Denise Everhart (left) and Richard Harmon (right) two of the three that voted against ‘decriminalizing’ Domestic Violence were also at Topeka, KS YWCA March Against Violence October 21, 2011. More Photos here.

Thank you to all who turned out today to support Topeka, KS Victims of Domestic Violence! A Big thanks to my hero’s Denise Everhart and Richard Harmon, you are hero’s to every DV Victim/Survivor Nationally—Internationally! We support you for as you GOOD PUBLIC SERVANTS! You have the World Supporting you and your Stand Against Domestic Violence. Thank you.

District 4 Denise Everhart (Voted Against Repeal) 785-267-4098

District 9 Richard Harmon (Voted Against Repeal) 785-271-6962

District 5 Larry Wolgast (Voted Against Repeal) 785-272-6896

Mayor Bill Bunten 785-368-3895	District 2 John Alcala 785-233-7110
District 6 Chad Manspeaker 785-220-9493	District 8 Andrew Gray 785-806-0068
District 3 Sylvia Ortiz 785-357-0717	District 7 Bob Archer 785-817-8157
District 1 Karen Hiller 785-232-2917	City Manager Dan Stanley 785-368-3725

200 SE 7th B11
Topeka Kansas
66603-3971
(785) 233-8200
Ext. 4040

Chairman (District 1) Shelly Buhler

(District 2) Mary Thomas

(District 3) Ted Ensley

TOPEKA HIGH DRUM LINE For DOMESTIC VIOLENCE RALLY

 http://www.facebook.com/v/10150428997845229

Hey Topeka Women - SLAP! Slap! Slap!! Compliments of Chad Manspeaker. Just to make sure you didn’t  get ‘Slapped enough’ the first time – see here

10-21-2011“Manspeaker,who voted with the majority of the council to repeal misdemeanor domestic battery from city ordinance’

And really Chad, while the other two council members Everhart and Harmon (who voted against repealing the ban) were ‘serving the public’ and hot dogs- Manspeaker wouldn’t do ‘public servant work’ he just sat and ate his hotdogs.

Chad Manspeaker , 1304 SW College Ave, Topeka, KS 66604        
Cell: 220-9493   email: manspeakerfortopeka@gmail.com

Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/ManspeakerForTopeka?v=info

From the LA Times

Claudine Dombrowski tells of having her wrists broken, being hit on the head with a crowbar, getting chipped teeth and, at one point, needing 24 stitches to close a wound. Even when she left her boyfriend, she says, the abuse didn't stop. Ultimately, she says, she was left on total disability.

“I called the police, I did all the right things, I ended up in court, and on a good day, it got reduced from domestic violence to disorderly conduct,” Dombrowski, a Topeka, Kansas, resident and now an advocate for abuse survivors, told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday.

So Dombrowski was outraged when misdemeanor domestic abuse — already an insult, she thinks, for not being equal to an assault charge — went unpunished for a month in Topeka after a local funding dispute turned into a circular firing squad that caught battered women in the center.

The county didn’t want to pay for prosecuting misdemeanor domestic battery; the prosecutor didn’t want to take the cases without more resources; and the city didn’t want to pay for handling the cases either.

Meanwhile, as many as 30 abuse suspects went free before the city of Topeka, in a legal maneuver, forced Shawnee County prosecutor Chad Taylor to resume prosecution of the cases — by dramatically pulling its own domestic abuse law from the books. The state has its own law, which the prosecutor would need to enforce.

“The fact that it happened just makes me feel pretty worthless, you know?” Dombrowski said. “We spend millions of dollars on public service announcements saying we [domestic-violence victims] don’t have to live this way ... and you really do.”

Times have been tough for local governments. The economic buck stops with them because they don’t get to run on debt the way the federal government does, and some of the collapses have been spectacular.

Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, threw up the white flag this week and declared bankruptcyafter a failed $300 million incinerator project capsized the city’s budget. The city manager formoribund Vallejo, Calif., has one assistant; she has to lock the door when she leaves, because there’s no one else in the office.

But for women, the symptoms of the municipal budget crisis are especially stunning in the sleepy prairie metropolis of Topeka. There, the symbolic decriminalization of domestic violence has thrown a spotlight on a chronically underreported issue in a state where women’s advocates are used to fighting uphill battles.

“We live in Kansas, where we are used to taking a lot of punches on the chin,” said Kari Ann Rinker, state coordinator for Kansas NOW, which recently saw the state legislature try to defund Planned Parenthood.

Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s conservative stances have led a few residents to derisively dub the state “Brownbackistan.”

But beyond the familiar battlefronts over abortion, domestic violence hits especially close to home. In 2008, Jana Mackey, a 25-year-old Kansas NOW lobbyist who volunteered to aid victims of sexual assault and domestic violence, was found slain in an ex-boyfriend’s home.

