Telling Amy’s Story | Full documentary

foreign [Music] when I started on Law and Order Special Victims Unit violence and abuse had never played a significant role in my life and then there I was immersed every day in some of the worst that people can do to each other but it wasn't just the scripts that pressed the tragedy of these acts into my consciousness it was also the horrifying statistics and the letters and emails I began receiving from victims of abuse sharing their own personal stories domestic violence usually happens behind closed doors or hides in plain sight beyond the reach of family neighbors friends and co-workers who feel helpless in the true story that you're about to see a dedicated police detective and her colleagues reassemble all the disparate clues that might have but failed to come together to prevent this heart-wrenching tragedy foreign [Music] the ending of her life is the beginning at that moment the process starts and we build backwards and we're trying to fill in what was happening right before that death and then what was happening right before that and right before that he seemed like a nice guy um but you know [Music] I didn't know you know he was an alcoholic and I didn't know that he was going to be abusive and [Music] um so [Music] foreign [Music] looks at the picture perfect postcard of State College and for the most part that's really what it is central Pennsylvania is a very rural area and then in the middle of this is this community that popped up around Penn State University it's not a high crime area I mean you can walk to the grocery store at night if you wanted to because it's this idyllic Community they refer to it as the Happy Valley everybody's here happy nobody nothing ever goes wrong in Happy Valley but underneath of that there is crime occurring and there's violent crime occurring and unfortunately a lot of that crime is within households in the last two years my unit has handled over 500 cases of domestic violence and for a couple of years all of our homicides in Center County were domestic violence related meaning that if you were not in a domestic violence relationship pretty safe area but if you can't be safe in your own home does it matter if your community is safe foreign we sat down and did the review of the death of Amy Holman McGee friends family and co-workers of Mrs McGee were brought in to talk about that death one person's talking about an incident that happened in 99 one person's talking about an incident that happened in 2000 another participants talking about something that happened years before that how could all of these things have been going on and she still died and the only way I could get my brain around it was to try to sit down lay it all out and walk through the process of Amy's life I try to just dive into it and make it make sense to myself and once it made sense to myself it came together in this very streaming Narrative of Amy's life and this was making so much more sense when we walked through what Amy was experiencing in the manner she was experiencing it so that we could see the times when maybe something could have been different and we said people have to hear this [Music] [Music] you know you can tell you can tell the people some people are just there and others you know really pay attention to detail and Amy's one that she always followed up she always answered your questions and I always thought Amy was very um very conscientious very hard worker intelligent young woman you know to be doing the things that she wanted to do [Music] Amy and Vince I think this was the early part of their relationship so I think the attention that he put forth it seemed like very positive attention she seemed to be excited about it that he would stop in and ask where she was and he was concerned about you know her whereabouts or he wanted to see her so it seemed like you know being younger and in love it was a very positive thing at the time [Music] so in 2004 we did a case review on a couple Amy and Vincent McGee at the time that Amy was graduating from Penn State Vincent was coming back stateside and discharging from the military the two then met while Amy was working at a home improvement store and Vincent was working for an armored car service making the money delivery and pickup at that home improvement store um he was just a different type of person she had a couple friends you know that they would get together and do something but it was you know after a while he would take her to work he would go pick her up after work it was like you know she had to be with him all the time I just thought some of his behaviors that he exhibited you know with this the gun and the posturing and some of those things I just thought he was a little bit off but I didn't know him very well those were only behaviors that you saw when he would come in in September of that year the Home Improvement store sent a letter to the hummered car service asking that Vincent no longer be the one who brings the money and picks the money up and the letter indicated there was a conflict of interest now when I talked to her co-workers I asked them what is this conflict of interest what would happen when Vincent would show up there and they told me that Amy would become very distressed it would interfere with her work day she would have to worry about if she was talking to a male co-worker if she was in the break room with males if she didn't get to the door fast enough when he walked in if she was talking to a male customer and I remember one specific time that