Violence
Against Women

If Your Batterer Is a Cop

Even more than other battered women, when you decide to leave or prosecute, you need to move strategically and get good advice from the outset. Here are some suggestions.

If You're Not Yet Ready to Leave . . .

• Open up a safe deposit box and begin to fill it with the papers you'll need to get out; i.e., passport, children's birth certificates, car registration and insurance papers, and whatever money you can set aside. Don't count on using credit cards – he may cancel them once you leave.
• Make a safety plan in case you have to flee. Where would you go where he wouldn't look for you? How would you get there? Who would be a contact person you can trust who would know how to reach you? How would you handle your employer? Your children's schools?
• Take, or have a friend take, pictures of your injuries after any domestic violence incidents starting now. Date the photos, and put with them a written statement by the photographer stating the date and circumstances under which the photos were taken. Put them in your safe deposit box, along with your account of the incident.
• Keep any notes from your batterer, cards from flowers sent to win you back after beatings, tapes of phone messages containing threats or rageful behavior. Put them in your safe deposit box.
• Keep a log of all incidents, including date, what happened, injuries, witnesses, names of those you told about the beating (if anyone), whether police were called and, if so, what officer responded and how they handled the call.
• If you need medical care after a beating, get a copy of the doctor's or hospital report and put it in your safe deposit box. Even if you lied to the medical person about how you were injured, this can be important evidence. Put your account of the incident with the medical report .
• Start making friends and contacts outside the law enforcement community. Many partners of police officers aren't "allowed" to have friends who aren't cop-related, which means you have no support system if you decide to leave. You're going to need that support system, so start now cultivating friendships with co-workers, parents of your children's friends, etc.

Once You Decide to Get Out . . .
If you don't already know it, your danger is greatest when you leave the relationship. That doesn't mean you should sit back and take it; it just means you need to prepare as much as possible and move carefully once you decide to leave.

While the tendency is to do as little as possible, hoping not to further enrage him, in our experience you're better off to do everything in your power to put a leash on him, and do it all at once.

• Find an advocate who is independent from police agencies and experienced in working with police officer domestic violence.
• Report the violence to the district attorney. With your advocate, go to the DA's office and ask to meet with the prosecutor in charge of the domestic violence unit. Tell them your partner is a cop and you want to report domestic violence, asking that they handle the investigation instead of his fellow cops. Have your advocate present at any and all interviews with district attorneys or police. Never meet with them alone.
  • Give the district attorney copies of any documentation you have of past violence (photographs, logs, statements, notes or tapes of phone messages from your batterer). Never give anyone your only copy of anything, especially not police or prosecutors.
  • Don't make repeated statements to police. The more interviews and statements you submit, the more chances for the defense attorney to turn slight differences in wording into "contradictory" statements. Tell the DA this in your initial interview, and ask that that interview be extensive and be taped.
• Get a restraining order.
  • If you feel you can safely stay in your home, ask for a kick-out order (a judicial directive ordering him to leave the house), a police stand-by while he moves out, and temporary custody orders.
  • If you don't think you can stay in your home safely, get out and get a restraining order for protection. Request that your current address be confidential, and get temporary custody orders in place.
  • Include in your restraining order declaration a list of all the guns you're aware he owns. Follow up to make sure all those guns are confiscated when he's served with the restraining order.
• Contact Internal Affairs at the police agency where your partner works. Give them a complete written statement as to the violence (identical to what you've given to the district attorney). Tell them you want to cooperate fully with their internal investigation but will not make any further statements to them until the criminal case is over. Again, this is to avoid putting multiple statements on the record.
• Find a good family law attorney, as you're likely to be dealing with divorce and custody issues as well as the violence. Tell her you refuse joint mediation. The court has to accommodate your request if you're in a potentially violent situation. Women have been murdered as they left court-ordered mediation. Don't do it