TRINI KILLED IN N.Y.

Story Created: Sep 22, 2013 at 2:35 AM ECT

Story Updated: Sep 22, 2013 at 2:55 AM ECT

Tonight a manhunt is one for a killer in New York City. The victim? a woman from Trinidad and Tobago.

According to reports, a woman fled this country after being constantly abused by a man she was involved with. She then found another lover in New York, and police believe that relationship ultimately led to the woman's death. 

Source: http://www.tv6tnt.com/home/rotator/---TRINI-KILLED-IN-NY----2755----224749952.html

Trini Woman Shot Dead in New York

A Trinidadian woman who migrated to New York to escape an abusive relationship was shot dead by her estranged lover in the West Indian community in Brooklyn. Sellis Gonzales, 44, the mother of two, was killed instantly. The killer sent her daughters on an errand to a nearby eatery before he committed the act. 


In a telephone interview yesterday from Brooklyn, Kirt Gonzales, the brother of the dead woman, said for women to stay in an abusive relationship on the premise that the man will change only results in more pain and even worse, death. He said his sister was shot six times around 8.45 pm on Wednesday. A report from the New York Daily Mail said Sellis’ daughters Khadija, 15, and Alyssa, five, were given $8 by the killer to get food at a nearby chicken eatery.


When they got back some 15 minutes later, they found their mother motionless on the floor. She had been shot three times in the head and midsection, police sources told the newspaper. The Daily Mail said police identified Sallis’ ex-boyfriend as Eric McCormick, 40, who remained at large yesterday. Sellis moved to Brownsville, Brooklyn, when she was 31, as a result of trying circumstances.

“My sister’s second baby’s father used to also abuse her and when I found out I immediately told her to pack her bags and I sent a ticket for her. I wanted her out of that situation. I wanted her to have a better life and to get away from the abuse,” Gonzales said. He never thought his sister would again end up in another abusive relationship. Relatives, he said, tried “many times” to coax Sallis to end the relationship with the suspect but she did not take heed.

“I guess it was just a matter of dating the wrong guy. My mom and I spoke to my sister many, many times,” Gonzales said. “She wanted to let go but she couldn’t. I think it’s really a matter of women having respect for themselves and to demand that respect from the person they are with.” Despite the abuse he never thought his sister would be killed. “I mean she was shot six times. I thought it would be a black-and-blue eye but I never thought she would be killed. I was not expecting death,” he added.

He said he intended to apply for legal custody of his nieces. Urging women to immediately “walk away” when they spot the first sign of abuse, Gonzales said the message must be spread that women must not be subjected to any type of abuse, whether physical, mental or emotional.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2013-09-21/trini-woman-shot-dead-new-york

Man Tries To Kill Woman

By CECILY ASSON Thursday, September 19 2013

A DAY after a 47-year-old security guard was released after being arrested for allegedly raping his estranged 30-year-old common-law wife whom he had handcuffed, the man returned to the woman’s La Brea home and attempted to kill her with a cutlass.

He was rearrested yesterday and remains in custody at the La Brea Police Station. The mother of four, was chopped on her left palm. She was treated and discharged from hospital. On Tuesday, Newsday was told, the suspect was released from custody on the instruction of a senior officer in South Western Division.

Police have in their possession, a pair of handcuffs which the man used to restrain the woman as he raped her. The couple were separated for the past two months after the relationship began last November.

Following threats to her life and that of her children, the woman three weeks ago moved in with one of her siblings.

According to police, at about 2.30 pm on Monday, the woman was at home watching television when she was attacked by the man who entered the house armed with a cutlass. The man handcuffed the woman and then raped her. He then left the house.

The suspect was arrested shortly after but was ordered released by a First Division officer even as investigations were ongoing. At 12.10 am yesterday, the man returned to his victim’s home and chopped her. He has since been held and is in custody.

Yesterday, the frightened woman told Newsday she cannot understand why police allowed her attacker to be released after he raped her. “I am even more terrified now because I don’t know what will happen. They might set him free a second time. I am going into hiding.

He is always threatening to kill me and my children,” the woman cried.

Checks with police last night revealed that the man was still in custody and charges are expected to be laid against him soon.

A senior police source said that an investigation would be launched into the claim that a policeman had ordered the suspect released. 

Source: http://www.newsday.co.tt/crime_and_court/0,183860.html

Reasons Why Women Stay

Experts look at domestic abuse...

By Camille Bethel camille.bethel@trinidadexpress.com

Story Created: Sep 15, 2013 at 10:08 PM ECT

Story Updated: Sep 16, 2013 at 11:45 AM ECT

Diana Mahabir-Wyatt

There are several reasons why people in abusive domestic situations choose to stay, experts say.

