Teen mom charged with domestic violence

Reader Cham and other readers have pointed out this tidbit on Teen Mom Amber Portwood:

Anna Chan writes:Police in Anderson, Ind., have officially charged "Teen Mom" star Amber Portwood with two felonies and one misdemeanor for domestic battery.

During a September episode of season two of the MTV hit show, Portwood was seen repeatedly slapping, punching and kicking her then-fiance, Gary Shirley. Police said that Portwood is facing felony charges because Portwood and Shirley's young daughter, Leah, was present when the alleged violence occurred.

Portwood faces fines of up to $10,000 and three years in jail if she's convicted.

I wrote about this case in a previous post and how shocked I was that MTV aired the episode showing female on male violence. It looks like at last there might be some consequences for a woman who beats up a man, mostly, it seems because their 1-year-old child was present, but it's a good start. It does seem that a man needs physical evidence to get charges brought against a woman for domestic violence. A woman just needs her word against his.

I wonder if security cameras like this one might be a good purchase for men who are being abused by their spouses or girlfriends? Would the physical evidence be admissible in court? Does anyone out there know specific state laws that would allow or not allow this?

"You are a caring, loving and formerly bubbly personality "

Reader David sends in this article on another stiletto attack by a woman that resulted in a man being blinded:

Jailing her Judge Jeremy Griggs said: 'You are a caring, loving and formerly bubbly personality but what happened that night has had catastrophic consequences for your victim who has to live with it for the rest of his life.

At least there was some justice in this case. Note that the judge has to make a statement about how good and caring this woman was before sentencing. Is this a requirement for judges to relieve their chivalrous guilt for daring to jail a female?

"..they heard shots. They said she then 'calmly walked away.'"

A number of you have been emailing me this article about the lobbyist in Atlanta who killed her husband:

A 45-year-old woman, charged with ending a domestic dispute by killing her 26-year-old husband of five days, is a registered lobbyist for a group fighting domestic violence.

Arelisha Bridges was ordered held without bond in the Fulton County Jail. She is scheduled for a preliminary hearing later this month on charges of felony murder, murder, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

Officials said Bridges claimed she was unemployed. But records show she is a lobbyist for an organization called the National Declaration for Domestic Violence Order; its Web site says the group is pushing legislation to create a database of those convicted of sex crimes or domestic abuse.

Witnesses told police that Bridges was wearing a nightgown and a shower cap as she argued with Rankins on the sidewalk on North Avenue near West Peachtree Street around 10:45 p.m. Monday.

And moments later, witnesses said, they heard shots. They said she then "calmly walked away...."

Bridges' group isn't among the prominent domestic violence lobbying groups in Georgia, said Kirsten Rambo, the executive director of the Georgia Commission on Family Violence.

"This is the first I've heard about that organization," Rambo said. "I certainly couldn't say if they were legitimate or not," she said, adding, "It's certainly a new name to me."

I thought Rambo's explanation was a little funny, if not telling of where she stands. It's as if she's saying, "if a woman kills her husband and is not part of a prominent domestic violence lobbying group, it doesn't really count then, does it?" Or at least she is trying to distance herself and her organization from this violent act.

These sexist lobbying groups need to open their minds to the fact that women kill and injure men and that their lack of concern allows it to flourish. Perhaps, like the gem in the article who killed her husband, when a man is hurt or killed, they are unconcerned and "calmly walk away."

Gee, what a surprise...

A number of you have sent in various links about Crystal Gale Mangum, the Duke rape accuser being arrested today (thanks to all who did). Here is the story for those of you who haven't seen it:

The woman who was at the center of the phony Duke lacrosse rape case was arrested today and charged with attempted murder.

The Durham Police Department told ABC News that Crystal Gale Mangum got into an argument with her boyfriend, Milton Walker, shortly after midnight on Thursday.

