Amherst Police Department 111 Main Street
While the town recently lost a $900,000 federal grant to benefit low and moderate income residents and a $4.2 million state grant for road improvements in North Amherst, a potentially lifesaving Amherst Police Department regional program designed to aid those devastated by the horror of sexual assault or domestic abuse snagged a $300,000 grant from the Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women.
The money will continue to fund a full-time counselor who splits her time between UMass and the town, add a part-time counselor for Northampton PD, increase training for all three departments and fund an additional full-time Amherst police officer whose exclusive beat will be sexual assault and domestic violence cases.
The renewal/expansion of the program, originally founded two years ago with $174,000 Justice Department grant, comes soon after our comfortable college town was rocked by a series of sensational sexual assault cases.
A long-form narrative first-person piece published on the front page of the Amherst College student newspaper shone a glaring spotlight on the inadequate system the prestigious college used for handling such sensitive matters.
Followed by a shocking incident of alleged gang rape at a UMass dormitory.
And just when you thought it could not get any worse, the heartrending story of yet another Amherst College student ill-served by an in-house amateur response to a situation requiring highly trained professionals.
Trey Malone committed suicide, leaving behind a devastatingly poignant final farewell blaming his self-induced death on the sexual assault by a fellow student, made even worse by the way Amherst College (mis) handled it.
Could this regional civilian advocacy program have made a difference for Trey? Although funding is provided by the "Office on Violence Against Women" men most certainly are not excluded.
But, since Amherst College didn't report the incident to local police or the district attorney's office, we will never know.
This essential service program has helped hundreds over the past two years, and will now continue to help hundreds into the future.
22 comments:
The Violence Against Women Act is one of the most horrible abuses of human rights ever passed by congress. It essentially bribes courts with BILLIONS in funding to prosecute innocent people and support issuing false restraining orders. In Massachusetts judges and lawyers admit that nearly 90% or restraining orders issued are bogus with no violence happening. It is just another government boondoggle.
Judges should be ashamed as they are breaking their oath to the U.S. Constitution and fairness using these bogus statutes. There must be "clear and convincing evidence" to take away anyone's home. children and income, yet these are issued every day almost anytime a woman says the word "fear" to a judge because courts are paid handsomely to "give them out like candy" (the words of lawyers). VAWA is an abomination of civil rights abuse used as a weapon to control men, not as a shield to protect someone in danger. It should not be renewed or funded at all. We have good laws to prosecute real violence. It is called "Trail by Jury" and "beyond reasonable doubt" and works just fine. Like most government, our court system is out of control and just chases money.It has evolved into a scam for lawyers and others in the system living off the productivity of other citizens yet providing damage, not value to society. See: www.FathersUnite.org for more facts. These domestic violence shelters have been investigated and are scams too. The system encourages false accusations and even threatens victims that their children will be taken if they do not prosecute the man. They are run by man hating feminists mainly - Sort of like letting drug addicts run the drug store.
I can speak first-hand of the misuse of funding and abuse by these groups. One example from experience is Safe Passage of Northampton, a group that appears to teach women to hate men and how to do whatever is necessary, including filing false restraining orders, and calling 911 with a false accusation of being physically struck by a male, all to "help" these women get an upper hand in court, regardless of the outcome and the division of families. One would almost think many of these groups are simply male-hate groups out to vindicate their own lives and their past.
The VAWA is an abomination and is so abused that is a joke. Some folks careers depend on funding of VAWA for little more than the paycheck. While there is nothing wrong with domestic violence support FOR MEN OR WOMEN (when actually necessary), the system as it is, is simply designed to give many women a life-long career working at these facilities as "councilors" and designed to help states, including Mass. to profit quite well for every male they prosecute for DV, GUILTY OR NOT. Even though women commit DV against men nearly as much as men do against women according to federal statistics, men are looked at as automatic predators and women victims.
States like MA make millions from outdated DV laws by automatically giving custody of children to women with no consideration for fathers and their rights as parents. The roles of men and women in the home have changed drastically in the past 30 years and it's about time legislation caught up.