Chair of the Coalition Against Domestic Violence Diana Mahabir-Wyatt spoke to the Express on what she believes are the most prominent reasons.

“Number one is very often because of children. If you have children in the union very often the parents decide not to split up for one reason or another because they think it will distress the children. In many cases it is worse for the children to live in an environment of stress, tension and violence in which they are learning violence as an interactive response,” she said.

She also highlighted the lack of finance as another reason that makes it difficult for the abused to leave such a situation.

“They can’t afford to both look after the children and go to work. If the children are around the age of two or four, many women for example are left without a ready income that will allow them child care because they don’t have adequate State child-care for children under the age of three.

“If you have to work, you can’t take your children to work with you and that is the most frequently given reason by women with children under the age of three, why they can’t leave,” she said.

Mahabir-Wyatt said in some cases if they have a parent or a relative who is willing to take them in until they can get a job and they can support the children that takes considerable amounts of money as well.

“If you have children and you have to have reliable child care, food, clothes, transport, medical care...for many that is just impossible.

“So many decide to stay, face what they have to face until the children are old enough for school and they just have to live with it...there are women like that.”

Asked whether fear also keeps women in abusive relations she said it can and does happen.

“It happens with human trafficking very frequently and that’s one of the big issues that we are now dealing with—human trafficking either for domestic employment or for sexual transactions and in some cases you hear stories of women from other countries like Jamaica or DR (Dominican Republic) having their passports taken away and provided with a room at the back, and are told they will have to work until their tickets are paid off. They stay because they are intimidated, they are frightened.

“In the case of domestic violence, we have had cases, now less frequent, because women are now more educated,” she said.

Mahabir-Wyatt said women who have family support in some instances are scared to leave because there are threats to siblings and parents that if they don’t stay away then they are going to get beaten or threatened in some other way.

“It is not always physical. Sometimes people stay because they get so accustomed to the bullying that they are paralysed. In those instances it would usually be a parent or a close friend who will help them to get their act to together to go on,” she pointed out.

She said they are seeing a reduction in the number of educated women staying in abusive relationships, adding that if a woman being abused does not report the abusive situation, then a stranger shouldn’t take it upon themselves to do so, because women resent that.

Psychologist Dr Krishna Maharaj also spoke with the Express on some of the reasons women decide to stay.

“Many times you have a situation where the lack of family or community support obliges the woman for economic reasons to continue in those relationships because it is difficult for her to have a real opportunity to get out because she is alone.

“Another reason cited has been some women feel a sense of loyalty, they feel they have the ability or the power to change and transform this individual who may be expressing violence and hostility. Maybe because of their developmental history that was negative and may have impacted on their development into adulthood in such a way that they are not really responsible. Women consider that kind of history and feel a sense of duty to try and rehabilitate or help the partner overcome their pattern of hostility and abuse,” he said.

Maharaj said a lesser reason would include the religious indoctrination that when people take a vow “for better or for worse” and abuse occurs they feel it is part of the lessons in life that they must endure...they must stick it out.

Maharaj said there is also the issue of threat that the abuser may say to the victim, “If you leave I will hunt you down, I will find you and I will do mean, awful things to you”.

“Although not many of them who make those threats have the ability to carry them out, many of them realise they don’t need to carry out the threat because verbal threats are enough,” he reasoned.

He said mothers also make the sacrifice to stay for the children because they don’t want a situation where she may have to split the family, take some of the children and jeopardise their future.

Maharaj said when the time comes for a person to make the decision to leave an abusive relationship it is like a case of substance abuse.

“If they don’t have insight, they can’t. One must be aware ‘I don’t have to take this nonsense anymore because I know I can get help’ but if they don’t recognise this or the support systems are not there in the society, then women will continue to stay in abusive relationships,” he pointed out.

Maharaj said depression steps in when abuse continues and may find the victim withdrawing from the family.

“They lose their self-esteem, their self-respect and may even abuse drugs secretly,” he noted.

He said signs that a woman is moving towards getting out of an abusive relationship is she may begin to discuss it with people, either in a religious setting, with neighbours or relatives and then they may begin reaching out to external support systems for help, like counselling, and later start making plans to move out of the situation.

However he pointed out there is also something called the Stockholm syndrome where the victim begins to identify with the abuser that may keep that person in the situation.

“Where instead of fighting the aggressor she begins to identify with the abuser and makes excuses for him,” Maharaj said. 

 

Source: http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Reasons-why-women-stay-223852341.html

Editorial: Domestic violence remains too prevalent and puzzling

September 08, 2013 @ 10:00 PM

The Herald-Dispatch

America has made a lot of progress on the domestic violence front over the past few decades.

