Lord this makes me just cry; a normal teenage breakup? Yeah. Right. This girl left her abusive boyfriend and then was desperate to keep him from I don't know killing her? And the police couldn't be bothered because you know those highschool romances. Those teenage girls tend to get over emotional when they are being stalked, harassed, and beat.

I am just sick.

Do we need to travel around the country and tell every single police officer why they have to pay attention to these kinds of complaints?

Something similar happened here in Phoenix, though the police did not ignore the poor girl, at least. In fact, there was an order of protection (or an induction against harassment or something), but it hadn't been served yet. She was walking down the street when he (the abusive ex) killed her then killed himself. Sadly, I don't think there was much anyone could do -- even if the papers had been served, they wouldn't have stopped him. And I'm not sure what the police could have done in this case, either. Telling her she needs to stop calling is horrible and the police NEEEEED to take this stuff seriously (obviously), but their only real course of action would have been to put an order of protection out against him. I doubt they had any reason to arrest him. It's sad. :/

How sad and horrifying! My heart goes out to this girl, her parents, friends, and relatives!

In an apartment building I lived in once there was a man that was completely frightening to me. He would stare at me out the window and I felt very unsafe. I called the police and they said the would put an extra patrol car in the area. I did notice the increased amount of survelience by the police. I don't think my situation is that common, probably there would not have been an extra patrole car sent out in most places in this country.

These police need to be educated on these issues-in fact it should be mandatory to be a police officer. This just affirms to me how patriarchal this society still is...

...my heart goes out to her...gosh...

Marilee, if he hit her in the face that's pretty clear evidence of assault. He could've been arrested, and maybe gotten some mental help-- and then they might both be alive. They could have at least tried.

"Basically we have a very young couple who are experiencing, at least up until last Friday evening, just very normal relationship problems."

Right, physical abuse and threats are part of all teenage relationships. We can't imagine why she kept calling us for help. How could we have known that it would end like this? What were we supposed to do, take the girl seriously?

For fuck's sake.

This makes me wonder what the police response would have been if the girl had her father call the station to complain about the boyfriend...

The lack of police help with violence against women is repulsive. It seems (to me) that someone has to kill you or nearly kill you for your complaints to be considered anything than female hysteria and paranoia. Just the other day I saw a case of a man who for a year and a half, psychologically tormented a woman by stalking her, messing with her car, going into her home when she wasn't there..the police finally did something when he put liquid mercury in her car. The laws wouldn't allow them to.
This case seems like police abuse to me, not just "we don't have the authority" to do that. There's no amount of apologizing that can get this poor young woman back.

Did any of you guys actually read the article?

I'm all in favor of sending these stalkers to prison before they kill people but the girl and her family declined to press charges on ANY of the previous violent incidents.

In order to prosecute someone for this, you need a cooperating victim, someone who will go to court and press charges.

She was not willing to do that, and it contributed to her death.

I think the police share some blame too, but they cant arrest someone without a cooperating witness and throw him in jail for any significant period of time. The guy woulda been released in a few days when the police found out that no charges were being filed by the victim, and thats the end of it.

The anti-stalking laws are there, but they only work if the female victims actually choose to exercise their rights to file charges. Far too often, they still dont understand the gravity of the situation.

I have to say, this is one of the dangers of over-relying on the police. Granted, I'll concede that they certainly ought to have done and should have done more. They can and should be held accountable for this failure. But that only goes so far. It's pretty difficult to hold any law enforcement agency accountable for much of anything, and the Supreme Court has ruled that law enforcement agency has only a GENERAL duty to prevent, deter, and investigate crime, and not any legally enforceable duty to prevent any specific crime (IOW, they can't be held liable for failing to prevent something like this). In other words, if they don't protect you, there's not a damned thing you or your survivors can do about it.

That means, as far as I'm concerned, that people have the responsibility to protect themselves as much as possible when facing such a threat. Difficult case here, given that the victim was technically a minor. Limits as to what she could have done. Probably those around her (parents, friends, somebody) ought to have stepped in to a greater extent and done something more. My guess is that probably some of them are wondering about that now.