The VAWA needs serious REFORM. The VAWA must restore the presumption of innocence! Currently as it is written it does not. MEN ARE GUILTY WITH NO RECOURSE REGARDLESS simply because someone uses the word "fear", true or not. Visit http://www.saveservices.org/ to learn more. Men, we need to balance the tables. Fathers rights groups are growing fast and furious and making the changes needed to balance the tables so that we too can maintain the relationships with our children that we deserve. The recent change in alimony laws in Mass is one example of the power of fathers rights groups against a large money-making machine. Let's make it truly fair and equal for everyone.
Anon 2:49PM, you do realize that everything about your post screams: I'M A MISOGYNIST BUT I WILL NEVER ADMIT IT AND YOU CAN'T PROVE IT.
If you are sincere about your beliefs, then cite some of your claims, and think about not insinuating that the entire justice system is rigged against you and other men who are not getting their way. Really, read your post, you sound like a nut. Richard Marsh.
I personally know more women who have been harmed by this bullshit than helped.
I firmly believe that a strong-minded and intelligent woman absolutely has to decide herself that she doesn't want to be in a relationship anymore. The problem with the VAWA approach is the problem with DDT -- it is absolute and overkill -- it forces the man completely out of her life before she has made the decision that she wants him out of her life.
She needs to make that decision herself and not have it made for her because otherwise she either will go back to the abusive guy or find someone just like him if not worse. She didn't make the decision that she doesn't like that kind of relationship, so goes right back to another one just like it.
Above and beyond the extent to which this stuff is becoming the equivalent of the Jim Crow Code -- just directed on gender instead of race, above and beyond the abuse (and I am aware of one situation where one group of intoxicated young people were routinely chasing another group of intoxicated young people (both with motor vehicles) throughout the valley)these laws are putting women back into the 19th Century if not the 15th Century.
These laws are saying that women are unable to care for themselves and need the help of the state to do it. Not the social contract but that she is helpless and the state must control her life for her -- and that is not a far step from what we have in Saudi Arabia....
CAN 2:49
BLAH BLAH BLAH; Shut the eff up and get a life.
Dr Ed, the problem is we live in a society where most women have very low self esteem but we refuse to see that or acknowledge it. Our culture does this to women teaching them that they will always be taken care of.
I am not the anonymous you speak of but Richard, you ought to see just how rigged the system is against men. Clearly you have not lived it. I would have never thought the things I do now before what happened to me by the system did. I know now cause I lived it. I probably would have used the same words you did before the system robbed me of my kids, my property, and my rights. You ought to join our fathers rights group on Google to see just how jaded the system is and how much it ignores men's rights, and yes, gets paid by the federal government to break up families. http://groups.google.com/group/fathers-l/topics
Can't someone explain to the colleges that all their attempts to "handle" these things internally eventually blow up in their faces?
Here's a radical idea: if a crime is committed on campus, by or against a student, it's an issue for law enforcement just like crimes committed off campus. College campuses are not some kind of extraterritorial enclaves where laws don't apply, so they should stop acting like they are.
Part 1 of 2
George Santana once said something to the effect of those who fail to learn the mistakes of history get to relive them.
In Massachusetts today, it is the heterosexual male who is hated. A century ago, it was Catholics and Jews who were equally despised. Anyone who honestly looks at history has to recognize that Massachusetts actually had a "Know Nothing" Governor and implemented policies that were every bit as anti-Catholic as the stuff we are doing now is anti-male.
Larry, did Ma Kelly ever tell you about the "Irish Catholics Need Not Apply" signs?
Mr. Morse, this VAWA stuff has nothing to do with the schmucks who harm women and everything to do with hatred of men in general. And I say this as someone who has largely been on the side of the women.
As to the shelters and programs and such, they made it damn difficult for me to do my job because I was male. It would be the exact same thing as if I told a female police officer that only men can be cops and that I refused to recognize her as an officer because of her gender.
