Bloody days in America

Ihave been reflecting recently on those who would choose to ignore the importance of dealing with domestic violence in America.

After more than 30 years of the modern domestic violence movement, we still struggle for funding, face budget cuts and reductions when the economy goes bad (though domestic violence rises) and rarely are the primary focus of public policymakers in America.

Lately, the news is consumed with coverage of the swine flu, an important public health issue in America. As of Friday, there had been nearly 1,650 confirmed cases in the United States and two deaths.

But there has been little news about the mass killings of more than 60 people across America in the past 50-something days, with men responsible for all the deaths and nearly all the cases involving men with a history of violence against women.

The Tampa Bay area faced its own horrors last week. On May 3, a murder-suicide in Lakeland claimed a mother and two children. The father shot himself after chasing and shooting at his eldest son, who survived. Two days later, an infant was thrown from a car along Interstate 275 in Tampa.

There have been 13 mass killings in the past two months in the United States. In 12 of the 13, the killer had a history of abuse against women or the cases were directly related to or defined as domestic violence; 22 children and seven police officers were among the dead.

Recent incidents

Here are some of the worst incidents of the past two months:

March 10: Michael McLendon, 28, killed 10 people, including his mother, grandmother, aunt and uncle, a teenager, and the wife and child of a local sheriff's deputy in rural Alabama. He then killed himself.

March 21: Lovelle Mixon, a parolee with a history of violence against women, sexual assault and other violent crimes, shot and killed four Oakland, Calif., police officers. Mixon was shot and killed by police.

March 29: Robert Stewart, 45, shot and killed eight people at Pinelake Health and Rehabilitation Center in Robbins, N.C. He came to the center seeking to kill his wife, Wanda Neal, 43, a nurse's assistant; she survived the shootings. One victim, Jerry Avent, was a newly hired nurse at the facility and was shot 27 times but continued protecting patients until the final shot. Police estimated his efforts saved at least 10 other people.

March 30: Devan Kalathat killed six people in a murder-suicide in Santa Clara, Calif., including three children. During the rampage he shot his wife, who remains in critical condition.

April 4: Three Pittsburgh police officers were shot and killed responding to a domestic disturbance call. They were ambushed by Richard Poplawski when they arrived at the house. One of the officers was not on duty.

April 5: James Harrison killed his five children in Pierce County, Wash., while his wife was at work. Police confirmed the couple had a domestic violence incident earlier in the day and the wife had left.

April 5: Kirby Revelus, 23, killed his 17-year-old sister, Samantha, and his 5-year-old sister, Bianca. Police officers responding to a domestic violence incident shot and killed him as he was trying to kill his 9-year-old sister Sarafina.

April 7: Kevin Garner fled Greenville, Ala., late in the afternoon after setting fire to his wife's home and car. Hours later, police found his wife and daughter, her sister and her sister's son shot to death inside the burning home. Garner shot himself.

April 10: Two students at Henry Ford Community College were found dead in a murder-suicide at the Dearborn, Mich., campus. Police determined that Anthony Powell, 28, killed Asia McGowan, 20, with a shotgun and then turned the gun on himself.

April 18: Christopher Allan Wood, 34, killed his wife, Frances, and his three children in Middletown, Md., before taking his life with a gunshot to the head.

April 19: William Parente, 59, killed his wife, Betty, 58, and daughters Catherine, 11, and Stephanie, 19, before killing himself in Garden City, N.Y.

April 25: University of Georgia Professor George Zinkhans shot and killed his wife, Marie Bruce, and two of her friends in Bogart, Ga. Two others were seriously injured by bullet fragments. Police think Bruce was preparing to get a restraining order, file for divorce and leave her husband after a history of domestic violence.

May 3: Troy Bellar, 34, shot and killed his wife, Wendy, 31, and two sons, Ryan, 7, and Zack, 5 months, in Lakeland. His oldest son, Nathan, 13, escaped the barrage of bullets while being pursued by his father, who shot himself. Wendy Bellar tried to leave the home with two of the children after a fight with her husband, the Polk County Sheriff's Office said in a statement. Deputies had been to the house previously on domestic violence calls.

May 5: Three-month-old Emanuel Wesley Murray was found dead on the shoulder of Interstate 275. Investigators have arrested his mother's ex-boyfriend in the killing. The man charged in the baby's death, Richard McTear Jr., has a criminal history that includes dozens of arrests, several of which involved domestic violence, Tampa police spokeswoman Andrea Davis said. His first arrest on domestic violence charges came when he was 14, Davis said.

Act and be heard

So we are not done. We all must redouble our efforts to raise awareness and call for more resources in the war against women and children. We must call it what it is. It is not violence against women. It is most often violence by men against women.

The next time you hear someone say they cannot afford to keep a Family Justice Center or domestic violence shelter program open because of the economy, ask them to read this. Next time you hear someone say we don't need any evolving and innovative approaches to family violence prevention because our service delivery models are doing the job, ask them to read the names from the most recent bloody days of domestic violence in 2009.

Don't be silent. Don't let elected officials, policymakers, bureaucrats and disinterested community members ignore the tragedy of domestic violence.

We must take guns away from men who are violent and start spending the time, energy and money necessary to stop the pandemic of violence by men against women that is destroying families.