Medical Student29, did YOU read the article? No where did I read that the victim refused to go to court and press charges. In fact it looks like she did all she could reaching out to the police seeing as they are the ones you need to charge someone with a crime. The fact that you would say that she is at fault for her own death here is as sensational and anti-woman as the newspaper headlines. No wonder the state of violence is the way it is with people like you still blaming the victim. No one is to blame but the boyfriend who did this horrible act. And Tommythegun, yes we can expect the police to protect us from murder, it's what we pay them for. Maybe this would not hold up in the supreme court today, but for all practical purposes, we should be able to hold police accountable for what they do and don't do. What would people say if firemen just stopped responding to fires because they just felt like it. It's obvious to me that this was dismissed my the sexist police department as a "hysterical woman" I actually tried to press charges on a co-worker once who has been harassing me, he held me down and started kissing me one day after work against my will. I called police and they basically took my report but did nothing about it and a myriad of calls from me afterward did nothing in getting them to act. I was all ready and willing to press charges. But what more could I do since I couldn't afford a lawyer and they weren't going to assign me one. I'm just not that savvy with the legal system to figure out how to make a lazy police force act. So from personal experience I know that the police will sometimes ignore complaints like these, which is wrong. I think a group of women need to get together and take on the police departments in this respect, I bet there's a lot of women who are dismissed as "hysterical". In my opinion, there's no excuse for the police not following through. In most cases the police department would not be fulfilling their obligations to the county which is most likely outlined in some sort of contract, they usually will have standard procedure for domestic violence cases which this police department obviously didn't follow. So yes we can and should hold them accountable for failing this girl and I'm sure failing many other women.

MedicalStudent29, I read the articles and I don't see where it says that they refused to press ANY charges, just in some cases they didn't press charges from what sounds like a long history of incidents. They do say that the family declined to get a restraining order because they felt sorry for the guy, but there were two cases of battery pending in the courts. I'm not saying that a restraining order wouldn't have been a good idea, but as already mentioned, a pyscho who is deterimed to kill others and then himself isn't really going to be stopped by an order of protection.

Medical Student29, that's absolutely NO excuse to threaten to arrest the girl for calling 911. We don't know if they could have done anything, but we do know that the poor girl thought she had no one to turn to for help.

It's also not unheard of for police to minimize this kind of abuse and talk people out of pressing charges or at the very least, not encourage it.

Police need to inform families in these situations that violence escalates and that it's not acceptable or normal. I'm not willing to give the police in this department the benefit of the doubt that they did everything they could to help her.

Oh my God, how utterly tragic and horrifying. My heart also goes out to her parents, friends and relatives.

I'm failing to recognize how 9 accounts of physical abuse and harassment is "normal" break-up behavior. What is normal about assault in a relationship? Oh yeah, that's right, NOTHING!

My ex was obsessive too. Once after we got into a fight, he called me 290 times (no joke), and finally when I broke up with him he threatened to fly out to where I live and sit on my front porch until I would get back together with him. I changed my phone number so that he wouldn't call me so much, but he still had my e-mail address and so he sent a text message to my e-mail account saying, "She died." His mom has been terminally ill for years, and so I thought his mom had died, but I called him (with *67 to block my number, of course) and he said his co-worker died in a car accident. My mom thought it was fishy that someone he was close to just happened to die a day after we broke up, so she called the place where he works and the person who had supposedly died answered the phone, and told my mom that no, she nor anyone else who worked in the store had died recently (and it's a small store, about 10 employees, so any death would have not gone unnoticed). My mom did call the cops to warn them about him once before, a couple of years ago, and if my memory serves me correctly, they actually went to his house and told him to knock off his creepy stalker behavior.

The cops came out to my ex's house just for harassment. Why did the cops do NOTHING in her case when there had been reported assault in the relationship? Makes me sick.

I forgot one thing, Re: tommygun said: "those around her (parents, friends, somebody) ought to have stepped in to a greater extent and done something more"
and BWrites said: "They could have at least tried."

First of all the family and this girl DID TRY. And even if they didn't call the police it still is wrong that this guy murdered her. So, stop making excuses for the murderer. Isn't it obvious from reading this article that the mother and daughter did everything they could think of and didn't know what else more to do? Tommy the fact that you would say "the family should have done more" and BWriter that they should have "tried harder" is exactly the sort of messages we need to eliminate. It's the same type of sentiment that surrounds rape cases (the girl should have done this or shouldn't have done that). And it's pervasive in instances where the victim is female (you almost never see this extent of blaming for male victims) It's the murderer's fault, and no one else's. Stop blaming the victim and making excuses for murderers! It's sick, sick, sick, sick!!! (and wrong)

Meeneecat,

There were links to several different articles on this subject. Perhaps you didn't read the article that stated this:

"Records at the DeLand Police Department show the relationship between Natasha Hall and Clay Kufner had been violent.

Deputy Police Chief Randy Henderson said police had completed affidavits to charge Kufner with simple battery after two previous incidents, but the Halls had declined to pursue either case."

