Domestic Violence Team Is Honored

The Howard County Police Department's domestic violence team, from left, Lt. Ronald Denton, Sgt. Steven Martin, Detective Molly Gale and civilian administrator Katherine Turner, is being honored for its humanitarian work. (By Karen Lubieniecki For The Association Of Community Services)

Gale and Martin also have trained officers to assess how potentially dangerous the situation is when they respond to a domestic call. The so-called lethality assessment, the first of its kind in the country, was developed by the Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence with researchers at Johns Hopkins University and is in use throughout the state.

Police officers ask victims a series of pointed questions and, based on their responses, might tell them that victims in similar situations have been killed.

Immediately after that, Howard officers call the Domestic Violence Center hotline and encourage victims to speak with a counselor.

"More people are willing to report it, and more are willing to get help," Gale said.

In the first quarter of this year, Martin said, police officers assessed 180 people as being in high-risk domestic situations, and 63 percent of them immediately spoke to counselors at the Domestic Violence Center with the officers' encouragement. That's higher than the 54 percent figure statewide, according to figures from the Maryland Network.

With Gale and Martin in the lead, Howard police also devote more time to criminal investigation in domestic cases, following up with victims, conducting more interviews, piecing together evidence and staying in touch with the state's attorney's office. The domestic violence section closed 169 cases in 2007.

"Our filings are more detailed. It's just more thorough," said Devora Pontell, a Howard assistant state's attorney who handles domestic violence cases. "I have a better chance of success in my criminal prosecutions."

Gale, whose undergraduate and graduate work at the University of Baltimore focused on domestic violence, often found herself wondering why victims stayed in abusive relationships. Now she knows that myriad ever-changing forces shape domestic violence.

"When you can help one person, it starts to build a little bit of trust," she said. Not long ago, Gale visited the woman whose husband viciously assaulted her. She has made another life for herself and her child, living in a new place and working as a nurse.

"It was the first time I saw her smile," Gale said.