it was at the end of an evening and she appeared to be a little bit concerned about she seemed to be anxious about Vince maybe not being there when he was in the store and I just remember saying to her you know Amy it just you know don't worry about that I mean you have a lot of life ahead of you meaning that you know you have a lot of opportunity and she just kind of laughed it off and just said that's Vince I didn't know that Amy Holman was Amy McGee and a matter of fact she had grown so all right last I saw it was years before but when she showed up with her father of course he all clicked into place for me that night in December of 1998 she needs help Vince is intoxicated she wants to leave she doesn't know what to do so her parents go over to the house she gets in the car and she starts to tell them about his alcohol abuse and the things that he's been doing and what he did when she tried to leave she you know didn't feel safe you know she wanted to leave and he tried to you know stop her when we left and pulling away from the house he took his fist and and smacked the pitcher window and broke the one section of it and her parents convinced her to go to the police station with them so they drive to the police station and now she's in the car in the police station in the parking lot and they're trying to convince her to go in and tell the police what is happening she doesn't know if what the police can do will be better or we'll make it worse and eventually the officer comes out into the parking lot talks to Amy thankfully he knew Amy since she was a little girl we had a barbecue in the backyard and I can remember Amy running around as a five or six year old she was the apple of her father's eyes being an only child she he loved her dearly and it showed because she'd be running around and he'd be let her go for a little bit and then he'd say tell her to calm down or to you know knock it off and then he'd look at me and he'd smirk you know just because they're so full of energy but uh initially I I'm not sure that Amy even wanted to come to the police she didn't know what to do she called her parents and they they came and got her and then Mr Herman just brought her right over to our station she was saying that her husband had been drinking most of the day that he was breaking things up around the house the threat she told me that he made to her was if you take my kid away from me I'll kill you and at the time there's a condition on that threat and the D.A would not prosecute those type of threats so after speaking whether I strongly urged her to get a PFA so the officer takes Amy before a local magistrate and an emergency protective order is issued by the judge and that order calls for the relinquishment of his weapons and the eviction of him from the residents and directs that he have no contact with Amy until there's a hearing or a continued order officers go out to the house when they get there he's immediately aggressive several times I asked him you know Mr McGee where are your weapons in the house do you want me to tear your whole house apart or you just want to tell me where they are and he wouldn't answer me so the first Sergeant Albright watched him while I started searching residents for weapon the first place I went was the chair that he had been sitting in and underneath where his right leg would have been was a loaded handgun while I was gathering up the weapons Sergeant Albright was just kind of keeping an eye on Mr McGee and I noticed several times as I'm going in and out of rooms that and I can hear a cell phone ringing he's on the phone about her getting the police involved and she's making this happen and this is all her fault as I was going out the door I noticed that he was on the phone again and he made a comment something along the lines of uh thanks for thanks for taking my guns while they're loading their cars out in front of the house their dispatching Center calls them over the radio Amy just called Vincent's calling her on the phone so I called her and she said he's been calling me well I said that he had another gun that we didn't find and that he was going to kill himself and why are you doing this to me why'd you take my guns from me well that's the comment I just heard him make the judge said don't have any contact with her and while we're still here you're calling her and continuing this abuse so they go back inside and they violate him on that protective order at the hearing the next day the judge says yes you are in contempt of court and holds him accountable for the time he said in jail no additional jail time but time served [Music] I believe this was the first time that she actually took a step that night to protect herself and her child so that was a huge step for her to take and [Music] I'm sure it was very difficult for her because it had happened over a weekend the emergency protection that Amy had was expiring that Monday the 21st of December Amy needed to go and ask for additional protection if she wanted that protection to continue and she did so on December 21st she went she outlined the history of what had been happening and when she outlined that history she went back for nine months she recounted him pulling the baby out of her arms him choking her him breaking things in the house threatening to burn the house down threatening to kill her the person filing the PFA and a lot of times it's because of the way they've been treated think it's their fault and it's their failure they're people that finally filed a PFA and when you look at the background