at 8:36 PM

Mothers Of Lost Children To Gather For White House Vigil On Mothers Day

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Contacts:        Connie Valentine 916-233-8381

May 3, 2010                                                                          Kathleen Russell 415-250-1180

MOTHERS OF LOST CHILDREN TO GATHER FOR

WHITE HOUSE VIGIL ON MOTHERS DAY

12 Noon Press Conference with Grieving Moms from Across America

<PHOTO OPPORTUNITY>

Mothers from across America who have lost their children because family courts ordered them into full custody or unsupervised visitation with their alleged abusers will gather for their first silent vigil at 11:00 am on Mothers’ Day, May 9, 2010 in front of the White House.

"We decided that Mother’s Day was the perfect time to stand vigil in front of the White House with mothers from all over America whose children are either dead or living in harm’s way because of the broken family court system," said Connie Valentine, the vigil organizer and Co-founder of the California Protective Parents Association.

Experts at the Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence estimate that more than 58,000 children each year are either placed into dangerous homes or forced to go on unsupervised visits with their alleged abusers by divorce courts that simultaneously deny the children’s safe, protective parents access to their sexually and physically abused children.

The 11am silent vigil and 12noon press conference will take place in front of Lafayette Square, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, D.C.

Mildred Muhammad, the ex-wife of the Beltway Sniper, will join grieving mothers who recently appeared on the Dr. Phil Show’s Crisis in the Family Courts. California mother Katie Tagle, whose nine-month old baby Wyatt was murdered by his father, and Illinois mother Amy Leichtenberg, whose two school-aged children Duncan and Jack were murdered by their father, will share their tragic stories of desperately trying to keep their children alive. Advocates Kathleen Russell from the Center for Judicial Excellence and Eileen King from Justice for Children, who have been closely monitoring this escalating crisis for years, will discuss their work to expose and remedy the most under-reported human rights scandal in the United States.

These mothers of lost children are soccer moms, kindergarten teachers, physicians, flight attendants, dentists and homemakers. Most of them are middle class, educated and ordinary. They are safe, loving mothers (not addicts or abusers) who have been rendered powerless to protect their children from court-ordered child abuse. Most are battered women who tried to flee domestic abuse to save their children, only to end up mired in our nation’s family courts, unable to protect them at all. 

"America’s Moms are coming to the President and First Lady to request a federal investigation into these horrific civil and human rights abuses. I need to make sure that that no parent has to ever go through this incredible pain again, and that my Duncan and Jack’s deaths mean something, " said Amy Leichtenberg.

A cottage industry of mental health professionals and attorneys with cozy relationships with family court judges routinely bankrupt families with enormous court-ordered fees and often recommend that children be placed with their sexually or physically abusive fathers. Family court judges frequently ignore evidence of abuse, refuse to hear direct testimony from the children, and rubberstamp their cronies’ recommendations.

Nurturing mothers are forced to pay costly fees to attend supervised visits with the children they raised, watching helplessly as their children continue to report abuse by their abusers to uncaring visitation monitors. Mothers who speak out about system failure often face judicial retaliation and lose what little time they have with their children. The unregulated cottage industry churns away, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees to experts, while some of the worst cases settle only when the children turn 18. This is a national epidemic that is destroying families across America.

<Mothers of Lost Children Gather at White House.pdf>

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at 7:22 AM

Monday, May 3, 2010

Fired Pittsburgh Cop Not Guilty;Says He Hurt Woman In Defense (what a crock of SHIT)

Video: Ex-Girlfriend Talks About Domestic Injuries At Fired Pittsburgh Cop's Trial

BE SURE TO WATCH THE  the video. 

 http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/23194564/detail.html

    Fired Pittsburgh Cop Not Guilty; Says He Hurt Woman In Defense

    Former Sgt. Eugene Hlavac Testifies At Trial on Simple Assault Charge

  Allegheny County, Pa.:    PITTSBURGH --A man who lost his job as a Pittsburgh police sergeant after being accused of domestic violence against his child's mother was found not guilty Tuesday after he testified that self-defense was the reason for the woman's injury.

    "The one thing I'm not sorry for at all is the defensive action I took," Eugene Hlavac said on the witness stand. "I would have been justified in using more force."

    Allegheny County Judge Tom Flaherty acquitted Hlavac of a charge of simple assault after hearing testimony from both sides in a nonjury trial. Now, Hlavac wants his job back.

    "I have always been an innocent man," Hlavac told reporters outside the courtroom. "I was found guilty before I was proven innocent, is actually what happened, and I have one focus right now, and that's to get my son back home with me."

    Hlavac was fired in January, against the wishes of the Fraternal Order of Police union leaders who wanted to wait until his case went to court. At that time, union president Dan O'Hara warned that "taxpayers will be paying for a rash decision based on women's groups wanting swift justice."

    Joanna Doven, a spokeswoman for Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, had no comment about Hlavac after Tuesday's verdict.

    "My client will be reinstated on the police force, or there will be consequences," said Hlavac's defense attorney, Phillip DiLucente.

    Hlavac's ex-girlfriend, Lauren Maughan, said she went to a hospital with a dislocated jaw after an argument broke out when she arrived to pick up their 3-year-old child at Hlavac's Greenfield home in December.

    Hlavac's side of the story was that Maughan initiated the violence, not the other way around.

   "My defensive action was to block the assault," Hlavac testified. "I fell backwards toward my car. I raised my hand to push away in defensive mode."

   "With so much force you dislocated her jaw?" Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Auld asked him.

    "I'm not a medical professional," Hlavac responded.

    In Maughan's testimony on Monday, she said that Hlavac was irate when she showed up late, slamming the car door as he put their child inside, and she said he hit her with an open hand when she got out of the vehicle.

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