The arrest warrant claims that Mangum, 33, scratched, punched and threw objects at Walker before taking all of his clothes and setting them on fire in a bath tub. Firefighters were sent to the home to extinguish the blaze.

Police said they had to evacuate three children, ages 10, 9 and 3, from the apartment because of the fire. It was not immediately known whose children they were.

Mangum is charged with first-degree attempted murder for communicating a threat because she allegedly told Walker in front of officers, "I'm going to stab you [expletive]!"

She was also charged with five counts of arson, simple assault, identity theft, damage to property and resist, delay and obstruction of justice. In addition, she faces three counts of child endangerment.

Mangum is being held without bond and her first court appearance is scheduled for today.

K C Johnson, author of the book on this case, Until Proven Innocent has more at his blog, Durham-in-Wonderland.

Solutions, not excuses

Female biology professor kills three at the University of Alabama after being denied tenure:

Three faculty members at the University of Alabama in Huntsville were shot to death, and three other people were seriously wounded at a biology faculty meeting on Friday afternoon, university officials said.

The Associated Press reported that a biology professor, identified as Amy Bishop, was charged with murder.

According to a faculty member, the professor had applied for tenure, been turned down, and appealed the decision. She learned on Friday that she had been denied once again.

Sadly, women are feeling pressure and turning to violence at times, just like men but posts like this one at Newsweek by Kate Dailey will just keep talking about the rarity of female violence, and lead to excuses, rather than solutions.

For less PC reading on female violence, try Patricia Pearson's When She Was Bad...: Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence.

"Police said the stiletto penetrated the eye socket and touched the victim's brain."

A reader sent me this article about a man who was attacked by Staci Hargreaves, 33, from Stalybridge, Cheshire, in a cab:

A woman has appeared in court charged with wounding after a man was stabbed through the eye with a stiletto heel.

Gavin Taylor, 28, remains seriously ill in hospital after the incident last Sunday.

He suffered the injury in the back of a taxi while travelling home from a night out in Huddersfield with his girlfriend.

A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said: "At around 2am on Sunday, police received reports of a serious assault which occurred in a vehicle travelling through Huddersfield town centre.

"A 28-year-old man was struck to the head and taken to Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.

"He was subsequently transferred to Leeds General Infirmary and is currently in a stable but critical condition...."

Police said the stiletto penetrated the eye socket and touched the victim's brain.

What struck me about the short article was the matter-of-fact tone about the attack, almost as if the incident happened with no woman present. There is a lack of emotion when reporting about violence against men, which makes it seem like "no big deal." When reporting on women who are abused or hurt by a boyfriend, it is almost always more sympathetic, emotional, and more detailed. Though this seems like a small thing, the apathetic way that the media portrays female on male violence, without emphasis on the female perpetrator as a serious threat, makes the public take incidents like this less seriously.

Maybe men "should take back the night"

I found it sort of (okay, really) ironic after reading a news article about University of Tennessee women at a "Take back the night" rally to highlight violence against women that two of the stories linked to this story were about....women's violence against men.

In the first story, a teacher is arrested with the statutory rape of a male student:

FENTRESS COUNTY, Tenn. (WVLT) -- The Fentress County Grand Jury has indicted a high school teacher for allegedly having sex with a 16-year-old student.

Lindsey Seymour, 27 of Allardt turned herself in to Fentress County authorities on Thursday afternoon. She was officially charged with eight counts of statutory rape.

Seymour allegedly had the sexual encounters with the male student between June 2009 and September 2009. In late September, the teen’s parents complained to the district attorney about the contact.

In the second news story, a woman is just now serving time (not much) for shooting her boyfriend through the head in 2005:

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – The Blount County woman who gunned down her live-in boyfriend in June 2005 will begin serving her sentence on Monday.

April Jennifer Warren, 38 pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter on April 8th, 2008. According to police, she killed Charles Russell, 32 with a single shotgun blast to his head following an argument in their home on June 13th, 2005. Court records indicated she was performing CPR on Russell when police arrived on the scene.

