Stalkers and Peepers Commit Murder and Rape: How Many Times I Gotta Tell Ya?

Update: on the TV news tonight, it was reported that Kawon Higgins

murdered Amanda Bonner, then killed himself.

It was also reported that he was the father of her two children. 

Two bodies found in Manhattan Kansas. One was a young woman who reported to police and her neighbors in fear regarding a man who was bothering her, peeping into her house. The story is reported in the Manhattan Mercury here.  Katherine Wartell writes,
"The Riley County Police were called to 715 Yuma Friday afternoon and discovered two bodies. Police called the deaths suspicious. The neighbor ...told The Mercury Saturday that there had been a history of harassment between the woman and a man whose body was discovered at the same time.  Authorities identified the deceased as Amanda Bonner, 23, of 715 Yuma Street, and Kawon Higgins, 26. The bodies were discovered Friday afternoon..." Apparently the woman called the police over a dozen times regarding this man.
The story went on to report that the young woman's tires had been slashed (as had those of her boyfriend) and that a restraining order had been placed against Higgins.
Amanda Bonner had two children.

In the Manhattan Mercury article, the neighbor of Amanda Bonner is quoted as saying, " A peeper doesn't stay a peeper. I've made complaints to everyone trying to get something done."
It reminded me
of an incident years ago where the K-State Collegian reported lightheartedly that a peeper was "flashing" his genitalia through KSU Hale Library window. He or someone matching his description had committed a crime against a student in Leasure Hall after hours within a day or two of the first "flashing".
The collegian reported it almost as a joke. He masturbated and flashed his genitalia, so it was funny, right? Except that when the young student trapped in the room with him tried to leave, he held the student down with the force of of his body. She had his blood and skin under her fingernails, her arm ended up in a sling, she feared death as she tried unsuccessfully to escape. But he was reported as a "flasher."

The FBI indicate that most serious violent crimes are committed by men who once committed lesser crimes like peeping, stalking, flashing, harrassing.
When will we take this type of violence seriously?

Last night there was a video on the Topeka evening TV news regarding an event about Ending the Violence. These events abound, and you may have participated in these events or at least listened to the reports for years, for scores of years, for generations now.
People gather with quilts, or t-shirts, or poems, or photos, and tell about the survivors-- or the dead, the lost, the heroes; at times they tell about people who were not listened to, people who were frustrated and filled with anger or grief or terror.

Riley County Domestic Violence Awareness Event HERE

Take Back the Night Tshirt Event click HERE

I've begun to feel that the good these events do is only for those involved;
i have diminishing hope that they serve an educational or preventative value that is significant. Those who are violent (Here and HERE) rarely change. It is good for those who suffer through the dealing with monsters to hear the stories of others, to know they are not alone.
It is good for their children to hear how they suffered for love of them; how much honor we owe them; how brave they were.
But things are not changing. How many times do violent men have to charm their way out of a jail sentence before we lock them up?

I just saw on the evening news about a Dallas Cowboy Football player (Jason Witten) who did a good thing, made a nice event for children who suffer from the cycle of relational violence. It was the next-to-last story--and at the end of the newscast everyone then put up their best "three words" on a card, like "treat everyone nice" and "live love laugh" and "hope is good" --and after it ended, with the newscaster all warm and fuzzy, the very next images flashed on the TV screen from the network were the jarring words, SEX - REVENGE - MURDER - etc. filling the screen; interspersed with scenes of almost naked bodies, blood, and evil grins.

It was an ad for the next show.

Lady Gaga Is Neither...

When we feed our children

deliberately  or with casual indifference

scenes of torture, death, rape, harrassment, and power

mixed with

sexuality, having friends and acceptance, and being cool,

we set them up.
We are setting up our children for failure and sadness.

More on the topic:

http://marysbeagooddogblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/dont-hurt-people.html
http://marysbeagooddogblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/topeka-domestic-violence-and.html

If they're gonna drink, at least do it in a safe place!
If they're gonna smoke at least make them smoke filters!
If they gonna make babies, click  HERE


Time to take a sick day...

Topeka, Domestic Violence, and the Embarrassment of Relational and Political Bullying

Demeaned on yet another level: Our mothers, sisters, friends and children take another hit. Why are those who raise the national treasure not the first to be well-served? How can we allow the youngest humans to grow in an environment of brutish behavior, bullying, and injustice?
What can one say when once again, those most deserving of a community's assistance, protection, and justice
 are treated with such ___________.
 I got no wrds.

Wendy Murphy has words: "America’s shameful un-equal protection clause"  HERE
and HERE:   "Punishing abusers key to protecting women: ...

As many as 10 million children a year are exposed to domestic violence, causing them to suffer emotional and psychological harm, not to mention that they grow up believing that smacking your spouse is part of a “normal” relationship. No surprise then that boys who watch their fathers beat their mothers are far more likely as adults to do the same thing to their female partners.

