"Orders of protection are supposed to prevent violence, but victims say they're..Paper Thin
BY LINDSAY FABER
STAFF WRITER
February 20, 2005
Renee, 21, got an order of protection last year when her boyfriend shoved her to the ground, kicked her repeatedly on a Caesarean-section scar and began stalking her building around the clock, making her a prisoner in her own home.
The order made him more determined to get to her, she says.
Nancy Carrasquillo, 44, was kidnapped at gunpoint in September from the Queens hospital where she works. Police say her estranged husband, Miguel Carrasquillo, then took her on a two-day journey against her will and raped her.
She had gotten an order of protection the day before the abduction.
Inessa Ivanov, 39, of Midwood, was gunned down on Madison Avenue two weeks ago by her estranged husband, who then turned the gun on himself.
An order of protection against him had expired in 2001.
These women's cases illustrate the paradoxical nature of orders of protection, documents issued in Criminal and Family courts that are designed to prevent violence but sometimes end up inciting it. In the cases where they do work, advocates say it's because they're buttressed by safety plans - counseling, emergency shelter and legal advice.
"They aren't walls of steel," said Dorchen Liedholdt, a Columbia University adjunct professor who heads the Center for Battered Women's Legal Services at Sanctuary for Families. "They're not the thing that's going to stop someone if they are intent on killing."
What's more, critics complain, New York State is the strictest in the nation in determining who can get a protective order before a crime is committed, and for how long. In Family Court, for example, a woman can get an order against her husband but not her live-in boyfriend, unless they have children together. This eliminates most teens, who are reporting abuse in ever-increasing numbers.
Every other state grants civil protective orders to women who are dating or living with their abusers.
"It's unbelievable that we would sacrifice someone's safety for the sake of saying what a family is," said Patti Jo Newell, deputy director of the New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
Even as more family members seek orders against an abuser - 80,000 orders were issued last year in the city, up 9 percent from the year before - many are violated routinely. At least 10 percent of orders in the city are ignored, the Police Department says, which results in automatic arrest. But many more violations are never reported, authorities say.
For Renee, the order of protection banned her boyfriend of three years from making any visits, phoning or e-mailing her.
"He violated it probably a couple of hundred times," said Renee, whose last name and address are being withheld to protect her. "He told me he didn't think the order of protection meant anything and he started getting more aggressive."
Still, a protective order puts the abuser on notice that law enforcement is watching. A violation means arrest.
Despite her fears, Renee reported her boyfriend to the police and had him arrested for violating the order. He served 3 months in jail and got out last fall. He has yet to contact her, she said.
Not that his absence is comforting. "I look over my shoulder everywhere I go," she said.
Call to strengthen orders
By all accounts, domestic violence in general is an underreported crime. In most of the 67 family-related homicides in the city last year, about 66 percent, the family members had no prior contact with police, according to Police Department statistics.
Even as homicides have dropped citywide in the last decade, homicides by intimate partners have become a larger portion of the total. Last year, the 41 women killed by husbands or other romantic partners represented 8.5 percent of the total, up from 4 percent in 1995. That's one reason advocates say the state needs to strengthen orders of protection.
"For a lot of people it's a wake-up call that the system is now watching them," said Assemb. Amy Paulin (D-Scarsdale), who has played a critical role in writing bills about orders. "It's a scare, a jolt. That's important. We have to keep that strong."
Two components of protective orders are being seriously reviewed by state legislators. One would extend the life of protective orders granted in Criminal Court, and the other would widen the definition of what kind of intimate partners are allowed to get an order in Family Court.
With the duration issue, advocates like Paulin are trying to get orders of protection granted for an eight-year period in major felony cases, where currently they are limited to five.
"People think over time that nothing has happened to the woman so she doesn't need an order anymore," said Newell of the state Coalition Against Domestic Violence. "But batterers can wait it out. They're patient people. And bringing them into court all over again to get a new order after five years can really piss them off."
In 2003, legislators such as Paulin were successful in extending the length of civil orders of protection from three years to five years.
"In some states orders are unlimited," Paulin said. "But now you can get less in Criminal Court. It doesn't make sense."
What the officials find is they are generally more successful in Family Court getting longer orders. The reason? In Criminal Court, offenders are often able to plead down to misdemeanors, lessening the charge against them and therefore shortening the duration of the order granted.
"Sometimes we find that if a woman is slapped, let's say, she can get a longer order in Family Court than in Criminal Court," Newell said. "There is something wrong with that."