of this you're sitting there thinking why didn't they file this thing two years ago so even though we know now what had been happening quite often we don't know it at the time there's more occurring in these cases than we're ever aware of she never talked about being abused or anything like that we never learned until it you know came out from co-workers and that she was in a abusive setting um I mean there was time that she had some black and blue marks on her arms but she told us that that was because she went to the storage where they had stuff stored was looking for something in boxes fell on her December 28th the couple appears together before the judge asking that that protection order be dropped now imagine this relationship where there's this escalation and these put downs and these insults and these threats I'm going to burn the house down I'm gonna kill you I'm choking you I'm physically violent with you I'm breaking things in your house and now you're sitting next to me in the courtroom and I'm telling you tell the judge you're not afraid of me tell the judge he should give me my guns back so Amy stuck so Amy tells the judge She's Not Afraid tells the judge to give him his guns back and the judge does now Amy doesn't understand all of the nuances of the legal system she doesn't understand that the only reason the judge has the guns is because of the protective order all she knows is that as she's sitting in that courtroom with her batterer right next to her she is watching a judge give him those guns guns are never returned until somebody files a request to have the guns returned and once I receive that request I serve a copy on the district attorney and the victim the other party and they come in but there's nothing under the law that really allows us to keep the guns once the PFA has expired or been withdrawn you know it's it's like when you talked to her and he wasn't around it was like she was trying to get out of the situation I think she knew that he would try to do something but she wouldn't tell us that [Music] the couple's now living in Uniontown they've moved to Uniontown from the state college area because Vincent's family is in Uniontown in October Pennsylvania State Police gets involved in the Bedford Barracks they're called to an incident that occurred on State Route 220 while they're in the vehicle a heated argument starts that's right out of the police report a heated argument and in the course of that argument Vincent takes a handgun discharges it into the passenger window of the vehicle Amy's driving the vehicle and the baby is strapped in a car seat in the back of the car when they take Vincent into custody they take him before a magistrate and he's lodged in the local jail for five thousand dollars but the interesting thing about the date that that happened October 18th was supposed to be Amy's first day at work at a new job now thankfully her employer did extend her training day and they let her continue and complete her training starting a little bit later I think one of the first indications I had that there was abuse with Amy was she could never be working alone with a male and then just the things that Amy would have to do she had to report in when she left for lunch and by reporting I mean she had to call to her husband she had to call when she got back from lunch so he had to know where she was at all moments of time she had to miss work a few times because of Vince or she had no one to take care of her children because he had done something as an employee she performed her job very well in January of 2000 an employee at the phone store documents with his employer Vincent keeps calling and calling here it's interfering with our work day we don't know what to do it's interfering with the business of the store he called into the store and asked to speak to his wife she had just left for lunch she didn't call him like she was supposed to and she turned her phone off because she didn't want to talk to him so she was at lunch he called into the store and I said okay I'm sorry she's at lunch and he said well go get her and I said why no no she's left the store she's at lunch the next thing another line in the phone rings in the store rings I should say another employee answers the phone and it's events on the phone with her asking to speak to Amy and she starts to explain the same thing she's not in the store she's left for lunch and we're both talking to this guy at the same time so he's got his probably his cell phone and his home phone going calling the store looking for her and I had mentioned to him at that time that he needed to stop calling the store like this for her he was disrupting business and he was going to get her in trouble and then he mentioned that maybe he would come down and take care of me I mean you know I won't use the kick my the rest you can fill in the blank so I thought boy this is really something [Music] in March Vincent's granted Ard and in the court system in Pennsylvania ARD means accelerated rehabilitative disposition and basically that's a really fancy way of saying if you be good for 18 months We'll erase this like it never happened and this is for shooting a gun off in a car in a moving car on a state highway what was the court system thinking why would they agree to throw this away they didn't have any choice this is the best they could get because Amy was not able to testify and you'll never hear me in any of my cases that I prosecute talk about a victim who won't testify because if we could guarantee a victim that they would