‘Very concerning’: Milwaukee leaders worried about recent domestic violence-related deaths
'Very concerning': Milwaukee leaders worried about recent domestic violence-related deaths WPR
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Sustainable Development Goals and Domestic Abuse
Introduction
Editor’s note: This story contains language surrounding domestic abuse.
Laurel Blackstone’s 15-year first marriage was marked by the agony of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.
After she escaped that relationship, Blackstone said, she was then abused by her second husband.
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“After I left that situation is when I really realized that I needed to get some help,” Blackstone said.
“My life was in shambles,” she added.
The Sojourner Family Peace Center
That’s when she found the Sojourner Family Peace Center, a Milwaukee-based organization focused on providing resources and help for people experiencing domestic abuse.
After the Milwaukee resident got help at the center, she started sharing her story with others. Now, she helps lead a group of domestic abuse survivors at the center, called the VOICES group. In recent years, she said she’s seen more and more people join the group.
Even as homicides in Milwaukee are trending down after the city broke its homicide record three years in a row, local leaders are still concerned about the number of domestic homicides and domestic violence-related deaths in Milwaukee County.
There were 16 domestic violence-related deaths in Milwaukee County in 2018. That number rose to 49 in 2022 and declined to 38 last year.
But advocates worry the numbers could be trending upward again — last month alone, seven people were killed in domestic violence-related homicides, according to data from the Sojourner Family Peace Center.
Carmen Pitre, president of the Sojourner Family Peace Center, said there were six domestic homicides, a murder-suicide attempt, and two multiple stabbings all within around 14 days in Milwaukee County in April.
“I had never seen something so elevated within a two-week period,” Pitre said. “It’s very concerning.”
Pitre said more work needs to be done to help people leave dangerous relationships and get connected to resources before situations turn deadly.
“I think what the community is showing us is that we haven’t yet figured out how to solve this problem,” Pitre said. “…We know it starts with kids, and we know parents are wounded and have to help heal. And we have to provide resources for that to happen and we need to do it earlier in a person’s life.”
Police chief: ‘All-hands-on-deck issue’
Pitre said she first started to notice an uptick in domestic violence-related deaths in 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t help.
“COVID is not the cause, but it made everything that was hard, worse,” Pitre said.
She said that while other crimes, like nonfatal shootings and homicides, are on the decline in Milwaukee, “intimate partner violence is not.”
“At the core of it is a lack of connection between people and others and resources that would be helpful,” Pitre said.
Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said addressing domestic homicides is an “all-hands-on-deck issue.”
“As we know, the pandemic really had done a number on our community, and we’re still dealing with mental health and trauma that’s going on as a residual,” Norman said during a recent press briefing.
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