'Watching my back'
For Renee, the issue is more than theoretical. Despite all the harassment, she said her boyfriend was only charged with a misdemeanor and she got a one-year order against him that expires in November. She's terrified of facing him again in court, especially because she does not even have the guarantee that a judge will renew the order.
"It's bad enough spending my life watching my back," she said.
The other major issue on the table this year is determining who is eligible for an order in Family Court. People who are dating but are not married and don't have a child in common are ineligible in New York. Waiting to receive one in Criminal Court means waiting until a crime has been committed. And that is often too late.
"Every other state does more for people in Civil Court than New York," said Assemb. Helene Weinstein (D-Brooklyn). "No one wants to define what a family is, but a whole group of people are missing out on the benefits of those orders."
By law, if someone violates an order of protection, police are required to arrest him. But the group of people who cannot get orders in Family Court struggle without that advantage.
Sarah Kenney, a public policy coordinator with the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Assault, said her state's progressive civil laws have been a blessing, especially for young people who are not married, do not have a child and could not get orders in a state like New York.
"Expanding the number of people who can be protected makes a major difference for teenagers who don't live with their batterers and don't have children in common," Kenney said. "It's a measure of protection for this whole group of people who can be really tormented but might not be familiar with their legal protections."
In New York, calls to the city's domestic violence hotline from teenagers, the people least likely to get orders in Family Court, increased by 36 percent in 2004, to 18,282 from 13,410 in 2003, according to city statistics.
"We are very concerned that calls to the hotline from young people have steadily increased over the years," said Yolanda Jiminez, the commissioner of the Mayor's Office to Combat Domestic Violence. "We certainly support an extension [of orders] for the under-18 population."
But even for older women, going through police can be too frightening. "I called the police twice on my boyfriend but he ran away and when the police came he was gone," said Nakia, 30, of Manhattan, who recently went to Family Court to seek an order against the father of her son. "I can't keep calling every single day. It's hard."
The 26-year-old man has recently begun threatening to kill her and kill himself, she said.
"I don't know what he's capable of, but if he's willing to do harm to himself, he'd be willing to do that to anyone. I don't want to have to worry all the time," she said. "I'm thinking about getting a weapon."
And for other women, like Ivanov, whose estranged husband repeatedly stalked her at home and at work, the order of protection may never have mattered.
"I feel like she was doomed from the start," her friend Marina Bejarano said.
A part of larger safety plan
Most advocates and law enforcement officials agree on one thing: Orders of protection are always strengthened, whatever the situation, when the women seek help and have a safety plan in place.
"Without getting advocacy and learning about housing, public assistance, financial assistance and all the other ingredients, you'll never make the most of an order of protection," said Wanda Lucibello, chief of the special victims division in the Brooklyn district attorney's office.
"The number one thing is getting a plan together," added Julie Domonkos, executive director of Westchester-based My Sisters' Place. "Orders of protection can be an important weapon for some women, but can endanger others. They are not a cure-all, especially when you don't have help navigating."
Providing protection
WHAT IT DOES
An order of protection sets limits on a partner's behavior. Judges who issue them in criminal, family or Supreme courts can do one or moer of the following:
Order you domestic partner to stop abusing you and your children.
Tell your partner to leave and stay away from your home, workplace and family.
Direct your partner to eliminate contact with you - including phone calls, letters or messages through others.
Order your partner to stay away from the children.
NEW YORKERS KILLED BY FAMILY MEMBERS BY BOROUGH
In New York City last year, 67 people were killed by family members or partners, compared with 74 a year earlier and 77 in 2002. In most cases, there had not been any prior contact or complaints to police. But in some cases, there were protective orders in effect:
2004 2003 2002
Brooklyn 24 28 36
Bronx 18 11 15
Queens 13 22 16
Manhattan 10 12 9
Staten Island 2 1 1
2004 - 66 percent of these cases had no known prior police contact. 16 perent had active orders or protection.
2003 - 73 percent had no known prior police contact; 11 percent had an active order of protection.
2002 - 65 percent had no known prior police contact; 13 percent had an active order of protection.
HOW IT HELPS
Provides a high-priority response by police to a complaint
Provides for felony arrest of a person who violates the order of protection.
Advocates urge anyone whose order of protection has been violated to call 911 immediately.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
February 20, 2005
Looking back, Nancy Carrasquillo isn't sure whether she'd do it all again.
After relentless abuse by her estranged husband, Carrasquillo said, she got an order of protection in September to keep him away. It didn't.
"You can change your phone number, you can change your locks, but you can't just walk away from your job," she told Newsday. "And that's where he got me. He's very aggressive."
