In Hancock county, Mississippi, it seems likely that a domestic homicide was prevented by the actions of two men who were called to a home to guard against attack by an former husband. From the sunherald.com:
The woman had been staying at a girlfriend's house, he said. The man went there and was unable to convince his ex-wife to leave with him, and he made comments that "he was coming back to take care of everybody," Grannan said.Glen Grannan, the chief investigator for the Sheriff's Department, had this to say:
The homeowner called her current boyfriend and her ex-boyfriend and they showed up and waited for the man to come back, he said.
Investigators believe the man returned and remained in his vehicle as words were exchanged and the other men told him repeatedly to leave.
"The man, still in his car, pulls a gun out and starts firing and everybody starts firing," Grannan said, referring to the other men.
"He got shot twice. He's lucky he's not dead."
The men had a right to defend themselves, Grannan said, "but the man should have never come back and the others should have called the police and waited."I have read of many cases of domestic homicide. One thing that they tend to have in common is that the police arrive too late, if at all. Police resources are limited. Almost certainly, if the Sheriff's office had been called, and if a deputy had been sent, the deputy could not have waited in the area for very long. Then they would have left, and the outcome could have been much different.
Even if the ex husband showed up while the deputy was there, the ex could just have left, or waited for the deputy to leave.
I cannot fault the two men for defending the women involved, but my usual advise is to avoid becoming entangled in these domestic situations.
Domestic situations account for a significant fraction of homicides, about 15% according to the numbers in a Bureau of Justice Statistics document. That number is likely inflated, because it assumes that domestic homicides are equally represented in the 44% of homicides where the relationship between the offender and victim are unknown. As domestic homicides are among those most easily solved, that assumption seems unlikely. But even if none of the 44% of the unknowns were domestic, the percentage of domestic homicides would be over 8 percent of the total, a significant number.
Women in these situations often go back to the man involved, or take up with another man with similar habits. When that happens, people who aided the woman often wonder why they bothered.
©2015 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
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2 comments:
There are some instances we would like to, but we can't!!
East coast PBS Tuesday at 8pm:
wvut.org/2015/07/tuesday-1000-the-bomb/
"Investigator says Wait for the Police"
Wait for them to do what, bag up the bodies?
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