be safe that the outcome of the court case would be better for them than I believe that a victim would testify but we can't guarantee that [Music] April of 2001 the couple's second child is born in June they got in an argument Vincent was intoxicated and when Amy tried to leave Vincent jumped in the pet of the truck so she drives to the police station to ask for their help in her her toddler child and her infant child escaping to State College to her parents house so the officer separates the two drives Vincent back home and allows Amy to continue on to her parents house in August the Uniontown Police are dispatched to the local hospital Amy is at the hospital with a broken nose she tells the officers that her husband Vincent punched her in the nose in an argument the officer doesn't arrest him but does give Amy some information about protective orders and tells Amy to call the Uniontown Police if the problems continue when she gets home a few days later Amy goes to another doctor for a follow-up appointment for the injury to her face she tells them she got hit in the face with a softball now think about this when you're the victim of domestic violence and you finally have the courage to disclose to a police officer in a hospital bed what happened to you and nothing changes are you going to keep telling the story Amy's still working at the Uniontown store she has been putting in for transfers trying to move back to the state college area and in August she is granted an emergency transfer from the Uniontown store to the State College Store and that transfer is being made so she can escape Vincent what the employer doesn't know is that Vincent goes with her you know like when she came back to State College she had told us it was her and the kids coming and then you know she called us when she got here and we went up and he was there too and I said how come he's here and he you know she said well he decided he wants to be a family when I first met her Amy came to the store her first day of work she had a black and blue eye she had claimed that she had been hit by a softball but her work ethic and everything was really good it was really good so she kind of fit in with us right off the bat I was hired as a customer service rep and she was the one that trained me in my position and I got to know her really well when she first started there when she thought we didn't know it was like oh yeah Vince was a good man oh yeah you know this kind of thing but you do that and when she transitions into that new store her co-workers are now helping her transition by posting fake schedules for Vincent so that he doesn't know that she's working late with males or that she's closing the store with a male or she's on a shift with a male which tells us something if you need to post a work schedule for someone on site that means he's coming there the first time that I think I realized that there were some situations going on with Amy and her husband was when she made a phone call from the store and she started yelling her husband's name on the phone and after she got off the phone she said that her husband had passed out on the floor and that he was supposed to be babysitting boys and the one little boy answered the telephone and she had him take it over take the phone over to his dad and she kept trying to get him awake and she left the store a little bit after that to go home and get the boys and take them to her mom's you can't force a person that's being abused to come forward one because they're scared to because they have no self-esteem and three they don't know if other people are going to believe what they're saying so I had told her my story and I had told her that Ashley had just left in April of that year my husband of 21 years of domestic violence it was funny I I guess I wanted Amy when I learned about her I wanted her to experience happiness that I felt believe it or not the morning that I left the one time that really stuck out in my mind was the time that she came in and she had bruises across both of her arms and um she said that she was pulling something off the top of a shelf in the closet and it fell down and hit her and later she admitted that she that he had hit her with a baseball bat and it did kind of affect not hurt the way she worked when she was at work but like she would be late or she would have to leave or she would call off or you know you could just kind of see the signs without her actually coming out and saying you know that this was going on I mean she did talk about um Vince's drinking and but she always denied the abuse you know the physical part of it and everything until one day that she finally had told us that she was not hit by a softball that Vince had done it and I think maybe that that was a turning point for Amy in September September 1st of 2001 Amy's father Garth Homan calls the State College Police and he calls the state college police because he needs help with his drunk son-in-law and he tells the police he's drunk I want him out of here I want him out of this house I own this house and I don't want him here anymore well the couple has lived there together for three weeks this is Vincent's home we can't kick Vincent out of his home because he's drunk so we assist Amy in leaving with Garth with the two children and going over to her mom and dad's house so at that incident on the 1st of September when we were out there and he was intoxicated he relinquished one handgun to State College Police for safe keeping due to his intoxication remember he's been on probation since