On Sept. 11, the day after she got the order in Family Court, Miguel Carrasquillo allegedly stormed into Elmhurst Hospital Center, where she is a clerical associate, shot and critically wounded her colleague and dragged Nancy Carrasquillo away on a 42 1/2-hour journey on a Greyhound bus to North Carolina. There, he finally was arrested, armed with a gun he'd hidden inside a container of fried rice, police said.
"He kept saying how could I do that to him when all he ever did was love me and care for me," Carrasquillo said of the order of protection. "I told him I was afraid of him."
Weeks earlier, Carrasquillo had noticed a harrowing pattern in the emergency room at Elmhurst Hospital.
"All these women were coming in battered and bruised. They were a mess," Carrasquillo, 44, said. "And then I thought about what had been happening to me."
She said Miguel, 33, had hit her, held a knife to her throat and choked her several times.
That's when she began to talk to a social worker in the hospital about her options. She settled on seeking the order of protection in Family Court in Long Island City while Miguel was in Puerto Rico, she said.
"It seemed like the right thing to do, having the paper trail," she said.
But before she'd had the time to move out of the house, Miguel returned and learned about the order of protection, she said.
Carrasquillo described a destructive two-year marriage that had ruptured two weeks before she got the order, when she threw Miguel out of their Elmhurst home. But it was the document, she is convinced, that set him off.
And now she is divided on the merits of protective orders, understanding the importance of the paper trail but remaining unconvinced the documents do much to help.
"I tried it out, but I didn't really think it was going to work, and I was right that it didn't," she said.
Still, there was one intangible benefit to getting the order.
"It made him understand I was serious, that I was ready to stand up for myself," she said.
Miguel Carrasquillo is being held without bail at Rikers Island on kidnapping, rape, attempted murder and weapons charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty. A hearing to determine whether he is competent to stand trial is scheduled for March 14. His attorney, Russell Rothberg, declined to comment.
Despite a vast web of friends around her, Carrasquillo is still haunted by the memory, and what could have become of her.
"I don't think I trust anybody anymore," she said. "I don't want anyone to know where I live. He has family. They might be blaming me for everything that happened."
It's a fear that a protective order might never assuage.
"The bottom line is it takes more than a piece of paper," she said.
Copyright © 2005, Newsday, Inc.
BY LINDSAY FABER
STAFF WRITER
February 20, 2005
Renee, 21, got an order of protection last year when her boyfriend shoved her to the ground, kicked her repeatedly on a Caesarean-section scar and began stalking her building around the clock, making her a prisoner in her own home.
The order made him more determined to get to her, she says.
Nancy Carrasquillo, 44, was kidnapped at gunpoint in September from the Queens hospital where she works. Police say her estranged husband, Miguel Carrasquillo, then took her on a two-day journey against her will and raped her.
She had gotten an order of protection the day before the abduction.
Inessa Ivanov, 39, of Midwood, was gunned down on Madison Avenue two weeks ago by her estranged husband, who then turned the gun on himself.
An order of protection against him had expired in 2001.
These women's cases illustrate the paradoxical nature of orders of protection, documents issued in Criminal and Family courts that are designed to prevent violence but sometimes end up inciting it. In the cases where they do work, advocates say it's because they're buttressed by safety plans - counseling, emergency shelter and legal advice.
"They aren't walls of steel," said Dorchen Liedholdt, a Columbia University adjunct professor who heads the Center for Battered Women's Legal Services at Sanctuary for Families. "They're not the thing that's going to stop someone if they are intent on killing."
What's more, critics complain, New York State is the strictest in the nation in determining who can get a protective order before a crime is committed, and for how long. In Family Court, for example, a woman can get an order against her husband but not her live-in boyfriend, unless they have children together. This eliminates most teens, who are reporting abuse in ever-increasing numbers.
Every other state grants civil protective orders to women who are dating or living with their abusers.
"It's unbelievable that we would sacrifice someone's safety for the sake of saying what a family is," said Patti Jo Newell, deputy director of the New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
Even as more family members seek orders against an abuser - 80,000 orders were issued last year in the city, up 9 percent from the year before - many are violated routinely. At least 10 percent of orders in the city are ignored, the Police Department says, which results in automatic arrest. But many more violations are never reported, authorities say.
For Renee, the order of protection banned her boyfriend of three years from making any visits, phoning or e-mailing her.
"He violated it probably a couple of hundred times," said Renee, whose last name and address are being withheld to protect her. "He told me he didn't think the order of protection meant anything and he started getting more aggressive."