Warren was sentenced to 10 years in prison on May 28th, 2008, but later appealed when it came out that Judge Mike Meares had contacted the family of the victim about the verdict. After sentencing Warren, Judge Meares apparently told Russell’s family that he gave her the maximum penalty with them in mind and asked that they support him in his upcoming election.

This murderer will have to serve only 35 percent of the 10 year prison sentence. I understand this is due to a technicality but 10 years wasn't much to begin with. And I wonder how this murder was counted? As a woman murdering a man? As some lesser crime due to it being voluntary manslaughter? Was it entered in the national data base at all as a woman killing a man?

Maybe it's time men who have been affected by female sexual and physical violence to"take back the night" but that will never happen. Men will rarely stand up for themselves and society sees their lives as expendable, especially when taken by a woman. Men will continue to be abused and will suffer or die in silence, or with the frequent sneer that "he deserved it."

Update: Here is yet another story linked from the same news site (WVLT) about a woman who killed her boyfriend (Good grief, how many are there?). Naturally, she again got only voluntary manslaughter and here is what she served:

In May 2008, the defendant pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in that case and was sentenced to three years in prison as a standard offender. According to her sentencing report, she was to serve 120 days in the county jail in 20-day increments -- with the remainder of her sentence as supervised probation.

Women just say the word, "domestic violence" and they are given a pass for killing, as in this case. When women's groups shout non-stop about domestic violence and violence against women, they plant the seeds in the culture that men are never victims. This is not true but people listen, despite evidence to the contrary.

Update II: DADvocate points out another case where a woman stabbed her husband 193 times, gets 25 years and has the verdict overturned (via Althouse blog). The case sounded familiar and I realized it was that of Susan Wright, one of the women profiled on the Oxygen show "Snapped" that I was on as an expert in 2004. The show is coming to the Biography channel soon according to a promo. That's the thing about cable. The shows are recycled forever.

Many of you have been emailing this story about four women who physically abused a man who cheated on them:

That's one tube of glue this guy never thought he'd see.

A married man who planned to rendezvous with one of his handful of lovers at an eastern Wisconsin motel instead got his penis glued to his stomach, according to court documents.

Four women, including his wife, showed up to bind and blindfold the man, plus place the adhesive on his package, all in a bizarre plot to punish him for a lover's quadrangle gone bad, says the Calumet County docs.

Now it's the women who face punishment, perhaps six years in prison, and at least one said Monday the story has gotten twisted and she's embarrassed.

She should be more than embarrassed, she and her partners in crime should be humiliated and put in jail for assault. When you see commercials about men who cheat, they are being punched, had their cars destroyed and other abuses that are just taken in a matter-of-fact manner as if it's no big deal because a woman is dispersing "justice." Female on male assault and destruction of men's property is a big deal. I hope these women get the book thrown at them but with a 200 dollar bail set, probably nothing will happen. What do you think?

A few observations on female crime in Chicago

I came across a gallery of photos at the Chicago Tribune entitled "Mugs in the news" which featured a collection of Chicago area arrest photos. There were a total of 66 photos and I took a look at the first 13 and noticed that eight out of the first thirteen were women--although there were only 12 women out of the total 66 mugshots from what I counted.

The women were (allegedly) involved in crimes ranging from making up fraudulent documents to first degree murder. Another thing worth noting is that some women acted alone or with other women. For example, two women (image 10 and 11) were arrested for robbing a couple and shooting the man after taking his wallet:

Desiree Hollis and Bobbie Griffin, both 20 years old, were accused of demanding money from a couple walking on the Near West Side on Dec. 11, 2008, then shooting the man before fleeing, police said. Hollis, of the 100 block of North Leamington Avenue, and Griffin, of the 5800 block of West Walton Street, were tracked down shortly after the couple flagged a police car.