he shot that gun off in the car so when we check his probation status we find out from the probation department in Bedford County that we just missed it he just came off of Probation and we did not catch it in time to violate him on his probationary status we don't have any lawful reason to keep this gun from him under the current gun laws so we have to give it back to him he would follow her all over the store and then if she made him leave then he would call the store constantly every couple minutes if we picked up the phone it was usually him and we would say that she's busy with a customer we just wanted to be friends we just wanted her to be able to come to us and feel like she had someone to come to feel like she had friends probably about Middle October and she had started to contemplate ways to to end the relationship and get out she said that she had made the move to state college to get away from Vince but he followed her here he was so controlling so just always there you know what I mean even though he physically wasn't there to Amy he was like always there because he was like on the phone calling or she would have to call him October 16th of 2001 Amy sends an email to her employer pleading to get transferred back to the Uniontown store now remember she just came to State College in August and now in October she's asking to go back and the email sounds very distraught and it's stressed and there's a tone of desperation in this email and she's describing her dad and Vincent getting into it again and saying that she's stuck in the middle and she's thinking that if she can get back to Uniontown maybe Vincent will calm back down the employer gets back to her on October 21st and says I'm sorry we cannot transfer you back to Uniontown until the State College Store is up to full staff [Music] I think initially Amy her read the red flags were flying whenever she was allowed to drive herself to work this was something that did not happen and uh that particular day he allowed her to drive truck to work alone number eight Amy got up that day thinking it was like every other day she knew she had to get ready for work and then wake Vincent in order for him to drive her to work she wasn't allowed to have a car so the standard routine in that household was that he would get up drive her to work she would work throughout the day and then he would pick her up immediately after work so that he could then retake that control of her day so on this day November 8th she woke up got ready for work went to wake Vincent and she says to Vince and it's time to get up I have to go to work and he says no I'm not driving you I have to go to work I can't keep missing work every time I miss work I'm getting in more and more trouble I'm going to lose my job you take the truck then take the truck this was unheard of why would he let her take the truck so she gets in the truck and she drives to work and she gets herself frantic worrying about what's happening there at the house what's going on with their children why was she allowed to take the truck to work today we were busy we were short staffed at the store Amy was kind of quiet that morning she wasn't as juvial as what she usually is she was she seemed concerned so as she gets herself more and more anxious knowing that something is up with Vincent she goes ahead and calls her mom about 10 30 that day she calls her mother and she says to her mother I know I'm calling you again I'm sorry that I'm calling you again but something's going on with Vincent I don't know why he let me take the truck to work today I'm at work right now he's not answering the phone I don't know what's going on with the babies can you please go check on them well even her mom recognized this as something different so her mom's concern was also peaked so Mom says you know what you stay at work I'll go over and check the boys so Grandma takes the day off from work she drives over to the house and she finds Vincent asleep on a mattress in the family room with the one baby tucked under his arm in a soiled diaper and the toddler sort of running around the house also in soiled clothing so she wakes him up Vincent what's going on why are the kids all soiled why aren't you up what's happening today and so when he wakes up he starts to tell her I'm just too tired I just can't handle all the stress Amy doesn't understand how hard it is for me to raise these children Amy goes off to work and she's outside the house and she has all her friends and she Goofs off all day and I'm stuck here with these kids so Grandma says you know what I understand you must be tired Grandma's not going to start this argument with him all over again grandma says I will take the children for the day with me so Grandma cleans up the two little children and takes them for the day now Vincent who was so tired instead of laying back down and going to sleep he immediately starts calling the phone store and I actually at the time didn't realize that her cell phone was ringing so much and that she was answering the phone because I was with customers and stuff and it got to the point where Vince was actually calling the store um a lot there were probably at least 20 to 25 phone calls just you know every every 15-20 minutes then it got to the point where we didn't answer that line we would just ignore it lo and behold Vincent shows up he had walked from his residence to the store he comes into the store and he goes into the back room where he begins to confront Amy where's the truck why aren't you taking my calls who's hanging up