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I normally do not post stories like this as I tend to concentrate on the stupidity of the MRA's more. However I felt this could not be passed along. First here is the link to this tragedy (http://www.hidesertstar.com/articles/2010/02/03/news/doc4b69381ed5e05699313614.txt).
Sunday’s murder-suicide was the culmination of months of threats and online and text rants from Stephen Garcia to Katie Tagle of Yucca Valley and her family.
The mother of a 9-month-old boy, Wyatt, with Garcia, Tagle was never able to secure a restraining order against him for herself or an order for supervised visitations for their son.
“This was preventable. This didn’t have to happen,” Tagle’s mother, Maria Brown said the day after Wyatt’s death.
“The system failed Wyatt. It cost him his life.”
Her family said Garcia abused Tagle throughout their two-year relationship, which ended in August 2009, when, her family said, he punched her in the face, knocking her unconscious.
Tagle brought Wyatt back to her family house in Yucca Valley, but frequently took him to visit Garcia’s parents in Piñon Hills.
Garcia, her family said, did not seem especially interested in Tagle or their son until December 2009, when he discovered she was involved with another man.
“That’s when he wigged out,” Tagle’s sister Andrea Rodriguez of Hesperia said.
In letters on a Web site he set up to chronicle his communications to her and her friends, Garcia cursed at Tagle and told her to return to him.
During one custody exchange with Wyatt, he proposed to her, then knocked her to the ground.
Judge denies first restraining order
On Dec. 15, Tagle asked for an emergency restraining order against Garcia, telling Judge Debra Harris in a Joshua Tree courtroom that Garcia had threatened Wyatt.
“He had sent me text messages before that if his son was around certain people … that he would kill him,” Tagle told the judge, according to transcripts of the hearing.
“And that if I wasn’t where I was supposed to be, he’d find me and kill me.”
“What about the threat to shoot you, where did that occur, to hunt you down and shoot you with a gun?” the judge asked.
“That was in a text message, Tagle replied.
When Harris asked for copies of the text messages, Tagle said she had no way of printing them out and her phone was shut off.
The judge denied the emergency order and set a hearing.
Garcia ‘doesn’t pose a threat’
At that hearing, on Jan. 12, Tagle went before Judge David Mazurek in the Joshua Tree courthouse to show cause for a restraining order.
“…On Dec. 31, we were doing our exchange, and he proposed to me, and I said no. He got angry and stole my phone and pushed me down. I made a police report about that,” Tagle told the judge, according to a transcript.
Garcia told the judge the report was “falsely made up.”
Mazurek denied Tagle the restraining order.
“If I grant the restraining order, how do you think that’s going to help with respect to you two being able to raise Wyatt together or work together to make sure Wyatt grows up happy and healthy?” the judge asked, according to the transcripts.
“He would have both of us still,” Tagle responded.
Asked about an e-mail in which he confessed to hitting Tagle, Garcia told the judge he had slapped her during a fight, but it was Tagle’s fault for “pushing and pushing and pushing until she could get something from me.”
Tagle pointed out she was nine months pregnant when Garcia hit her.
“I kind of get an idea of what’s going on,” Mazurek said.
He denied the restraining order, saying, “I don’t think that Mr. Garcia poses a threat to Ms. Tagle.”
Mazurek went on to suggest Tagle might have ulterior motives for alleging domestic violence.
“I get concerned when there’s a pending child custody and visitation issue and in between that, one party or the other claims that there’s some violence in between. It raises the court’s eyebrows because based on my experience, it’s a way for one party to try to gain an advantage over the other,” he said, according to the transcripts.
Story predicts
real-life ending
The day after the hearing in Mazurek’s courtroom, Garcia sent a text message telling Tagle to check her e-mail. In it was an anonymous message containing a story called “Necessary Evil.”
The story describes in detail Tagle’s and Garcia’s relationship, from their fights over his video-game addiction, to their breakup, to her new relationship and his failed proposal.
In the end, the story has two endings. In “Happy Ending,” the female character returns to the man.
In “Tragic Ending,” the character takes his son to a lake, puts him to sleep with Benadryl and the baby dies. “He will have a better life with you then (sic) we can give him here,” the man tells God before taking his own life.
Tagle called 9-1-1 after reading the story, and the responding deputy immediately went to the courthouse and obtained an emergency restraining order for her, signed by Mazurek.
However, in Victorville court Jan. 14, Judge Robert Lemkau would not uphold the restraining order and ordered Tagle to immediately give Wyatt to Garcia, as it was the day his scheduled visitation was to begin.
Transcripts from that hearing are not yet available, but family and friends who were in the court that day with Tagle said the judge appeared not to have read the evidence she presented, including the “Necessary Evil” story and the emergency restraining order obtained by a sheriff’s deputy.
