[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 79 (Tuesday, June 21, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 21, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
              SPOUSE ABUSE AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE MUST END

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
February 11, 1994, and June 10, 1994, the gentlewoman from Colorado 
[Mrs. Schroeder] is recognized during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Madam Speaker, this has been a very painful weekend 
for an awful lot of us, and I do not want to address what I think about 
O.J. Simpson, because I honestly think he should be considered innocent 
until they prove him guilty. But let me say, one of the things that 
came out this weekend that is so traumatizing is the issue of spouse 
abuse and domestic violence, and how even some of our largest cities 
with supposedly the best trained and the most compassionate police 
forces, totally ignore this, over and over and over again.
  People often say, why do the women put up with this? Why do they 
tolerate this? Well, if you look at the Simpson case, you find that the 
police were called to the house nine separate times. Nine separate 
times. And never was an arrest made.
  Think about what the record shows. That on the ninth time, Nicole 
came out and said that she wanted her husband arrested, please arrest 
her husband. She had called them there eight times before.
  When they went to talk to O.J., he said, ``The police have been here 
eight times before. This is a family matter. You are not going to 
arrest me. Why do you want to make a big deal out of this?''
  Well, if you had been beaten nine times, you would probably think it 
was a pretty big deal. He said, ``Go away, we can handle it.'' And then 
that time, the Los Angeles police did not arrest him. They allowed him 
to drive away in his Bentley.
  What happened at that point was Mrs. Simpson then filed in the court 
a battering charge, and the judge allowed him, with his record, to 
plead no contest, pay a $700 fine, which for most Americans would be 
like giving a nickel, pay a $700 fine, and then talk to a psychiatrist 
of his choice over the phone, and do community service.
  Now, if someone had beat you up on the street and threatened to kill 
you and done this nine times, and the police continued to refuse to 
arrest them, and you finally had to go for a battery charge and they 
give him a nickel fine, told him to do community service and talk to a 
doctor on the phone, I think you would be very angry. Somehow what 
happens on the street, we make very different from what happens in the 
home.
  When you look at the statistics, it is incredible. That emergency 
wards see 4 million women a year on average that have been beaten so 
bad that they are in an emergency ward. That during the eighties, at 
least 1,500 women a year were killed; 1,500 women a year. And the 
nineties, it looks like it is going to be bigger and better.
  Well, this keeps going on year after year after year. We have one 
city in America where not too long ago more policemen killed their 
wives than were killed in the line of duty.
  You know, we are all terrified of street violence. But can you 
imagine living a life where not only was the street unsafe, home was 
more unsafe than the street? Home more unsafe than the street. Domestic 
terrorism.
  We also know that a child that witnesses this kind of violence in the 
home is about 700 times more likely to be violent than a child who does 
not. If a child sees these arguments being solved in the home with 
violence time after time after time, there is no way you can give them 
a couple hours of conflict resolution courses and have them change 
their way. Please.
  This year in the crime bill this House passed a historic measure, the 
Violence Against Women Act. It is now in conference with the Senate. 
The Senate bill is even better than ours by a long shot. I wanted 
desperately to be on that conference and am not on that conference. 
There are no women on that conference. I would hope after this weekend, 
we would see that conference come out of here with a crime bill that is 
as strong as the Senate, that is as tough as it can be, that finally 
focuses the Federal Government on this very critical issue. Because 
that, and that alone, will do more to prevent crime in the future, by 
trying to intervene in families and get people a new behavior mode. You 
can change this. I just hope we do everything we can after this tragic 
weekend to see that we never, never again see police officers winking 
at this bloody awful violence, that only leaves children without a 
mother and a very tragic future.

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