Federal prosecutors from all four Texas districts converged in North Texas to address the concerning rise in family violence homicides. Last year, 205 Texans lost their lives to domestic violence, with 179 of those victims being women. NBC 5’s Alicia Barrera delves deeper into this issue.
Alarming data about the prevalence of domestic violence in Texas is prompting state leaders to take action.
On Tuesday, all four Texas-based U.S. Attorneys gathered in Dallas to give a justice briefing on the domestic violence crisis happening in the state.
The meeting of the minds comes amid troubling data from a new report.
According to the Texas Council On Family Violence, 205 domestic violence victims were killed by their intimate partners in Texas last year. That number has nearly doubled since 2013.
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Many of those victims lived in North Texas.
Out of all counties, the report shows that Dallas ranks number 2 and Tarrant County ranks number 4 in the state in domestic violence homicides.
Click here to read a synopsis of the report.
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According to Gloria Aguilera Terry, CEO of the Texas Council on Family Violence, the report aims to identify trends in order to create intervention strategies that impact the communities reflected.
"Sometimes it's legislative policy. Sometimes it's administrative policy," Aguilera Terry said. "We want to affect training. So, how are law enforcement, advocates, prosecutors trained. Where do we have an opportunity to do things differently?"
The ages of the victims range from as young as 15 years old to 88 years old.
"This validates what we already know," Aguilera Terry said. "Domestic violence happens across the lifespan. So, when are intervention strategies needed? As early as possible. If it’s affecting the 15-year-old, we have a responsibility to those young people with tools for healthy relationships. And when we talk about our seniors in our community, equally equip them for access to services and support."
In addition to the discussion of the current landscape of domestic violence in Texas, the Texas regional U.S. attorneys spoke about the federal and district initiatives that directly enhance frontline advocates’ ability to help survivors find safety and justice.
Damien Diggs, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas, which includes Plano, spoke about his office’s new initiative ‘Operation Purple Ribbon’.
“We’ll try to come in and go after the individuals we think really need to be in prison. And that’s who we focus on. This initiative is a federal firearms prosecutions initiative,” Diggs said. “We are focused on individuals who have criminal history and abusive history and assaultive history. Those are the folks we are focused on that we're targeting because we get long prison sentences.”
The city of Dallas tracks the latest data in real time each year through its Domestic Violence Dashboard posted online for the public.
Just weeks ago, survivors bravely came forward to speak out for Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October, calling for more awareness.
"Being a survivor is a marathon, not a sprint. And each day I wake up, I not only remind myself of my worth, but I also spend my days doing that for those who are suffering their own silent battle of abuse,” said Jennifer Jones, a survivor who later founded Hagar’s Heart, an Arlington nonprofit supporting domestic violence survivors. "Domestic violence is more than a black eye. Ninety-six percent of women and men share they too have experienced emotional and verbal abuse, yet on the media we only see the physical."
Tuesday's discussion also included the intersection of firearms and domestic violence, along with human trafficking.
Among the U.S. Attorneys at the briefing was Dallas-based Leigha Simonton, whose office originally handled the high-profile Rahimi case this summer, in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a domestic violence survivor due to an effective gun violence prevention law.
Others in attendance included Alamdar Hamdani, U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of Texas; Damien Diggs, U.S. Attorney of the Eastern District of Texas; and Jaime Esparza, U.S. Attorney of the Western District of Texas.
Victim advocates and nonprofits were in attendance, as well, to learn about the tools they can use to help serve the hundreds of survivors here in DFW.