Statistics show that incidents of "intimate partner violence" -- incidents between spouses, ex-spouses or partners -- declined almost 64 percent between 1994 and 2010, according to the Department of Justice. More intervention, shelters and better policing all have helped to bring those numbers down.

But that is of little consolation to the families and friends of a man and his ex-wife found shot to death in his East Pea Ridge home last weekend. Investigators are still piecing together what happened between the two Saturday night, saying only that evidence indicates it was an incident of violence between the two parties and that a single firearm was found.

Friends and family members were shocked and shaken by the deaths. They acknowledge the two had had their ups and downs, but no one had seen or suspected any pattern of aggression or violence.

But that can be part of the tragedy of domestic violence. Help is available, but this still very prevalent problem is one too often unforeseen or shrouded by silence.

Even the most conservative estimates show that about 600,000 women and 100,000 men are victims of intimate partner violence each year, accounting for about 30 percent of the murders among women. But those numbers are just the tip of the iceberg, because much of the violence is never reported. The Center for Disease Control estimates that as many as 12 million women and men could be victims of some type of violence or stalking each year.

While domestic violence initiatives have increased both locally and nationally, experts say that there is still much to learn about the signs of serious violence and strategies that can help prevent it. Although about three-fourths of Americans say they know someone who has been the victim of domestic violence, for most of us, it remains an unpredictable puzzle.

One promising national initiative is working to pull together data on this type of violence from across the country. Eighteen states are now reporting to the National Violent Death Reporting System operated by the CDC.

Researchers hope that by gathering more information and looking at factors such as family histories and dynamics and social and economic conditions, they can develop and implement better strategies to prevent violence in the home.

Ohio is now participating in the program, and that is something officials in West Virginia and Kentucky should consider as well.

Source: http://www.herald-dispatch.com/opinions/x1986655719/Editorial-Domestic-violence-remains-too-prevalent-and-puzzling

Health, Crime Issues High on Needs List for Women

Health, crime issues high on needs list for women

By Tiffanie Drayton Sunday, September 8 2013

Women shop for bargains on Charlotte Street, Port-of-Spain yesterday. ...

Women are seldom the focus of the national budget despite society’s growing economic dependency on them as not only primary child caretakers, but also, in many cases, the sole household breadwinners.

Not having many expectations about the Government’s ability to effect change or provide assistance have led to many women becoming jaded when it comes to discussing their needs but still they hope someone might heed their cries for help.

“Right now, as a woman, I work like a man,” said Jackie Garraway a 36-year-old clothing store attendant, “Whatever they (the Government) do, you still have to work hard to make ends meet.” Garraway, who has two school-aged children and describes herself as an “almost” single parent, believes one of the biggest unaddressed women’s issues is the need for better healthcare, especially in the maternity wards of the country’s public hospitals.

“The service at the hospital is terrible,” she said,”You could die or have a baby right there before someone even come over to help you.”

Other women have similar concerns. Nikisia Drayton, an expectant mother, worries that the country’s public medical facilities are underperforming and putting patients’ lives in danger. “I have a friend who has had a lump in her breasts for about two months now and they keep pushing her surgery date back. They don’t even know if it is cancer or not,” she said.

Violence is also a major concern for many women who fear that their families may be caught in the crossfires of the gun violence plaguing communities such as in East Port of Spain.

The pressing issue of crime has been addressed in previous budgets with very little to no progress made in decreasing the nation’s crime-related deaths. As of 2013, the murder rate continues to be driven by gang and drug-related activity, despite last year’s concerted effort to crack down on crime. Crimes related to sexual assault and domestic abuse have also been on the rise. Since 2008, there has been a steady uptick in sexual offenses from 692 to 1,020 in 2012.

“There was a time when everybody felt safe walking down the streets, but now I feel like if I always have to look over my shoulder to make sure I’m safe,” said Candice Greaves, another working mother.

Although social issues are the points of interest for most women, for others, the concern is economics.

One woman, a small business-owner on Charlotte Street who didn’t want to be named, believes the Government has unfair sanctions that hurt people like herself.

“Small businesses are being treated real badly,” she said, “The Government charges us VAT for any merchandise we buy to sell, but when we look to sell it, we cannot charge customers VAT and that’s not fair.”

The new budget may address some of these issues indirectly, but many feel legislation should be drafted that specifically targets the needs of women, as well as the community at large.

“Trinidad needs to make its women a priority because we are doing everything these days: we are working in and out of the home and many of us looking to start our own businesses. We need all the support we can get,” Miss Garrison urged.

Source: http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,183327.html