Trumbull deputies begin assessing for domestic-violence lethality

October 12, 2015 at 12:05a.m.

WARREN

The Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office and the Trumbull County domestic-violence shelter Someplace Safe have teamed up to provide an additional tool for assessing the potential for domestic violence to turn deadly.

Deputies recently began carrying lethality screening forms with them that are being filled out for every domestic-violence call.

The form asks the victim whether her or his abuser ever used a weapon against her or him, threatened to kill her or him and whether the victim believes the abuser would kill her or him.

Additional questions ask whether the abuser has a gun or can get one easily, ever tried to choke the victim, whether he or she is violently jealous or controls much of the victim’s daily activities, and whether he or she has ever tried to commit suicide.

At the end, the officer tallies up the responses and refers the victim to Someplace Safe if certain questions are answered yes or if a certain number of questions are answered yes.

Someplace Safe representatives will come to the scene and talk to the victim to determine whether there are services that should be provided, such as shelter, a support group or individual counseling.

Linda Baer Bigley, legal advocate supervisor for Someplace Safe, said national statistics indicate that most of the 1,300 to 1,500 women killed each year in the United States through domestic violence have never been assessed for domestic violence by an agency such as Someplace Safe.

The agency hopes the lethality assessments will bring knowledge and help to the victims who need it, she said.

“It’s letting the victim know there is help out there,” Baer Bigley said.

Deputies in only one other county in Ohio – Franklin – currently do lethality assessments such as these, Trumbull County Sheriff Thomas Altiere said.

Bonnie Wilson, executive director of Someplace Safe, said her agency has seen an increase in need for the agency’s services since the start of 2014, with 20 percent more bed nights filled at the shelter by women and 23 percent more bed nights by children compared with 2013. The numbers have been similar in 2015 as in 2014, Wilson said, adding that the community’s heroin problem may be a reason for the increase.

The facility recently converted an office into a housing unit and has space for about 32 women and children at a time. They are housed in 25 beds.