the phone on me who's telling me that I can't call you who do you think you are for standing up to me so the co-worker goes into the back room where armed Vincent co-workers don't know he's armed where armed Vincent is arguing with his wife they go up to Vincent and they tell him if you don't leave we're going to call the police and Vincent says fine and he storms out of the storm when she has convinced herself that he has really left the phone starts to ring at the phone store and it's Vincent he found the truck and he tells her he's going to go out drinking and he slams down the phone on her now she turns to her co-workers and she's even more distraught you know she was just she was scared to death the only way I can describe it just scared to death she begged and pleaded with me to please don't call the police and it wasn't about this it was about what Vince would do afterwards and so I didn't call Vince came back with the truck around closing time and Amy had already gone unbeknownst to him her family had picked her up they decided to go have dinner together Vince then pulled out probably wasn't there more than two minutes he pulled out he didn't leave in the direction of where him and Amy lived and I sort of figured that he was headed to find Amy I just kept trying to call her I kept trying to call I probably called like four or five times kept going to voicemail I couldn't let her know I wanted to let her know that Vince was probably headed that way and I didn't hear anything else so he drives directly to the restaurant and when he gets to the restaurant he goes into the table where Amy and her parents and her two young children are eating dinner and he goes right up to her at the restaurant and he begins to confront her again and she says enough I can't do this anymore and she tells him you have until tomorrow to get out of that house you call your brother you call your sister you call whoever you need to call but you tell them to come get you and come get your stuff and get out it is over with us I am done I'm taking the boys and I'm going to my parents house and that's where we're staying until you get out of there and he says fine and he storms out of the restaurant so she turns to her dad and she says hey can we stop at the house I need to go in and I need to get some things for the babies and they drive back to Amy's house so she can go into the house and get all the things that a mom would need to take care of her babies at Grandma's house for a couple of days when they pull up to the residence Amy gets out of the car while her father and her mother and her two young babies sit in the car she goes into the house to get diapers and onesies and bottles and then her parents and her children wait and no one knew Vincent was inside the house he had parked the truck inside the garage she's in there for five minutes and then Vincent comes out and when Vincent comes out he says someone call 9-1-1 I just shot Amy and he shot her in the top of the head at Point Blank Range and he killed her instantly [Music] and we hear a story like this every time I tell this I think to myself make it end differently make it end with a happy ending and I can't because this really happened in the life of Amy Holman McGee and so we have to ask ourselves what can we do as a community to change the ending for another victim [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] if you or someone you know needs help please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-s-a-f-e help is available 24 hours a day Advocates provide Crisis Intervention safety planning information and referrals share this film discuss it with others and please visit telling.psu.edu to start the conversation in your community we can't change what happened to Amy Holman McGee as detective official said or the thousands of victims killed by domestic violence but we are not powerless to prevent this from happening to our friends our neighbors our sisters mothers loved ones and to ourselves I am joined by Cheryl Cates of the National Domestic Violence Hotline and a leading expert on the issue of domestic violence welcome Cheryl thank you Mariska um wow when you see that video it's just Amy's story is so heart-wrenching I think that when we watch a show a a documentary like we've just seen and you think like how did this happen how could it have happened and we feel so powerless and how can we as you said Empower ourselves the way to empower ourselves is to talk about it and we wish more people are talking about it and that's the only way we'll ever be able to and believing that they can make a difference right I mean if I know someone or have a friend a family member or a co-worker and say I want to help or how can I help I remember when I was first doing my research for SVU and I went through some crisis training and I learned the statistics and I was just dumbfounded if if people knew them then everyone would be talking about it because it's true that it affects all of us so can you talk a little bit about absolutely I mean we know that one in Four Women well yes which means that if you're at lunch with four girlfriends yes one in four you're at a baby shower and you look around the room at 20 women and you say if that statistic is the truth in this room what does that mean and I looked at you know in my own family where we have four girls and one of my sisters has been abused and I think that that statistic comes alive at that moment it's not just someone else it's it's my family it's your family domestic violence can happen to anyone