This is the headline and photo that stopped me cold in Freddie’s (Fred Meyer, a division of Kroger) yesterday.  It was on the front page of Sunday’s The Daily Herald.  The story is currently also the “most read” on their web site.

Nearly Every Person Sought Help

We’ve all seen a cornucopia of domestic violence statistics, but there’s one that the shelter system doesn’t share. . .how many dead women did seek help from the system.  Ms. King reported:

The Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence began reviewing every domestic violence fatality in the state 13 years ago. . . The study looks for the gaps in services ~ the moment when victims exhausted their cries for help.  Researchers found that nearly every person they studied sought help in some way.  [emphasis added]

This is the dirty little secret the shelter system doesn’t want us to know when they leverage these murders into fund-raising opportunities. Nearly half the women who are murdered in Washington State are killed by an intimate partner, and 1/3 of these pit bull predators kill themselves.  80% of domestic violence murder victims have been stalked.

Ms. King did an exhaustive investigation into the statistics and interviewed the “experts” who conducted the study.  The research on pit bull abuser patterns was conducted at the University of Washington, but it is pretty clear none of our “experts” have bothered to read the book.

Snohomish County Prosecutor Mark Roe has been busy trying to build a domestic violence platform for his political career:

It’s not domestic violence prosecution, it’s homicide prevention.

True, but he’s not going to prevent many homicides if he and his team don’t understand the complexity of trying to safely exit a relationship with a pit bull abuser.