So it looks like the Halls did not want to pursue charges against this guy, for whatever reason.

I agree that the cops handled the situation poorly and should not have characterized the relationship as "normal" or threatened to arrest the girl for calling 911

However, if the victim refuses to press charges, there's only so much they can do.

I mean seriously what do you expect them to do? Lock him up when the victim refuses to press charges and throw away the key? Sorry, the constitution specifically prohibits that kind of action.

The police could have arrested the guy for previous violent incidents, but they can only hold him for a couple of days if the victim refuses to press charges. Then they are obligated BY LAW to release him.

Of course the fault is that of the killer's, but its clear that teh family/victim here did not use law enforcement protection to the extent that they should have. Would it have prevented her death? Who knows.

I can understand the girl's actions somewhat. She's young and doesnt know really how to handle this kind of violent/abusive relationship. But the mom/parents have no excuse. They are adults, and they were blind if they couldnt see that their daughter was in imminent danger of being assaulted or killed. The police dont have the luxury of acting just based on "imminent danger," they have to wait for an actual incident to occur; but thats not true of hte parents they do have other options that the police dont have.

If it was my daughter, I'm doing the following:

1) Pressing charges after every single occurrence

2) Getting a restraining order

3) Moving her out of state to an undisclosed location.

As a few have noted above, making charges and calling police demonstrates that you are committed to keeping yourself or your daughter safe. And at times, so does refusing to press charges, or trying to talk to or help the abuser, as crazy as that may seem.

My sister just got a restraining order last week against her ex-husband because he threatened to kill her and showed her a gun. He lied in court about the incident, and my sister almost didn't get the protection as a result. I had to convince my family that a restraining order was necessary, that it wasn't just going to "set him off," because he is crazy and anything can set him off. We have been dealing with his improperly diagnosed, periodically medicated psychotic ass for 3 years as he avoided punishment for a felony, got kicked out of a treatment center for damaging staff property, mistreated my sister, etc. And I am so glad that this time they've broken up for good.

I would have liked her to have a restraining order 3 years ago. But I can also see how tactically managing the situation, as my sister tried to do when she was with him, can also be seen as a strategy for potentially violent, certainly insane abusers. Sometimes these people seem deserving of pity for the amount of times the fuck up their lives, and how they always seem like they're about to get their lives together, and wouldn't that be better and safer for everyone, and they only need your help to get that done. So I think it's reasonable of Natasha Hall's mother to have tried to talk to the boy and help him out. But it also makes me much much happier about the restraining order.

I mean seriously what do you expect them to do?

Not threaten the girl with arrest for calling 911 would have been a good start. Keep responding to her calls and impress on the family how they've seen these situations and they usually escalate. "Scare" the family with statistics, not threats. And that's off the top of my head.

As a few have noted above, making charges and calling police demonstrates that you are committed to keeping yourself or your daughter safe.

Why exactly is this something people should have to prove?

Cherry62, I was responding to a person who seemed to be placing blame on the victim for not doing X, Y, and Z. The point I was trying to make it that it doesn't matter what she did or didn't do because the fault is not hers but the murderer. So whether she did or did not want to press charges is mute. The only person responsible for her death is the boyfriend. Keep in mind also, considering she has been in a very violent situation, it could be possible that the boy threatened her if she were to press charges. So, it's easy for a person to say 'Oh she should have pressed charges before it got to this point' But the reality of women in these relationships does not make that statement easy to accomplish. She could have been afraid for her life, and that if she did press charges he could have come after her. The police should have understood this because it's very common for women in violent relationships to be afraid to press charges or have their boyfriend arrested. VERY common. I hope you understand the realities of abusive relationships because it would have definitely played a part in why she didn't want to press charges in the past. So yes, I think this girl and her family did everything they could have done given the situation, but still this is beside the point because it was the murderer who did this and with him lies the blame, it is in no way her fault. So, I don't know why some people here are considering what this girl did or didn't do because it doesn't matter, the murder was still wrong and the police should have investigated. It doesn't matter if she did or didn't press charges in the past, it doesn't matter one iota, because the fault lies with the murderer. I don't know how many times I should reiterate this statement: PLEASE, CAN WE STOP BLAMING THE VICTIM.

