Father puts a face on domestic violence in the Mat-Su Valley

Once with tears nearly dropping down his bearded face, the father of a battered local woman is saying something needs to be done about domestic violence here and everywhere.

He says an example should be made of his daughter’s partner so other mates on the verge of violence might reconsider.

While most people think of men as being the aggressors, there is ample evidence in the police blotter each week that this is becoming an issue for both sexes. No one knows why women are increasingly turning to violence. Maybe such crimes are just being reported more than before.

But there’s no doubt men are still the predominant violators.

In this case, the father said the man had a lengthy rap sheet. Indeed he does. Under two names, this felon has 17 criminal court cases involving numerous charges ranging from drunken driving to drug offenses to several assault cases. He’s no stranger to the prison system. He has fled halfway houses. He has cut ankle bracelets and fled a third-party custodian.

This is where it gets tough for the father. His daughter continued to support her abuser by hiding him when he was on the lam, by visiting him in jail, by choosing him over her family.

That’s too often the case. Victims often make excuses for their partners’ bad actions and take them back, only to have the beatings revisited on them, and sometimes their children.

The father who came into the office this week feels like he’s lost his daughter to a man who has brainwashed her. His hope is that he can somehow save his granddaughter from a future that all-too often repeats itself a generation later.

A 5-year-old screaming as her mother is being beaten and kicked to the point of hospitalization can grow up to think that’s the way families are and accept it herself one day. And, certainly, children who grow up watching one partner demean or physically abuse the other have no other standards to go by as they grow into adulthood.

This father wants the violence to stop so his granddaughter can live a life better than her mother. And he wants others to know there’s help out there and they should accept it.

One man is standing up, but his voice is just one. We all need to stand up and expose this violence when we see it, hear it or just have a feeling something is wrong. There are people, even children, living in terrible conditions who need our help.