By the Corpus Christi Caller-Times
We’re encouraged that District Attorney Mark Gonzalez has declared domestic violence a priority. The overwhelming response to our stories about the death of Leann Torres shows that it’s the communitywide priority it deserves to be.
Now we’d like to see the police and sheriff’s departments join Gonzalez; District Judge Inna Klein, who volunteered to take on domestic violence cases as a specialty after studying the issue extensively; victims’ advocates; and the community at large in an overt effort to address domestic violence.
We urge Sheriff Jim Kaelin, Police Chief Mike Markle and their staffs to engage the community in ways similar to what we saw earlier this week from Gonzalez and First Assistant DA Matt Manning, when they reached out to Del Mar College cosmetology students.
Those students can make a real difference because of the career they have chosen. Cosmetologists see what’s under the makeup.
Enlisting cosmetologists against domestic violence is an innovative program, known as Cut it Out, begun by previous DA Mark Skurka. Gonzalez expanded it to reach students in addition to practicing cosmetologists. When those students become cosmetologists, looking for signs of abuse and offering help to the customer will be part of their routine rather than something new to add to a to-do list.
It was perceptive of Gonzalez and his staff to recognize that this ounce of outreach will be worth a pound of prosecuting.
What the cosmetology students learned and will incorporate as practicing cosmetologists will make a difference. It’s just a tragedy that it won’t make a difference for 24-year-old Torres, whose sister says she loved makeup.
Torres died Feb. 1 from what the medical examiner determined to be strangulation. Her boyfriend, Steven Urias, has been arrested on suspicion of murder. He has admitted to hitting and choking her four days before her death. It was part of an established pattern of abuse. Urias was convicted in 2016 of misdemeanor assault causing bodily injury for running over Torres’ arm with a car.
Torres was in and out of Dallas-area hospitals with a variety of abuse-related injuries before moving to Corpus Christi with her two children, ages 7 and 2. She made that move without Urias, whose pretext for rejoining her was his desire to spend time with his children.
This is where we stop to say, emphatically, how inappropriate it is to ask “Why didn’t she just leave?” — and not only because Torres did leave.
Asking why a victim doesn’t leave her abuser isn’t a prelude for helping. More often than not it’s a rhetorical question, and it actually helps perpetuate the problem. The most dangerous time for a victim who leaves is when she leaves. That should be a universally known fact by now — so well known that it begs the question: Why ask why she didn’t just leave?
There are myriad reasons victims don’t just leave, starting and ending with fear — fear of violence; fear for one’s children; fear of economic destitution, leading to a gradual loss of self-esteem and control over one’s life.
“Why doesn’t she leave?” is a judgmental prelude to washing one’s hands of a problem that is all of ours, everywhere, because it crosses all social strata and affects people of all education and income levels. Victims don’t hear “Why don’t you just leave?” as a question. It’s a signal to them that the person asking isn’t there to help. It drives them further into their abusers’ arms.
The new crop of cosmetologists will know, when they see what’s under the makeup, that leaving likely isn’t easy for the customer in the chair. The best thing about Cut it Out is that it shows how this is not just a police and prosecutors’ responsibility. Nor is it just the responsibility of cosmetologists.
— Corpus Christi Caller-Times