Still, a protective order puts the abuser on notice that law enforcement is watching. A violation means arrest.
Despite her fears, Renee reported her boyfriend to the police and had him arrested for violating the order. He served 3 months in jail and got out last fall. He has yet to contact her, she said.
Not that his absence is comforting. "I look over my shoulder everywhere I go," she said.
Call to strengthen orders
By all accounts, domestic violence in general is an underreported crime. In most of the 67 family-related homicides in the city last year, about 66 percent, the family members had no prior contact with police, according to Police Department statistics.
Even as homicides have dropped citywide in the last decade, homicides by intimate partners have become a larger portion of the total. Last year, the 41 women killed by husbands or other romantic partners represented 8.5 percent of the total, up from 4 percent in 1995. That's one reason advocates say the state needs to strengthen orders of protection.
"For a lot of people it's a wake-up call that the system is now watching them," said Assemb. Amy Paulin (D-Scarsdale), who has played a critical role in writing bills about orders. "It's a scare, a jolt. That's important. We have to keep that strong."
Two components of protective orders are being seriously reviewed by state legislators. One would extend the life of protective orders granted in Criminal Court, and the other would widen the definition of what kind of intimate partners are allowed to get an order in Family Court.
With the duration issue, advocates like Paulin are trying to get orders of protection granted for an eight-year period in major felony cases, where currently they are limited to five.
"People think over time that nothing has happened to the woman so she doesn't need an order anymore," said Newell of the state Coalition Against Domestic Violence. "But batterers can wait it out. They're patient people. And bringing them into court all over again to get a new order after five years can really piss them off."
In 2003, legislators such as Paulin were successful in extending the length of civil orders of protection from three years to five years.
"In some states orders are unlimited," Paulin said. "But now you can get less in Criminal Court. It doesn't make sense."
What the officials find is they are generally more successful in Family Court getting longer orders. The reason? In Criminal Court, offenders are often able to plead down to misdemeanors, lessening the charge against them and therefore shortening the duration of the order granted.
"Sometimes we find that if a woman is slapped, let's say, she can get a longer order in Family Court than in Criminal Court," Newell said. "There is something wrong with that."
'Watching my back'
For Renee, the issue is more than theoretical. Despite all the harassment, she said her boyfriend was only charged with a misdemeanor and she got a one-year order against him that expires in November. She's terrified of facing him again in court, especially because she does not even have the guarantee that a judge will renew the order.
"It's bad enough spending my life watching my back," she said.
The other major issue on the table this year is determining who is eligible for an order in Family Court. People who are dating but are not married and don't have a child in common are ineligible in New York. Waiting to receive one in Criminal Court means waiting until a crime has been committed. And that is often too late.
"Every other state does more for people in Civil Court than New York," said Assemb. Helene Weinstein (D-Brooklyn). "No one wants to define what a family is, but a whole group of people are missing out on the benefits of those orders."
By law, if someone violates an order of protection, police are required to arrest him. But the group of people who cannot get orders in Family Court struggle without that advantage.
Sarah Kenney, a public policy coordinator with the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Assault, said her state's progressive civil laws have been a blessing, especially for young people who are not married, do not have a child and could not get orders in a state like New York.
"Expanding the number of people who can be protected makes a major difference for teenagers who don't live with their batterers and don't have children in common," Kenney said. "It's a measure of protection for this whole group of people who can be really tormented but might not be familiar with their legal protections."
In New York, calls to the city's domestic violence hotline from teenagers, the people least likely to get orders in Family Court, increased by 36 percent in 2004, to 18,282 from 13,410 in 2003, according to city statistics.
"We are very concerned that calls to the hotline from young people have steadily increased over the years," said Yolanda Jiminez, the commissioner of the Mayor's Office to Combat Domestic Violence. "We certainly support an extension [of orders] for the under-18 population."
But even for older women, going through police can be too frightening. "I called the police twice on my boyfriend but he ran away and when the police came he was gone," said Nakia, 30, of Manhattan, who recently went to Family Court to seek an order against the father of her son. "I can't keep calling every single day. It's hard."
The 26-year-old man has recently begun threatening to kill her and kill himself, she said.
"I don't know what he's capable of, but if he's willing to do harm to himself, he'd be willing to do that to anyone. I don't want to have to worry all the time," she said. "I'm thinking about getting a weapon."
And for other women, like Ivanov, whose estranged husband repeatedly stalked her at home and at work, the order of protection may never have mattered.
"I feel like she was doomed from the start," her friend Marina Bejarano said.