Regardless of "how hard" the girl and her family tried to fix the situation, the fact is that the police response was totally inappropriate. It is completely unprofessional for an officer to threaten someone with arrest if they call 911. Appallingly, this sort of thing happens all the time in cases of domestic violence. I worked in a domestic violence shelter, and it was common for women to tell us that when they called the cops, the cops would show up and speak with the perpetrator, and the perp would tell the cops (who are mostly men): "All I did was show up to see the kids and she flew off the handle, this always happens, I can never tell what mood she's going to be in..." etc. And the cops, operating on the "good ol' boy" system, would tell the woman to quite calling them every time she got into a fight "with her man". This is outrageous. The police in this country need to be better trained concerning domestic violence and should be held accountable for their negligence.

First things first:

It does not matter if the victim does nothing to protect herself it does not make it HER FAULT if someone kills her.

As far as the restraining order goes: most women who are in domestic violence situations are reluctant to get one for many reasons. Some feel that they do no good since they have had them before and the man has still harassed or hurt them. Unless their is proof that they broke the restraining order the police cannot enforce it.
Also, many still, hope the man can change and do not want to damage him by putting something like this on record. Others just want to believe it will all go away and pursuing legal methods is too stressful at teh time.

He had been arrested for assault and if he posts bail there is nothing they can do to keep him in jail. It is the judge's decsion as to how much or whether he posts bail. Often times certain felonies have certain bail and hold times set.

I agree that the police should not have told her to stop calling and the threat to arrest her was absolutely unforgivable. Unfortunately there is a tendency for police to get frustrated with victims or even just annoyed, some of it could have been due to their reluctance to get a restraining order, as, in the police's mind, if they had that and then obtainined proof through a phone call that he contacted her they would have been able to arrest him.

This is a horrible situation all around and although the police do have some blame, as they should not have been so harsh,t here is a good chance this might not have been stopped in time

However, if the victim refuses to press charges, there's only so much they can do.

Which apparently, in this case, included telling the victim "if you call us again, we'll arrest you."

There are many reasons why one might refuse to press charges. Also: It doesn't say that they *never* pressed charges- at least the articles I've seen. It says that they didn't always press charges. From the articles: "the family also refused to press charges against the boy in some cases". In some cases- particularly in cases where the victim and perpetrator are pretty young, the police have been known to discourage pressing charges. Or it could have been that they were told it wouldn't do any good and would make things worse. Or it could have been the early events, and they were hoping that the situation would take care of itself- it can't be easy to press charges against someone that you thought you were in love with before.

I mean seriously what do you expect them to do? Lock him up when the victim refuses to press charges and throw away the key? Sorry, the constitution specifically prohibits that kind of action.

I don't see anyone suggesting that kind of response. What I expect is the police to do their effing job, and not to tell the victims of violent crimes "If you call us again, we're going to arrest you."

If it was my daughter, I'm doing the following:

1) Pressing charges after every single occurrence

2) Getting a restraining order

3) Moving her out of state to an undisclosed location.

1. You can't always press charges if the actual victim won't. Even if you're the parents.

2. Restraining orders are really hard to get, especially for young people. Judges tend to see these sorts of things as par for the course in young relationships, and are loathe to stick what they see as "kids" with that kind of thing.

3. It must be nice to have the financial security required to completely uproot your life on a moments notice- to leave behind family, friends, and employment, suck up the moving costs that, for a family, quickly launch into the thousands of dollars. "Why didn't they just move" isn't really a viable solution for most people- moving is time intensive, expensive, and, quite frankly, unfair to the victims of a crime. You were the victim of a crime, now you should pack up and leave your life behind? Doesn't really seem fair to me.

this posting got 441 votes (so far) at reddit.com: "The girl who police asked to stop calling before her murder - apparently the police were in the right this time", while a posting with the original story faulting the police got only 161 votes. if you are a member of reddit, please help support women-positive stories and give a piece of your mind to to the anti-women postings.

Maybe MedicalStudent29 should join the DeLand Police Department!

This is just disgusting. How many victims are going to be blamed for their own assaults and deaths? I would say why not call the police and get arrested just to be away from the ex, but then you might get violently strip searched and locked up in a cold cell, naked, for six hours. So what the hell are we supposed to do?

roymacIII, your response to #3 is a good point. I think it's especially dangerous to suggest moving a victim of abuse away from her support system.

It's a little different for minors, perhaps, but an abuser and stalker will often find ways to follow his victim and being isolated from a familiar community isn't going to make things any better.

OK so lets assume for a moment that the police had acted appropriately and heeded her 911 calls without threatening her.

Exactly WHAT was that going to accomplish that makes you think this girl would still be alive today?

Now, lets contrast that scenario with the options that the girl and her parents could have taken, with a restraining order and pressing charges on the prior incidents.