Patricia Pearson, in her book, When She Was Bad...: Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence says that women may increasingly work in pairs or alone. Joyce Carol Oates once said that "Most often, [women] are merely the distaff half of a murderous couple whose brain-power is supplied by the man." I don't think this holds true anymore, if it ever did.

Boy babies die, women hardest hit

I was horrified to read at Ace of Spades about two villages of women in Papua New Guinea who have killed all male babies to keep them from waging war:

The Papua New Guinea jungle has given up one of its darkest secrets - the systematic slaughter of every male baby born in two villages to prevent future tribal clashes.

By virtually wiping out the 'male stock', tribal women hope they can avoid deadly bow-and-arrow wars between the villages in the future.

'Babies grow into men and men turn into warriors,' said Rona Luke, a village wife who is attending a special 'peace and reconciliation' meeting in the mountain village of Goroka.

I agree with the point made at Ace's place:

The report sympathetically portrays these women as desperate hut wives who, faced with tribal extinction, are forced to take extreme measures in order to survive. One wonders how sympathetic the writers of this story would be if the men of the tribe killed all of the female babies to prevent them from growing up and committing male infanticide.

I doubt they would be sympathetic at all. But the commenters to the Daily Mail article that discussed the story certainly had sympathy for these female infant killers. One has to wonder about what kind of twisted morality commenters like the following must possess to write the following:

Stop judging these people with Western ethics. The commenters here have no idea how these people live and deal with life. I've lived with New Guineans and their minds do not work in the same way as Westerners. Overall they are gentle people and things must have got pretty bad for the womenfolk to kill their own children. In their minds it was the only way to save the village. Save your disgust for the baby killers in this country who should know better.

In any conflict, it's always the women and children who suffer through no doing of their own. And when everything has been ruined, and the men killed, they have to pick up the pieces and restore everything. They must have really had enough to kill their own children like that.

How horrendous that these women so no other option but to kill there own babies to prevent heartache in the future,its a lose lose situation for them.

No sympathy at all for the male infants that died, just for the women who had to do the killing, how pathetic.

A 15-year-old girl killed her classmate so she could "feel her pain:"

A 15-year-old accused of fatally shooting her classmate was upset because the two had recently stopped talking and told police she brought a gun to school because she "wanted her to feel pain like me," according to an affidavit.

Violent girls often attack other girls over relationship issues or boys. They, just like boys, need to learn the boundaries of anger. Unfortunately, in our "you go girl culture," that probably won't happen.

"Justice doesn't always move this slow, but at least it is moving forward."

Raynella Dossett Leath, a woman whose two husbands died suspiciously, has been indicted for the death of her first husband, Ed Dossett:

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A former nurse surrendered Thursday on a murder charge in the death of her first husband, a district attorney who authorities initially believed was accidentally killed 16 years ago when he was trampled by cattle.

Raynella Dossett Leath, 59, also faces a murder charge in the death of her second husband. Prosecutors have said there are similarities between the two cases. She was the first person to find both men and call police, and prescription drugs possibly played a role in each of their deaths.

The widow was indicted this week in the 1992 death of former prosecutor William Edward Dossett, 44, who was found dead in his pasture. His breastbone and some ribs were broken and he had a hoofprint on the chest of his overalls. Officials originally concluded he was knocked down by his cattle and ruled it an accidental death.

Well, it's a start.

Killer Mary Winkler gets her kids back. I have no words to describe how unfair the justice system is towards men who are slaughtered by their wives.

Do stats really reveal how many husbands are killed by wives?

Do you ever wonder if more women kill their husbands than the stats reflect? If this story is any indication, the answer would be a mind-boggling "yes" (thanks Graham):

Police may have ignored a warning years ago that a woman with five dead spouses was trying to hire a hit man to kill one of the men, investigators in North Carolina said Monday.

