By DALE LEZON HOUSTON CHRONICLE

The pastor of a Houston-area church as been accused of domestic violence.

James Wallace Dixon, 47, is charged with assault on a family member, a misdemeanor.

Dixon, who is pastor at Community of Faith Church in north Houston and was a Metro board member from 2004 to 2009, is free in on $50,000 bail.

Officials said the charge stems from an altercation Jan. 25 between Dixon and his estranged wife, whose name has not been released. The couple has been separated for about 9 months, officials said.

Investigators said that Dixon went to his wife’s home in the 5000 block of Bridge Valley Drive to drop off the couple’s children. His wife let him inside the home briefly but then asked him to leave.

Dixon allegedly pushed her, picked up their youngest child and went outside, officials said.

Chron.com

Last year, a woman chose not to go to a shelter because she couldn’t bring her dog with her. The next day, her ex-partner stabbed her to death.

According to the ASPCA, half of all of domestic violence victims delay seeking help for the sake of their pets. Their fears are not unfounded: More than 70 percent of women entering shelters report that their abusers had also threatened, injured, or killed family pets.

Victims of domestic abuse who have pets are put in a tough spot. They not only have good reason to worry about their pets, but they often rely on their companion animals as a source of comfort and support. Yet, most shelters won’t accept pets. In early 2008, American Humane knew of only four shelters that provided on-site housing for animals. They created the Pets and Women’s Shelters Program to give shelters the tools to include refuge for animal victims of domestic violence to stay with their families.

Animalwelfare.change.org

Women and teenage girls face efforts by some male partners to sabotage birth control or coerce pregnancy.

(UPI) – Women and teenage girls face efforts by some male partners to sabotage birth control or coerce pregnancy, including damaging condoms, U.S. researchers say.
The study, published in the journal Contraception, found 35 percent of women who reported partner violence also reported either pregnancy coercion or birth control sabotage including damaging condoms and destroying contraceptives.

The team of researchers led by University of California, Davis, found approximately one in five young women said they experienced pregnancy coercion — and 15 percent said they experienced birth control sabotage. In addition, 53 percent said they had experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner.

Kfbk.com

Christian Nolan
The Connecticut Law Tribune

Last week, John Michael Farren, a former White House lawyer, stood in a Stamford, Conn., courtroom and pleaded not guilty to a series of charges related to an alleged attack on his wife. Among them: attempted murder, first-degree assault and first-degree strangulation.

There is nothing novel about the first two. But the strangulation charge is a relatively new one in Connecticut and across the country, one created specifically to deal with the epidemic of domestic violence.

It’s no secret to those who help battered women that spouses often, quite literally, go for the throat during domestic disputes. Still, unless someone sustained significant injuries, authorities until recently didn’t have a big choice of charges. Abusive partners were usually charged with misdemeanor assault or breach of peace, and then sent to take classes as part of a Family Violence Education Program.

Then, about a decade ago, a San Diego prosecutor investigated the deaths of two teenage women murdered in domestic incidents. She uncovered evidence that the victims had been strangled in earlier incidents and that if the law took such attacks more seriously, perhaps the deaths could have been prevented.

Law.com

Prosecutors continue to fight for family violence victims in the courtroom. We particularly thank and appreciate our great partners at the Texas District and County Attorneys Association (TCDAA) for their guidance and expertise in TCFV’s successful effort to make strangulation chargeable as a felony level offense in Texas. Take a look at the following link to a powerful article that Witchita County Assistant Criminal District Attorney Shelly Wilbanks wrote for TDCAA’s publication, The Texas Prosecutor. The article offers important tools, guidance and motivation for fellow prosecutors in charging and trying these important cases.

Tdcaa.com

Rao Musunuru, Guest columnist

A prominent physician, a murder and a suicide. It sounds like a plot for a sensational fiction story, but unfortunately, it is not. It happened in the community and we are all forced to deal with it.

After all is said, the reality is simple: Bad, unchecked bullying behavior coupled with stupid mistakes resulted in a very sad ending. When two lives end that way, the surviving children end up paying the real price.

Why would a person dedicated to saving lives take his own and someone else’s (the mother of his children) willingly and viciously? It is an extreme example of domestic violence. There is no good reason to attribute any of the actions to the stressful life of a medical professional.

Domestic violence affects individuals in every community regardless of age, economic status, race, religion, nationality or education. Eighty-five percent of domestic violence victims are women. One in every four women is expected to experience domestic violence in her lifetime. Almost every nine seconds a woman is battered. Domestic violence occurs in 60 percent of marriages. An estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year.

TampaBay.com

By Chris Emery, Contributing Writer, MedPage Today

Pregnant African-American women who received counseling to improve their physical and psychological health and safety were less likely to be the victims of domestic violence during pregnancy and postpartum, a new study found.

Women who received the cognitive and behavioral integrated intervention were less likely to experience recurrent episodes of intimate partner violence victimization (OR 0.48, 95% CI 0.29 to 0.80), according to a report in the Jan. 21 issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Counseled women who had reported previous minor intimate partner violence were significantly less likely to experience further episodes during pregnancy (OR 0.48, 95% CI 0.26 to 0.86) and after they gave birth (OR 0.56, 95% CI 0.34 to 0.93).

Medpagetoday.com

Cheryl Barnette

When involved in an abusive relationship and domestic a violence situation, a person might have to take off time from work, depending on how excessive the violence has become.

According to Legal Momentum, an advocacy group, “victims of domestic violence lose an average of 137 hours of work a year. Some need time off from work to seek medical attention, seek a restraining order, or relocate to a safe place. Others are prevented from getting to work when an abuser disables or takes the car, sabotages childcare arrangements, or leaves the victim without cash to use public transportation.”

When a person needs to take time off to regain their composure to speak, or even to seek medical attention, counseling sessions in order to get themselves prepared to face the real world after being battered, it is good to know that their employer is on their side; helping them to face the challenges that are sure to come from being in an abusive relationship. Such problems as these have led many states to pass domestic violence laws. If a scheduled court proceeding comes up, for instance, it would be assured that the employee would face no penalty or infraction for this, nor the possibility of demotion or job loss.

Examiner.com