    ...Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury for American women between ages 15 and 44.

Among homeless women and children, half are homeless because of domestic violence..."

Please watch the academy-award winning documentary, Defending Our Lives.

   "Domestic violence is the single greatest cause

of injury to women in America -

more than muggings, rapes, and car accidents combined.

A woman in the United States is more likely to be killed by her partner than by any other assailant..."

abc news story HERE regarding the politics in topeka.
Christian Science Monitor story "Why Topeka, Kan., repealed its ban on domestic violence" HERE

Domestic Violence Information: KSU Women's Center page HERE
Commemorating those
 who died: October Memorial HERE

The perpetrators: HERE

The fact is, those who batter their partners or their children are not given a consequence which deters them.

Wendy Murphy
writes, "...Even if education and cultural re-training might help some day, while we’re waiting around for our species to evolve, we need to give all endangered women a 45 caliber equalizer and we need to ramp up the punishment of batterers so that beating a woman isn’t sentenced on par with spitting on the sidewalk.

Anti-incarceration advocates will tell you that prison isn’t fun – and that it often spawns a toxic mental software that makes men who enter come out worse than ever when their sentence wraps up.
But if fear of becoming a monster in prison, and respect for women isn’t enough to deter a man from beating his wife, he’s already toxic – and putting him behind bars will prevent him from infecting innocent others with his poison. Punishment isn’t the only way to stop violence, but it is a legitimate and effective feature of our legal system. Lots of research shows how states that send a higher percentage of criminals to prison have lower rates of crime, even after controlling for all of things like poverty and urbanization.
But incarceration is a dirty word in the lexicon of some liberals who claim that locking people up gives the government dangerous amounts of power and threatens the freedom of the individual.
They’re wrong.
The freedom of FEMALE individuals is actually greatly enhanced when criminals who target women for violence are incapacitated.
But our legal system doesn’t care. And despite decades of disastrous statistics, our political leaders don’t care, either. In fact, nobody in a position of leadership is even complaining about the lack of justice for victimized women.
Earlier this month, there was a big to-do in D.C. about women’s issues in the Obama Administration. Lynn Rosenthal, whose responsibility it is to deal with violence against women on behalf of the president, gave a lovely talk about all sorts of things, but never once mentioned the profound failure of law to redress domestic violence or the desperate need for tougher punishments for batterers. Deval Patrick and his administration have been equally impotent.

Obviously, the men who promised “change” and “hope” for a better society, and who haven’t shied away from talking about the need for tough punishments for corporate criminals, have little “hope” to offer women in danger. They’re just two more politicians in a long line of others who value stuff more than women’s lives.
Wendy Murphy is a leading victims rights advocate and nationally recognized television legal analyst. She is an adjunct professor at New England Law in Boston. She can be reached at wmurphy@nesl.edu.


Sadness. I know you may be tired of this issue, i certainly am. How long before we no longer tolerate this?!
It is to me a thing most curious, that within our species,
among our own families,
power, strength, should be used to hurt..
Relational violence is mind-bending,
as this Power to Hurt and Control others is used to temporarily take the edge off of feelings of inferiority.
What a loss;
how sad for us, that our culture has so many who will hurt those not only of their own species, but their very mates, their children....
Our own real stories and stats  HERE

While you SCREAM at your woman, there’s someone wishing to whisper softly in her ear… While you HUMILIATE, OFFEND and INSULT her, there’s someone wanting to please her and remind her how wonderful she is. While you HURT your woman, there’s someone wanting to love her. While you make your woman CRY there’s someone wanting to make her smile…

Don't Hurt People

quotes regarding domestic violence:
While you SCREAM at your woman, there’s a man wishing he could whisper softly in her ear… While you HUMILIATE, OFFEND and INSULT her, there’s a man wanting to please her and remind her how wonderful she is. While you HURT your woman, there’s a man wishing he could make love to her. While you make your women CRY there’s a man wanting to make her smile…
anonymous?

 You show others how to treat you. (This is so important and true, for me when I stayed after my husband called me awful names I showed him it was okay. Then when he hit me and I stayed, again, I showed him it was all right. When I finally told the police he tried to kill me and I was able to have him physically removed, I showed him how to treat me and that it was no longer allowed.).... anonymous?


*Long term domestic violence: Being abused in this manner is like being kidnapped and tortured for ransom but you will never have enough to pay off the kidnapper. by Rebecca J. Burns ...TheLastStraw - support in the aftermath and during abuse



more HERE

Unhealthy and healthy, and media violence

My Strength is not for hurting...

even murder?

Get smart.Who you think you are, BE Really...

March Against Human Trafficking and Personal Violence at KSU (Thanks to Alpha Kappa Alpha)

Here is the facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=163345477057567

Tomorrow!!!!