Public Exposure
Houston men take a stand against family violence
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| One of four HPD billboards that alert the community to the horror of domestic abuse. |
Story by Dave Schafer
Charlotte was no older than 7, with big, innocent eyes. Police Chief Harold Hurtt met her when he was a young officer walking the beat in Phoenix, Ariz., and the two quickly took to each other.
During one of his shifts, Charlotte begged him to take her home with him. He reminded her that she had a home of her own and a family that loved her. They’d miss you if you went home with me, he told her.
When he reported to work two days later, Hurtt was told the little girl had been killed during a family dispute. Her father had shot at her mother and missed, hitting Charlotte in the head instead.
“Those are the things you remember,” Hurtt said. “Those are the things that we in law enforcement continue to work to change.”
Now, Hurtt and other city leaders want Houstonians to know that those abuses will not be tolerated by society or swept under families’ living room rugs.
On June 15, HPD and the Houston Area Women’s Center kicked off Houston Men Against Family Violence, a one-year initiative to bring family violence out into the open and show it’s not just a woman’s problem.
“This is everybody’s responsibility,” Hurtt said.
The multi-faceted program is Hurtt’s brainchild, started with the blessing and support of Mayor Bill White and many other community leaders such as Harris County Judge Robert Eckels, District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal and Councilman Adrian Garcia. These men and others are adopting the program and taking it out into the community.
Black eyes, blue tears
“Abusers are losers,” goes the Houston Men Against Family Violence motto.
“We want to let people know that if you abuse another person, you stand to lose quite a bit,” said Assistant Chief Vicki King, who’s overseeing the program. “You can lose respect, your liberty, your money. Most importantly, you could lose your family.”
King said police departments are set up to react to family violence. This initiative is proactive.
“If you’re going to be effective dealing with family violence, you have to prevent it from ever happening, and that’s our focus,” she said.
The program is funded by the Houston Police Foundation, which donated $15,000, and by Rosenthal’s office, which has donated $5,000 and pledged to match the police foundation.
Over the next year, King and HPD will build a network of resources and support so another organization can take up the baton.
“Our hope is, where we started small with just a few stakeholders, that this will grow to a national campaign and resonate with the entire country rather than just our community,” King said.
The $20,000 King has received for the program has been stretched to provide public service announcements, four billboards located throughout the city and book covers for elementary, middle and high school children.
King has also applied for a Department of Justice grant of more then $1 million. “If we can do everything we’ve done with just $20,000, imagine what we could do if we really had some money,” she said. “We could blanket this city.”
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