I submit to you that restraining orders and pressing charges are MUCH MORE LIKELY to stop the violence than the police responding more appropriately to her 911 calls and not downplaying the violent nature of this abusive relationship.

Like I said before, the police do share some blame here and should have treated the situation differently. But even if they had, chances are that girl would still be dead today, so I prefer to focus more on measures that could have actually PREVENTED her death, and its clear from that perspective that the girl and her family have more power to stop it than the police did in this case.

meeneecat, when I said "They could have at least tried," I was talking about the police, in response to Marileec's comment. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Med Student, please see this post.

thx

It's a little different for minors, perhaps, but an abuser and stalker will often find ways to follow his victim and being isolated from a familiar community isn't going to make things any better.

And an abuser/stalker will also not heed a restraining order either, therefore all restraining orders are worthless and we should just eliminate the entire concept.

I bet you money that a victim is less likely to die from a violent abuser if she moves away rather than stay in the same house where he can come find her day or night, particularly on a whim after he's lit up from alcohol or drugs.

BTW I'm not suggesting she be isolated. Obviously we'd move the family with her.

Ahhh, I take back my comments about your comment, BWrites, thanks for clarifying, my bad. :)

I also have to wonder if there wasn't some racism involved in this. Do you think if she had been a white woman the police would have taken her more seriously? There is the stereotype that Latinos and other minorities have "stormy" relationships and that it is just part of their culture (Which is of course FALSE).

1. You can't always press charges if the actual victim won't. Even if you're the parents.

Fair enough. The victim was an adult by law I believe so she has to take that responsibility as well. But from reading the articles I get the distinct impression that her family didnt exactly go out of their way to try and encourage her to file the restraining order. Hell the parents were giving the asshole food right up until he murdered her!

2. Restraining orders are really hard to get, especially for young people. Judges tend to see these sorts of things as par for the course in young relationships, and are loathe to stick what they see as "kids" with that kind of thing.

I'm pretty sure that you can get a restraining order on someone who grabbed you by the hair and slammed you to the pavement, as well as multiple threats to kill you and burn down your house. Now if you are talking about just verbal fights then yes I would agree with you.

3. It must be nice to have the financial security required to completely uproot your life on a moments notice- to leave behind family, friends, and employment, suck up the moving costs that, for a family, quickly launch into the thousands of dollars. "Why didn't they just move" isn't really a viable solution for most people- moving is time intensive, expensive, and, quite frankly, unfair to the victims of a crime. You were the victim of a crime, now you should pack up and leave your life behind? Doesn't really seem fair to me.

You're right its absolutely NOT fair that someone has to move away to avoid a violent abusing asshole. But whats fair and whats PRUDENT are entirely different matters. When its obvious that someone is going to be seeking to kill you every day for the rest of their life until they are either 1) incarcerated; or 2) dead then I think you have to do whatever it takes to ensure safety.

MedicalStudent29:

Also, I recommend reading this.  It's geared more towards adult women than towards teens, but it's still largely applicable.

What I'd prefer to know isn't what she should have done better in order to earn our compassion.  I want to know why the police department fucked up like that, and I want to know what the hell is wrong with the world that men like her ex-boyfriend exist and are excused.

That, to me, is way more interesting than what she should have done better, MS29.  Focus on that more.

Just a few short things here...

A lot of people here are asking, "what could the cops arrest her for if she did call them again?" Well, none of the articles say for sure, but if the girl (not blaming her in any way) ever gave a statement to police (which I assume she did) and then recanted it, she could technically have been charged with filing a false police report.Declining to press charges does not necessarily mean that she ever recanted a statement, but it may be a possible reason why she was threatened with arrest. Recantations are (sadly) very common in domestic abuse cases, and most women have no clue that by making one, they open themselves up to possible criminal prosecution.

In my experience in working with the police (in a law clinic), people who are known for recnating statements or multiple instances of not pressing charges are usually not taken as seriously. Cops want to make arrests and take people to jail, which doesn't happen in most DV cases.

Restraining orders are horrible for DV cases. This is mostly because no action can be taken at all until the RO is violated (that is, the women is harrassed or assaulted).

I agree with everyone who thinks that this situation is horrible and that this should have been prevented. However, police departments are operating under thousands of rules and reulations, and one small slip, and an abuser and his lawyer will be knocking on the door with papers. If an abuser is arrested and later released due to failure to press charges, they may have grounds for a wrongful arrest (not always, but a lot try). I think this is a fine line that's being discussed here, and it needs to be carefully.