“Just from the very beginning, he didn’t want to listen,” said Rick Tagle, who was in the courtroom. “He started out by saying, ‘One of you is lying and I think it’s you,’ and pointing at Katie.”
The judge also allegedly warned Tagle there would be consequences for lying.
Lemkau did not respond to an e-mail request for comment; the county does not provide judges’ office telephone numbers.
The following Sunday, when Garcia missed his arranged custody transfer with Tagle, she had to call a deputy to get Wyatt back from Garcia’s house.
Friends say discouraged and frightened by her last appearance in court, she did not seek another restraining order or custody change.
“She was afraid she would go before the judge who called her a liar,” her sister said.
Now I will examine various points made in this story. First, I want to make one thing very clear to those victims out there thinking a restraining order is the solution. IT IS NOT! You must have a safety plan in place, as an RO is only a piece of paper. It is but one of many tools available to victims of abuse. You have to change how you live in order to survive and protect your children.
With that said let's examine this article.
“This was preventable. This didn’t have to happen,” Tagle’s mother, Maria Brown said the day after Wyatt’s death.
Yes, this was preventable. The prevention starts with education and planning. The planning should also have included education, not just for this mother, but for all involved in this case. In looking at Dastardly Dads we see that many dads who have hurt or killed their children have had shared custody. There need to be laws on the books protecting children from abusive people (or the current laws in place need to be followed better). Mothers and children are being hurt and killed needlessly.
“If I grant the restraining order, how do you think that’s going to help with respect to you two being able to raise Wyatt together or work together to make sure Wyatt grows up happy and healthy?” the judge asked, according to the transcripts.
This is where the next problem lies. Abusers do NOT deserve, nor should they EVER have any type of custody or control over a child, whether they abused that child or not. EVER! Still don't understand that? EVER!!!!! Is that clear enough for ya'? And judges who think that an abuser deserves or has the right to have any kind of custody should be forced to visit women who have been maimed by an abusive man. Or even perhaps have to help in the daily care of a child who has been shaken so severely they cannot function on there own without assistance. Or even better, visit the graves of those women and children who have been killed by an abuser.
Asked about an e-mail in which he confessed to hitting Tagle, Garcia told the judge he had slapped her during a fight, but it was Tagle’s fault for “pushing and pushing and pushing until she could get something from me.”
Herein lies the next problem. It is NEVER the victims fault that someone hits her. EVER! And I will say this again. IT IS NEVER A WOMAN'S FAULT IF A MAN HITS HER. EVER!!!!!!
This is the biggest problem we have with judges and restraining orders:
“I get concerned when there’s a pending child custody and visitation issue and in between that, one party or the other claims that there’s some violence in between. It raises the court’s eyebrows because based on my experience, it’s a way for one party to try to gain an advantage over the other,” he said, according to the transcripts.
If someone has police reports, emails, texts, letters, or some other evidence or any combination of the above alleging violence, a jusge should not think it is being used to gain a foothold in another venue. The process by which one must get a restrianing order is invasive. Several people will read the most intimate details os a woman's life. In order to stand a chance of getting a restraining order, she must give as much information as possible to this judge. This information will probably include details of her sex life among many otehr things witha judge (who is a complete stranger to this woman). And not only will the judge read this but it will be available for anyone who walks into the courthouse to read. She must spill her inner soul to police, clerks at the courthouse, in front of strangers in attendance during the hearing, and much more.
And the last and final serious issue that affects many victims of abuse is below:
Friends say discouraged and frightened by her last appearance in court, she did not seek another restraining order or custody change.
“She was afraid she would go before the judge who called her a liar,” her sister said.
I could be reading my own story here. How many times did I call the police when my hosue was burglarized? How many times did I have to clean up the yard from everything thrown around due to the anger issues from my ex? How many times did I receive calls from my abuser wanting to know why I was not at work when work began and why it was hours later before I showed up at work (when there WAS an active restraining order in place)? How would my abuser know that I was not at work? It goes back to my first comment - having a safety plan in place. My abuser believes the reason for me telling anyone who will listen to me that he was abusive during our marriage was to humiliate him, was to gain an advantage in family court, or for any number of reasons his deluded little brain could muster. NEWSFLASH!!!! It was PARt of my safety plan. The more people who knew of his actions, the more who saw the abuses taking place, the better my chances were for obtaining justice for our child and I. The jsutice which always seemed withing reach but was never obtainable. I too recognize the moving on part, the only diffference between Katie and I is that my child by some miracle is still here and phsyically in one piece (emotionally and mentally is another story - but that is fodder for another article). I can feel her pain when she pours out her heart to complete strangers about the violations upon her. Do we really need to have any more of this pain? Do we really need any more dead bodies laying around before we figure out that ABUSIVE DADS ARE MORE THE NORM than FR/MRA's would like to admit (perhaps even some of them fit in this category), and we stop the madness?
Or are we going to have more dead bodies, more crippled children, more traumatized mothers?
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