any race any age sexual orientation religion gender it also can happen across all socioeconomic backgrounds and and education levels there's often a question about men you know are men abused as well and yes they are but the vast majority 85 percent are females what is the what is the impact of a child growing up in a violent household when they are exposed to violence uh in the home I think children it it has a profound impact on them and we know that you know there's 3.3 million children who are affected by domestic violence so so before we get into those statistics may I ask you just for clarity well what is exactly domestic violence can you tell us really Define it for us about what it is was a pattern of behavior where someone uses power and control in any relationship and against their intimate partner it's physical it's emotional it's sexual it's um psychological it's economic it may be where someone actually threatens and terrorizes another person and I just want to stop you for one second because I think that's something that people need to hear if somebody threatens you or intimidates you or uses a weapon or touches you in an unsafe way that is abuse right that is not normal behavior and if somebody is treating you like that even though you're used to it it's not okay right and it's not normal and it needs to change and we urge you to tell someone and we do want them to tell someone I mean if they can there are shelters all across this country and they do such wonderful work um and they're here 24 7. they are here to do counseling and legal services and create an environment for their lives to change for Hope to happen and they do an amazing amount of advocacy on behalf of the victim and make sure that they're safe another thing that I hear over and over from survivors of abuse domestic violence fact is is they feel alone because of the the shame and the guilt and they need to know they're not alone they're not alone and they're not alone and one the one in four statistic proves that right and I think one of the things that we we again tell them is that um reaching out to someone for help is critical we know that oftentimes it takes a tremendous amount of Courage it takes a tremendous amount of courage to reach out and make that first phone call and and they feel that it is their fault which it is so not and I think it's so important to be to be non-judgmental about it and I think it's it's hard for people because they don't understand it and there does seem to be a lot of judgment toward the victim why didn't they just leave why are they still staying in a relationship I you know I would never put up with that if somebody was treating me that and I get I just get that question over and over why doesn't she just leave and I think so many times it's women that that truly feel that they do not have an option and that is why they stay especially if they're financially dependent on the husband how are they going to care for the children how are they going to eat but I I want to ask the question this way not why didn't she leave but why does the abuser choose to abuse and you know I have a story for that in terms of when I what I've heard from Men Who perpetrate violence and I actually was in a class with a man who was talking about you know what he had done to his partner where he had actually taken her head and put it into a you know a bureau or a dresser and he said you know I I can do this you know I can't I can I have the right to do it and it works when I tell her to shut up she now shuts up and also he said and you know there's no consequences and that to me was one of those moments where I thought to myself that we have to change that thinking of a person who is perpetrating violence if they can't do that we're not going to tolerate this we are not going to allow this to continue we're not going to keep blaming victims because they want the violence to stop and they love they love the person to stop they don't want the relationship to stop I've even heard people say they deserve what they get oh I don't even know how to respond to that um also that's something I wanted them to say is that you know we as community members can step in and make a difference and even if they don't leave let's try to reserve our judgment so that that we can respect their decisions and the timing that they have because they know more than we will ever know it's not an easy answer but there is I think an answer for communities to be more involved get more educated be a listening ear think about ways that you could have made a difference in Amy's story it's simple it's it's reaching out in terms of the other day I was at a a picking up my clothes at the cleaners and seeing a woman with a black eye and four marks on her arm and just taking a moment to let her know that if there's somewhere you need to go I have a 1-800 number and there's someone who can help you there we as a community member have to say that if my neighbor is abusing their spouse or their loved one or intimate partner that we have an opportunity to make that call to the police department or to say hey I heard something going on last night and and I'm not okay with this well I wanted to read I wanted to ask you about that I think that is such a a difficult thing for people that they're so scared of I mean if you suspect something that is going on with with friends of yours right and you know you're close with the husband and you think he's a great guy but you've you've noticed that he's being disrespectful or he yells at her or he threatens