A part of larger safety plan
Most advocates and law enforcement officials agree on one thing: Orders of protection are always strengthened, whatever the situation, when the women seek help and have a safety plan in place.
"Without getting advocacy and learning about housing, public assistance, financial assistance and all the other ingredients, you'll never make the most of an order of protection," said Wanda Lucibello, chief of the special victims division in the Brooklyn district attorney's office.
"The number one thing is getting a plan together," added Julie Domonkos, executive director of Westchester-based My Sisters' Place. "Orders of protection can be an important weapon for some women, but can endanger others. They are not a cure-all, especially when you don't have help navigating."
Providing protection
WHAT IT DOES
An order of protection sets limits on a partner's behavior. Judges who issue them in criminal, family or Supreme courts can do one or moer of the following:
Order you domestic partner to stop abusing you and your children.
Tell your partner to leave and stay away from your home, workplace and family.
Direct your partner to eliminate contact with you - including phone calls, letters or messages through others.
Order your partner to stay away from the children.
NEW YORKERS KILLED BY FAMILY MEMBERS BY BOROUGH
In New York City last year, 67 people were killed by family members or partners, compared with 74 a year earlier and 77 in 2002. In most cases, there had not been any prior contact or complaints to police. But in some cases, there were protective orders in effect:
2004 2003 2002
Brooklyn 24 28 36
Bronx 18 11 15
Queens 13 22 16
Manhattan 10 12 9
Staten Island 2 1 1
2004 - 66 percent of these cases had no known prior police contact. 16 perent had active orders or protection.
2003 - 73 percent had no known prior police contact; 11 percent had an active order of protection.
2002 - 65 percent had no known prior police contact; 13 percent had an active order of protection.
HOW IT HELPS
Provides a high-priority response by police to a complaint
Provides for felony arrest of a person who violates the order of protection.
Advocates urge anyone whose order of protection has been violated to call 911 immediately.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
February 20, 2005
Looking back, Nancy Carrasquillo isn't sure whether she'd do it all again.
After relentless abuse by her estranged husband, Carrasquillo said, she got an order of protection in September to keep him away. It didn't.
"You can change your phone number, you can change your locks, but you can't just walk away from your job," she told Newsday. "And that's where he got me. He's very aggressive."
On Sept. 11, the day after she got the order in Family Court, Miguel Carrasquillo allegedly stormed into Elmhurst Hospital Center, where she is a clerical associate, shot and critically wounded her colleague and dragged Nancy Carrasquillo away on a 42 1/2-hour journey on a Greyhound bus to North Carolina. There, he finally was arrested, armed with a gun he'd hidden inside a container of fried rice, police said.
"He kept saying how could I do that to him when all he ever did was love me and care for me," Carrasquillo said of the order of protection. "I told him I was afraid of him."
Weeks earlier, Carrasquillo had noticed a harrowing pattern in the emergency room at Elmhurst Hospital.
"All these women were coming in battered and bruised. They were a mess," Carrasquillo, 44, said. "And then I thought about what had been happening to me."
She said Miguel, 33, had hit her, held a knife to her throat and choked her several times.
That's when she began to talk to a social worker in the hospital about her options. She settled on seeking the order of protection in Family Court in Long Island City while Miguel was in Puerto Rico, she said.
"It seemed like the right thing to do, having the paper trail," she said.
But before she'd had the time to move out of the house, Miguel returned and learned about the order of protection, she said.
Carrasquillo described a destructive two-year marriage that had ruptured two weeks before she got the order, when she threw Miguel out of their Elmhurst home. But it was the document, she is convinced, that set him off.
And now she is divided on the merits of protective orders, understanding the importance of the paper trail but remaining unconvinced the documents do much to help.
"I tried it out, but I didn't really think it was going to work, and I was right that it didn't," she said.
Still, there was one intangible benefit to getting the order.
"It made him understand I was serious, that I was ready to stand up for myself," she said.
Miguel Carrasquillo is being held without bail at Rikers Island on kidnapping, rape, attempted murder and weapons charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty. A hearing to determine whether he is competent to stand trial is scheduled for March 14. His attorney, Russell Rothberg, declined to comment.
Despite a vast web of friends around her, Carrasquillo is still haunted by the memory, and what could have become of her.
"I don't think I trust anybody anymore," she said. "I don't want anyone to know where I live. He has family. They might be blaming me for everything that happened."
It's a fear that a protective order might never assuage.
"The bottom line is it takes more than a piece of paper," she said.
Copyright © 2005, Newsday, Inc.