At one point, I was essentially saying to the feminazi man-hater answering the phone at one of these shelters "look, I am trying to help expedite the woman's receipt of a Federal benefit and I am trying to return her phone call -- how do you think I got this number in the first place?" (We won't even get into how I also knew both the street address of that particular shelter and whom they were renting the building from.)
I was/am way too professional to add the next line but wanted to: "And whom exactly do you think I am going to tell that she is there and why would I ever want to do that? Because I am male?"
Yes.
The mantra is that absolutely every woman is trustworthy and absolutely no man ever can be. So if I had a woman (whom they didn't know) call, I could reach a client at a shelter, but I couldn't make the call directly myself. Mr. Morse, can you defend this?
And abusive guys, i.e. the type of men the women in these shelters are trying to flee, are really good at manipulating women. Exactly how difficult do you think it would be for such a guy to find some woman who will make a phone call for him? So what have they accomplished?
My personal favorite story involves the UMass Everywoman's Center and a female employee whose car was broken and whose husband thus arrived to give her a ride home. They had two daughters, about the age of Larry's, and they were with the husband.
No, the three of them couldn't go into this PUBLIC building, nor would anyone tell his wife that he was there. If he wanted to, he could send his young girls -- alone -- into this large building to find their mother, or he could leave.
Larry, how would you feel about this? And is that because you are a misogynist or because you are a loving parent?
Part 2:
I do not say this lightly: the court advocacy groups subornate perjury. I say this as a neutral third party observer. I have had women tell me, in explicit detail, exactly how they were coached (and bullied) into lying under oath. Into expanding upon an incident to make it appear more severe than it was. Into claiming they were scared of a man whom they weren't so as to protect another woman.
Being told that they would be arrested themselves if they didn't take out a restraining order. Now who exactly is abusing the woman at that point????
I have seen young people chase other young people with motor vehicles --- yes, driving cars down sidewalks, across lawns and other such fun things. The fact that this was endangering the public didn't matter -- and even though I made it explicitly clear that my primary concern was that young people chasing other young people with motor vehicles is inherently dangerous even if all are sober, I got in trouble for bringing this inherently dangerous situation to the authorities.
I have lost all respect for the system, I have lost all respect for the police and for the courts - they are not there to protect or serve me, I really am not even a citizen anymore, and all of that because I am male.
There are a lot of guys like me, who would never harm a woman, but who have just seen too much and have lost faith in the legitimacy of the system. That's why Romney lost, white guys who had voted for McCain in '08 simply didn't bother to vote. Nor why should we have, the GOP has a majority in the House and the VAWA needn't have been reauthorized.
Here's a radical idea: if a crime is committed on campus, by or against a student, it's an issue for law enforcement just like crimes committed off campus.
Here's another radical idea -- when a graduate student is telling you that a 20-year-old MHC student is being brought up to the PIKE fraternity, gotten drunk out of her mind, and then used by politically ambitious male #1 as a cudgel against politically ambitious male #2 as part of the ongoing fratricide of the mASSgop, and that young people are chasing other young people with motor vehicles in an attempt to intentionally cause a 300 yard buffer zone to be violated, you at least stop the motor vehicle stuff before someone gets killed.
The mASSgop rewarded the PIKE brother with a job in DC with Scott Brown, which is why I left the GOP.
Anon 8:43AM: I am not saying that the system is not slanted toward mothers. That is natural, FOR THE MOST PART... women are the nurturers, FOR THE MOST PART, the men are lying their asses off in court when facing charges of domestic abuse, or making claims as to the woman's supposed "unfitness". And for you to state that the system "gets paid by the federal government to break up families", is ludicrous. There is no other way to put it, I'm sorry if that seems offensive, but to interpret funding that supports women's rights as being used to purposely break up families is proof that you are letting your emotions override common sense. And remember, I said "for the most part". Of course there are exceptions, just as there are in criminal cases, mainly because people lie. But the truth is almost always uncovered in the justice system. Most men in these situations are so blinded by pride, hatred, and lust for revenge that they have convinced even themselves that the denial and outright lies that they are pedalling are the truth. And that becomes obvious with statements such as yours and his, claiming that the federal government pays the system to break up families. Richard Marsh
Richard your ignorance is astounding.