her in public and then you say to yourself well if he's doing that in front of us what is he doing when they're alone so how how can people you know people are scared what if they're wrong you know what if I'm right who am I to get involved it's not my business it's but it is our business it makes our neighborhoods unsafe it makes our families and our homes unsafe so I think that's important that we take the opportunity to say something if nothing else give a card of here's where you might can get some help or is there some things going on in your relationship that that you know I'm here for you to talk or when you're ready I'm here for you um and I'm telling you they will come back to you they will see you that you've heard them that you're not leaving them alone that they can trust you with these most vile Secrets sometimes you know where they've been not only physically abused emotionally abused psychologically abused and sexually abused and when that all happens to you and you're trying to decide am I going to leave or am I going to stay can I trust this person with my life because this person who is my intimate partner who says they love me is the one that's hurting me the most and how can they trust anyone what you just said if the person who says I love you if the person who they're supposed to trust the most and Garner that support and love from you know is is betraying them how confusing that's like getting the rug pulled out from you every day I mean I just in watching you know the movie and I know I keep going back to this word complexity but I just find it so key because when you're watching the movie and the way Vince wanted to drive her to work and everything at first you're thinking so sweet at the beginning and especially imagine you know a young girl that has never had this kind of attention before and he wants to people through every second but she works so he thinks oh you know it's actually a controlling Behavior I always say to um to young girls I meet to trust their gut to trust that intuition and if effort they're in a situation when they don't feel safe get out absolutely and I think that those are great words so you just said it this is what a Community member can do this is what each one of us can do you're saying the most important thing is is for us to acknowledge them to remind them about their strengths to listen to them let them know that the abuse is not their fault and not okay and not okay we can make this happen together we can prevent domestic violence we can stop it um I remember a participant on one of our programs for a joyful Heart Foundation trip once said that it was her first time that her body didn't feel like a crime scene and I just remember how that stuck with me and I thought you know nobody should ever feel like that um so I have the same ambition for all women who are being abused what can we do collectively to solve this as members of the public we can donate our time and our energy in terms of volunteering knowing what your public officials think about this issue what do they vote on this issue that is critical and be sure you know the resources in your community there may be many options for a person it may be in a faith-based organization it may be a shelter provider have a conversation begin the dialogue see it as an as a a process too we aren't going to be perfect you don't have to be the perfect expert on domestic violence you you can do just encouraging words it's that simple but begin the dialogue if you see that your friends or neighbors or co-workers are involved in violence have have something to say or have a card to give them or a brochure it may be that it's a call to a hotline a 1-800 number like the National Domestic Violence Hotline say there's no more excuse no there's not an excuse we are not going to tolerate violence we are not going to be a part of sitting in silence because our silence can be just as powerful as approval and it goes back to what I was saying earlier about abuser who says I can and there's no consequences there are consequences we need to make sure that a part of our community response is that way is that there is accountability domestic violence is a crime all across this country yeah and I have to treat it as one it is so important when we talk about domestic violence we're not talking about men versus women or women versus men we're talking about violence versus peace that's right we're talking about control versus respect that's right and I think that's what we need to look at is how can we change that conversation to being it isn't about men versus women but it is about peace all right um thank you we're both gonna cry but thank you Cheryl so much for being here today I feel nourished and encouraged and um armed with some tools and I really uh appreciate it God bless thank you for joining us [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] Amy's story is made possible with support from the Verizon Foundation working to end domestic violence through education and awareness initiatives learn more at verizonfoundation.org and Verizon Wireless helpline program collects wireless phones and turns them into support for victims of domestic violence

Channel: wpsu

Views: 2,616,652

Keywords: domestic violence, domestic violence prevention, abuse prevention, domestic violence training, police intervention, state college, Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order, domestic violence help

Id: G_5GsLKmzIY

Length: 56min 49sec (3409 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 06 2023