Authorities charged 76-year-old Betty Neumar last month with one count of solicitation of murder in the July 1986 death of Harold Gentry. Gentry's brother had begged investigators for two decades to take another look at the case.

Stanly County sheriff's investigators believe Neumar tried to hire several people to kill Gentry. Lead detective Scott Williams said Monday his office is looking into the possibility that one of those would-be hit men went to authorities before Gentry's death, but no one took him seriously....

Neumar has been married five times since the 1950s, but each union ended with the death of her husband. Investigators want authorities elsewhere to look into the deaths. Williams said investigators have uncovered a common link among the victims: They all had military experience.

I wonder if this woman was hooking up with these military men to get their VA benefits? And five dead husbands before anyone figures something is going on? And Neumar is only charged with one count of solicitation for murder. If she killed the other four, do the stats reflect this? I doubt it.

"Initially, Ben was too embarrassed to go to the police. 'They were girls, after all,'..."

A boy is attacked and sexually assaulted by a group of girls in Woolwich, South-East London (Hat tip: Mecurior) and is afraid to come forward but does:

The group, aged 15 and 16, dragged him into a nearby flat where they stripped him, repeatedly beat him with a broken broom handle, and made him perform sex acts.

They filmed his three-and-a-half hour ordeal on a mobile phone...

Had his sister not eventually persuaded him to inform the authorities, his story would have been difficult to believe. He gave evidence against the gang via video link because he was too embarrassed to face them in court.

I wonder if they just took the boy's word for the assault or used the video from the mobile phone? If so, thank goodness for teenage exhibitionism--that seems to be the only way girls get caught in our society.

Girl Violence: YouTube Fad?

Another display of girl-on-girl violence has surfaced on YouTube (thanks to the reader who emailed the story):

Administrators of the Raymondville school system said they will review the district's cell phone policy after a report of an assault on a middle school student that was recorded with a cell phone and then displayed on YouTube.

It was at least the second time this year students from the school district uploaded violent videos to YouTube, said school board president John Solis. Early this year, a Raymondville High School student used a video to solicit someone to beat another student.

The father of a 13-year-old girl whose recent video-recorded beating was uploaded to the video-sharing Web site said he may press assault charges against the other students he blames for injuring his daughter.

Regino Garcia said Friday he is dissatisfied with the response of school administrators who he believes did not adequately punish those involved in the beating.

Garcia said one Myra Green Middle School student beat his daughter Sara on March 11 while another girl used a cell phone to record the incident, which left Sara with a slight concussion.

A third girl urged the girl striking Sara to "hit her face" during the attack, he said.

So these girls beat up another girl in a middle school hallway and here is the typical response from an administrator:

Solis, the school board president, said officials will have a workshop to discuss policy on student cell phone use.

"We're going to see if we need a stricter cell phone policy or not allow them anymore," he said. "That's what they're doing -videotaping on cell phones.

"It's a new wave. It's happening in other school districts here in the (Rio Grande) Valley. Our school district is not immune."

How many kids are being beaten up in the hallway that never reach YouTube? Wouldn't a better idea be to have a workshop on how to keep an eye out for bullying kids in the hallway? Or perhaps have the groups of girls who are bullies go to a group to learn anger management and be taught to understand why they are hitting other girls in the face? (Hint, girls love to disfigure other girls out of jealousy for being good looking--address that and you might get somewhere).

I have worked with a number of schools in the course of my career and I can tell you one thing I learned. They often punish victims and allow bullies to flourish and insist they have few problems. While I can understand wanting to review cellphone policy, blaming YouTube and cellphones for allowing violence to go unchecked in your school is externalizing the problem so you can stick your head in the sand. It is no solution to violence.

If you would like to read more about school related violence and the differences in girl and boy motivations for anger etc. take a look at my article (with Sandra Thomas) here entitled "School Connectedness, Anger Behaviors, and Relationships of Violent and Nonviolent American Youth" or if you want a good book on the topic, try Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls.