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Not a Black And White Issue: FOR BATTERED AND ABUSED LATINAS AND BLACK WOMEN, DIALING 911 MAY BE RISKY BUSINESS.
"I've never gone through what I went through that night," says Bebe Matan. "I have no experience with cops and precincts. It's all a nightmare. That was the first time and the last time I call the police."
Matan's "nightmare" began on March 23 when she got into an argument with her husband, Deonarine. When the dispute escalated to physical violence -- he allegedly slapped her -- their son, Martin, interceded on his mother's behalf, and Bebe dialed 911. The Matan family and the New York City Police Department disagree on what happened after officers from the 102nd precinct arrived at the family's home in Queens. What is clear is that Officer Christopher Romanski shot the husband once in the abdomen and Deonarine died from his wound later that night. It is also clear that Bebe, 38 and a Guyana native, was probably abused twice that night: once by her husband, and then again by the criminal justice system she turned to for help.
Since the 1991 beating of Rodney King, several high-profile incidents, such as the alleged sodomizing and assault of Haitian Abner Louima, have put police brutality in the national spotlight. But it is the dozens of unpublicized, less notorious cases, like the Matan incident, that fuel the growing grassroots movement against police misconduct. From national conferences on police brutality to anti-brutality marches, community activists are making this issue a top organizing priority. Even some Black and Hispanic officers are beginning to break ranks with their white colleagues and are calling for the dismissal of racist cops who brutalize Latinos and AfricanAmericans.
The June 1994 death of Nicole Brown Simpson also helped to bring domestic violence to the forefront of public policy debates. Local organizing around this issue began in the early 1990s and later culminated in the Violence Against Women Act, which Congress passed as part of the 1994 Crime Law. The Act stiffened penalties for a number of violent crimes against women, including rape and assault, and allocated federal grant money to state and local government efforts that curb domestic violence through the criminal justice system. Since passage of the Crime...