“When I went in front of the county commission in Shawnee County about this issue [funding prosecutions for domestic abuse in Topeka], I brought everything I had, and I was emotional,” said Rinker. “Sometimes I’m accused of being less than professional. But I’ve tried to do this nicely, to fight this mentality in this state, and we’ve reached this point where we need to stop being nice and start rattling some cages to do so.”

Added Dombrowski: “If these people really cared about women, they would come up with the money. They wouldn’t argue about it.”

The past month has been treacherous for domestic abuse survivors in Topeka, according to Becky Dickinson, program director for the Topeka YWCA Center for Safety and Empowerment, which she said saw an increase in the number of women needing help.

“It became a very scary and dangerous time for victims to get law enforcement involved,” Dickinson told The Times, adding that victims “were calling the police and seeing their abusers being arrested but getting released in 48 hours.”

In an abuse situation, Dickinson said, abusers are often the most dangerous after they’ve been arrested. They come home looking for revenge. Needless to say, Dickinson said, “victims were concerned” about the budget spat.

Dickinson said that in 2010, the Topeka YWCA helped 1,305 county residents with services and counseling for domestic and sexual violence, assisted with 586 protection orders, housed 190 women and children in a shelter, and received nearly 2,000 calls to its crisis hotline.

Those numbers are likely low. Domestic violence often goes unreported. So it’s a dark irony that Topeka’s new time in the international limelight comes during Domestic Violence Awareness Month. “Now Topeka is known as the domestic violence capital of the world,” Kansas NOW’s Rinker said.

Whether the county prosecutor’s announcement that it is resuming prosecutions will fix the problem remains to be seen; the prosecutor’s office is expected to lay off almost a fifth of its staff by the end of the year, which could impact the prosecution of domestic violence cases that the office just resumed prosecuting.

“Even on a good day, it doesn’t work,” Dombrowski said of Topeka’s handling of domestic abuse victims. “And now it’s even worse.”

--Matt Pearce in Kansas City
Twitter.com/mattdpearce

Photo: Claudine Dombrowski, left, a survivor advocate, greets Amber Versola, a lobbyist for Kansas National Organization for Women, on Tuesday at a rally at the Shawnee County Court House in Topeka, Kansas. Credit: AP / The Capital-Journal, Anthony S. Bush

"Week Without Violence"

I am saddened.  The City Council continues to twist and mince words. The bottom line and  in simple English is -

 YES, THEY DECRIMINALIZED DOMESTIC VIOLENCE within the city of Topeka.

See some of the other posts on this site.

They want to be called hero's? They are cowards.

They think that they know what is best for domestic violence victims? They are wrong.

The YWCA begins its week with out violence in the First City in the Nation to decriminalize Domestic Violence. See event here: and please be sure to attend the March on Friday where all the State, City and County Gov. officials will be leading the March.
KEEP WRITING the city council  (express your outrage over their thoughtless and heartless repeal of Dv) and Write the city commissioners  we need the DA's office funded!  We need help!!

The Attorney General Derek Schmidt knows that  Domestic Violence Victims will suffer (MORE than they have already) from budget cuts and reduced staff in DA office.

As for all those on the City Council who voted to repeal ban -- “You have not helped us “- You have hurt us -even more.

Happy "Week with out Violence" in honor of "National Domestic Violence Awareness Month".
Topeka has become an 'abuser' to battered women as well as an already broken system and sympathy for abusers. Be ashamed, be very ashamed.

Labels: DISTRICT ATTORNEY, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, FUNDING, MISDEMEANOR CHARGES, TOPEKA, Topeka City Council, Topeka Kansas Decriminalize Domestic Violence"

From Times Up!!

By Susan Murphy Milano

In Topeka, Kansas on October 11, 2011, members of the City Council voted and successfully repealed the city's ordinance banning domestic violence during National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Talk about a punch, a kick and slap for victims of intimate partner violence by city government’s financial misconduct as their excuse for not wanting to do their jobs. At the center of dysfunction, the absent District Attorney Chad Taylor, who is refusing to prosecute domestic violence crimes in the city.
During the two hour televised council meeting, the one sided discussion from 7 of the 10 elected members amounted to nothing more than political finger pointing. Leading the charge, and ultimately dictating the vote, was Interim City Manager Dan Stanley, brow beating those during the hearing into submission of his way or the highway. It was classic manipulation "101" presented in a live stream real time format.
According to National Advocate, organizer and expert Claudine Dombrowski, inattendance at the City Council meeting, “I witnessed the Council of elected officialssupport the decriminalization of domestic violence within the city limits of Topeka and berate speakers, who were survivors and victims. The elected council members temper tantrums during the meeting and finger pointing were disgusting.”
Approximately 24 years ago, after years of lobbying by victims, advocates and families of those slain by their partner, legislation was signed by Governors nation-wide making domestic violence a crime. The pen used to sign the bill, was not filled with ink, but the blood of all those who lives were lost at the hands of those professing to love them.
This "stunt" today will cost Topeka more than the mere 10% budget shortfall cited by city officials as the reason not to prosecute. Expect an increase in intimate partner related missing persons cases (providing they will still be allowed to make a report) and count on more funerals for those victims whom the police did not respond.
This certainly gives new meaning to creating prevention and awareness duringNational Domestic Violence Awareness Month, doesn't it?

· “16,800 homicides (that are reported) attributed to intimate partner homicide per year, 2.2 million medically treated injuries costing $37 BILLION per year.[i] [CDH1]
· The cost of intimate partner violence exceeds $5.8 billion dollars each year; $4.1 billion of which is for medical and mental health services.”[ii]
· Almost one-third of female homicide victims that are reported in police records are killed by an intimate partner.[iii]
· In 70-80% of intimate partner homicides, no matter which partner was killed, the man physically abused the woman before the murder.[iv] [CDH2]
· Less than one-fifth of victims reporting an injury from intimate partner violence sought medical treatment following the injury. [v][CDH3]
· Intimate partner violence results in more than 18.5 million mental health care visits each year.[vi]
[i] NCDAV reporting sourced from: The Cost of Violence in the United States. 2007. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Centers for Injury Prevention and Control. Atlanta, GAhttp://www.ncadv.org/files/DomesticViolenceFactSheet(National).pdf
[ii] NCDAV reporting sourced from: The Cost of Violence in the United States. 2007. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Centers for Injury Prevention and Control. Atlanta, GA
http://www.ncadv.org/files/DomesticViolenceFactSheet(National).pdf
[iii] Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports “Crime in the United States, 2000,” (2001)
[iv] NCDAV report sourced from: Campbell, et al. (2003). “Assessing Risk Factors for Intimate Partner Homicide.” Intimate Partner Homicide, NIJ Journal, 250, 14-19. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice
[v] U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Intimate Partner Violence in the United States,” December 2006
[vi] Costs of Intimate Partner Violence against Women in the United States. 2003.

****

Susan Murphy Milano is a staff member of the Institute for Relational HarmReduction and Public Pathology Education. She is a specialist with intimate partner violence prevention strategies and high risk cases and available for personal consultations through the Institute. She is also part of the team atManagement Resources Limited of New York.
Susan is the author of "Time's Up: A Guide on How to Leave and Survive Abusive and Stalking Relationships,"Moving out, Moving on, and Defending Out Lives. Susan is the host of The Susan Murphy Milano Show, "Time's Up!" . She is a regular contributor to the nationally syndicated "The Roth Show" with Dr Laurie Roth and a co-host on Crime Wire.

Spearheaded by KS-NOW: Kansas National Organization for Women

Topeka’s Plan to decimalize Domestic Violence – In Domestic Violence Awareness Month –no less. shame.

Several National Media Articles – under Google search  in News “Topeka Domestic Violence”

Time   Tuesday, October 11 · 4:00pm - 7:00pm

Location  200 SE 7th St. Topeka, Ks. 66603

Kansas National Organization for Women

Come protest the District Attorney Chad Taylor's office from 4 pm- 5:30 pm. We must stand up against the decisions being made regarding women and their families' lives due to budget cuts right here in Kansas.

Bring your signs!

Following the protest there will be a city council meeting in the same building starting at 6 pm.

We need people to come in masses and please call the Shawnee County Courthouse if you would like to speak at the meeting in order to get your name on the docket before 5 pm on Tuesday. Please send the word out and your presence is needed in this time of lost priorities. We will hand out purple ribbons at the protest.
*If you do wish to speak (and call to put your name on the list), they request that you limit your time to 4 minutes MAX.

Women In The Wind - OZ OutLawZ Domestic Violence Poker Run, Topeka, KS

Starting at the Dugout at 11:00 am October 8th, 2011 Come have Fun!!

http://www.witwozoutlawz.org/

These are some awesome awesome awesome women—in the wind!! Thanks for all you do!! Topeka and surrounding areas—this is an awesome Time!! and of course a great cause—since our local government has failed Victims of Domestic Violence—the people have not.

The Video below is from last years 1st DV poker run!! Women who ride ROCK!!!!!

TURN UP YOUR SPEAKERS!!

http://www.witwozoutlawz.org/

http://www.witwozoutlawz.org/domesticviolenceFlyer.jpg