‘It got worse and worse’

Written By: Brittany Harlow in collaboration with Broken Arrow Sentinel  

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, you can reach out to the DVIS 24-Hour Information & Crisis Line at 918-743-5763.

(BROKEN ARROW, Okla.) “They’re loving, they’re caring. Your kids are doing this, you’re doing family things. It’s good. Then you get to the point when there’s an issue. And you’re scared. And you’re walking on your tiptoes, you’re walking on eggshells, trying not to set him off. And then there’s the big blowup. And then there’s the, ‘I’m sorry.’

“And then it just kind of starts over.”

Felisha Robinson, a two-time survivor, described the cycle of domestic violence during a panel discussion at Northeastern State University-Broken Arrow Wednesday night.

About 60 people took part in a community conversation Wednesday to discuss Oklahoma’s high occurrence of domestic violence and the rise of domestic violence in Broken Arrow, specifically.

According to domesticviolence.org, Oklahoma is number one for domestic violence in the country. It is also number two for women killed by men. 

Calls for service going up

Broken Arrow Police Officer Kaitlin Anderson said their department responded to over 2,000 domestic violence calls in Broken Arrow last year. Calls for service are up nearly 10% this year, with a 15% increase in domestic violence reports being filed with the department. Calls for service do not necessarily result in reports being filed - and people also go to the police department to file reports.

Robinson said the first time she experienced domestic violence was in college. It started with little things like insults and getting pushed around.

“But as time went on, it got worse and worse,” Robinson said. “The little bitty things turned into him locking me in our apartment. We had deadbolts. And one door. He would deadbolt me in the apartment and I couldn’t go anywhere. And I would be there the whole weekend. And he would be gone.”

Robinson said after she broke up with him, he stalked and attacked her. She filed a protective order against him and later married someone else.

Violence resurfaces

It was a year and half before he showed any signs of violence, punching her so hard she flew across the room. The assault had followed an incident in which her husband harmed her child, and she had defended her child against him.

It was a familiar situation, as Robinson worked as a child welfare investigator for the Oklahoma Department of Human Services at the time.

“I promised myself that if he ever hit me again, I would leave,” Robinson said.

Over the next dozen-plus years, her husband monitored her friendships, controlled her finances, and even pulled a gun on her, but stopped short of hitting her. Then came another horrific assault.

“It had been 13 years since he put his hands on me,” Robinson said. “It had been 8 years since he pulled a gun on me. So, it was one of those things where you get kind of comfortable.”

After a brutal physical attack, she was hospitalized. He was arrested.

While Robinson said she did not experience domestic violence growing up, many survivors do.

So do many of the people that Domestic Violence Intervention Services (DVIS) Chief Administrative Officer Rose Turner refer to as “harm-doers”.

Turner was also a panelist at Wednesday night’s event. She said reaching out and providing services to everyone involved in the cycle is key to ending it.

“We look at the whole continuum of who’s involved, who needs the assistance,” Turner said. “There’s the survivor, who definitely needs that assistance. There could be children who can also be survivors, having just witnessed domestic violence within their home, and then also the harm-doer.”

For the latter, DVIS offers a 52-week batterers program. Many are court-ordered, but some are self-referred.

Starts with isolation

Turner said one of the most common techniques of a harm-doer is to isolate their victim, which is why DVIS continues to promote their presence in the community, remaining visible so people experiencing domestic violence know they are standing by with resources and support.

“We really need to bring forth that there’s no judgment, we want to help you,” Turner said. “Because we want to break this cycle, because every single individual in our community deserves to live free from violence.”

Oklahoma State Representative Ross Ford (R-Broken Arrow) was another panelist. He discussed the interim study he had on domestic violence last week, which shined a light on generational causation and the need to dedicate more state funding to combat it, starting with youths.

“If your boyfriend or husband tries to keep you away from your family members or they limit the times that you can have a car,” Ford said. “Or they take your cell phone away from you. Or different things like that, that those are not healthy relationships, either. And they need to look for ways to get out of that relationship.”

He said the state of Oklahoma state and local communities also need to teach children what healthy marriages look like, how to understand that “no means no”, and that verbal abuse like name calling is not acceptable.

Ford served as a police officer for 27 years, and currently serves as the chairman of the Oklahoma House Appropriations and Budget Public Safety Subcommittee. He said he would like to see CLEET training that is specific to domestic violence, a court system that is tougher on protective order violations, and more thorough examinations done in domestic violence situations.

Officer training needed

“They may look fine on the surface,” Ford said. “It may take up to two days for the bruising of the neck to show up. And we just need to train our police officers to have a domestic violence examination done. We have nurses that can come out and take forensic swabs of the neck and we can use that. That also allows us to have a better outcome when we go to prosecute because the DA will have forensic evidence.”

With better proactive and reactive solutions, Ford said, he hopes to see the generational shifts needed for domestic violence occurrences to start tracking down, locally and statewide.

Another community resource at Wednesday night’s event was Muscogee Creek Nation Center for Victim Services, who heard about the event the morning of and asked to be a part of it.

The group urged the community to not forget they are a valuable partner that offers services to Native and non-Native individuals living on the Muscogee Creek Nation Reservation, which includes Broken Arrow.