Little signs tell stories that are hard to hear

The march against domestic violence is never not an eye-opener. It was the little placards that had been painstakingly created and placed around the Civic Center plaza that were the most startling. They could have been anything regarding domestic violence, such as the people and places to call when someone needs help. But they weren’t that.

No, they were more like little tombstones, if tombstones listed how a person was killed and who killed them, particularly the relationship of the person who killed them. Family members killing family members. Husbands killing wives. The sun was shining bright on Tuesday, but the message on those little placards spoke to someone’s darkest days, when they had likely put up with mental and physical abuse for a long time and then finally succumbed to it.

There were several speakers, but the one that held everyone in rapt attention was Wendy Gates, whose 21-year-old daughter, Hannah Roberts, was killed — shot to death — just over a year ago at the hands of the father of her child. How she stood and talked about her daughter was itself a profile in courage.

But talk she did. About how her daughter had a big personality and filled up a room with her presence and how she was always there for others.

As she concluded, Gates pleaded with those in the audience to get help if they needed it and to give help if they saw that it was needed.

Sadly, what happened to Roberts was hardly an isolated incident. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, more than 37% of Arkansas women and almost 36% of Arkansas men “experience intimate partner physical violence, intimate partner sexual violence and/or intimate partner in their lifetimes.”

Also, at any given moment, there are more than 450 victims of domestic violence in Arkansas shelters and programs, the organization said. And almost 19% of Arkansas women “will experience stalking in their lifetime.”

The organization also says that a third of women and a quarter of men “have experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner,” and that “intimate partner violence accounts for 15% of all violent crime.”

“Seventy-two percent of all murder-suicides involved an intimate partner,” the organization said, and “94% of the victims of these crimes are female.”

Those are staggering numbers, and when there is a firearm within reach, the chances of a death occurring go up exponentially, especially with women as the victims.

We applaud the Pine Bluff Police Department for hosting this event every year and for those who help support it and attend it. That right there, shows that people care passionately about this problem.

As Prosecuting Attorney Kyle Hunter said, breaking free of a relationship where there is domestic violence occurring is much more complicated than just leaving the relationship, but with the attention that such events as Tuesday’s bring to the subject, perhaps victims will be able to gather their courage and do just that.