I think this not only says it all but will force anyone who has anything resembling intellectual honesty to ask some very serious questions about VAWA.
What's not stated is that if we just locked these women in a hospital for 9 months, not letting them have any opiates or any alcohol, these children wouldn't be born with these problems.
Yes it would be a serious violation of the women's civil rights, but since we have already shredded the men's civil rights, what's wrong with equity and shredding the women's as well?
Honestly, why don't we violate everyone's civil rights equally?
http://umaine.edu/news/blog/2012/03/16/doctoral-student-examines-long-term-effects-of-methadone-treatment-in-pregnancy/
Anon 9:52 PM: You're anonymously name calling in a debate without making or defending a point, and I'm ignorant? If you are one of the previous anons, I'd love to read your defense of the "federal government pays the system to break up families" claim. Richard Marsh
Mr. Morse, do you know the difference between macro and micro? The difference between qualitative research and quantitative research?
I have no doubt that you personally know some women who have been really really harmed by some truly obnoxious men who in an earlier era someone would have simply shot.
(Yes, Texas still has "needed killing" on the books as a defense against murder allegations.)
But you appear to be an intelligent man and you need to look beyond just the stuff crossing your desk and the women sitting in your office. Massachusetts does get a financial incentive for everything from child support assessment/collections to restraining orders issued. Go through the arcane language of the CFR and you will see this in the plain language of governmental gobblygook (I know it isn't English, but still, this is laid out in whatever language they use in DC).
There are lots of documented cases of guys being called up for Guard/Reserved duty in Iraq and being arrested upon their return for not having paid enough child support even though (a) their military pay was a whole lot less than the civilian pay they weren't getting, and they had both sent 100% of their military pay and all their savings to the mother.
You talk about men lying in court -- maybe -- but I know of lots of cases where women have been coaxed into how to give a credible lie in court. It is so bad that a lot of guys realistically don't want to live with a woman and are breaking off relationships because they don't want the risk of having a any woman living in their residence.
We have a shortage of fathers in this country, we are really close to having a shortage of children, and we are rapidly approaching the situation that destroyed the Native American culture -- men not tied to the culture at all and with nothing to do but drink & fight.
You may not politically agree with folk who are documenting some of this stuff (Eagle Forum comes to mind but there are others) but facts are pesky things and some of this stuff is being documented well enough that if it weren't true, someone would be pointing that out.
Sir, I once saw the Amherst Police arrest a man essentially for having walked through a solid brick wall. I don't care how much of an a**hole he was/is, or how badly he treated women (which I did not approve of), he didn't walk through a solid brick wall!
And this is the level of where this garbage has gone. And exactly how is it legal for a sworn police officer to ignore other violations of the law which occur in her presence and only deal with domestic violence? Is she or is she not a "sworn peace officer."
Mr. Morse, I am not asking that you agree with her (and it isn't just her, she has a fairly large staff), only that you read some of this objectively.
http://www.eagleforum.org/topics/VAWA/
And this -- that Harvard found that the mandatory arrest policy increased partner homicides by 60% http://www.capwiz.com/eagleforum/issues/alert/?alertid=61279216
So we have more dead women, and that is a good thing????
Ed, who the heck is Mr. Morse that you keep talking to?
I think he's getting confused between Richard Marsh and Richard Morse.
Figures, when folks all too rarely identify themselves we still end up with problems. Yikes!
Ed, for the second time... I am Richard Marsh, not Richard Morse. I don't even have a desk.
just goes to show how Ed makes little attention to details like actual facts
Or Ed transposes two characters in otherwise remarkably similar names.
Whatever.
And for those of you who want to call me things I can neither spell nor pronounce, let me just say that this is my kind of woman:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-19/iran-cleric-pummeled-by-badly-covered-woman-after-warning-her.html
Post a Comment