As an officer assigned to a two-person unit in a working-class district in central Toledo, Ohio, I responded to my share of domestic disputes.  Dealing with domestic violence calls prior to the enactment of the 1979 Ohio Domestic Violence Act was one of the hardest parts of my job.  It was frustrating as an officer because I could not protect an abused woman or take some type of action against an abuser when I knew that an assault had taken place.  It was frustrating as a woman because it was difficult to see another woman living under the daily barrage of emotional and physical threats.  By 1975 many states permitted battered women to bring charges and prosecute abusive husbands.  However, this legal shift did not really help police officers in the field when addressing domestic violence complaints.  As in most states, police officers in Ohio were - and are -- limited when it comes to arresting persons committing misdemeanor offenses.  Officers, for the most part, have been required to observe the offense being committed in order to make an arrest.  Before the criminalization of domestic violence, this witnessing of a crime included assaults that took place in the home.  So prior to 1979, we officers were restricted in how we could handle domestic violence situations -- at bottom, we were limited to advising victims of domestic violence to file assault charges with the municipal prosecutor's office.  Of course, this required the victim to convey herself to the prosecutor's office during normal business hours, wait for an available prosecutor, hope that said prosecutor agrees to file charges, and wait for the suspect to be arrested and/or brought into court. 

            Often I found myself hoping that the victims would "wise up" and leave their abusers.  But more realistically I could only hope that my partner and I would not have to make a return visit to the same residence prior to the end of our shift.  In order to prevent subsequent calls to the same residence, officers would employ a variety of techniques.  Older officers claimed that they issued "police divorces" by having both parties place their hands on the officer's badge and the officer declaring them divorced, thus ending the marriage or cohabitation and restoring some semblance of order to their lives.  My partners and I tried different tactics.  We attempted to mediate the situation by talking to both parties and eliciting promises to "get along."  Sometimes we could settle minor, less violent disputes by retrieving "stolen" property, such as car keys and/or money.  As a last resort, we promised to arrest everyone in the house if we had to return.  Mostly we convinced the male abuser to leave the home for a "cooling off" period.  We felt lucky that return visits to most homes proved to be few and far between since we often convinced the male abuser to leave the home for a brief period of time, but we had no real way of knowing if our tactics really worked.  The Ohio Domestic Violence Act of 1979 changed all that.   

            The 1979 Act defined domestic violence as a crime and mandated intervention by the criminal justice system.  The act stated that it is against the law for any family member to abuse another family/household member.  Both married and unmarried persons who cohabited together were subject to its application.  The act required the training of law enforcement officers in the implementation of the statute.  The act also required officers to inform victims of their rights under the new statute and file required reports and affidavits.  The battered spouse/victim was required to sign a Statement of Domestic Violence form prior to the arrest of the abuser.  Officers could then arrest the perpetrator and file the necessary affidavits in lieu of the victim, allowing her to stay at home while her husband or lover was carted off to jail.               -
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            So after receiving training and placing a copy of the new law inside my police hat -- where I kept important and frequently used laws and procedure -- I went out into the field equipped with a new "weapon" to assist me in my job as a "protector" of the community.  I did not have to wait long to use the new statute.  Early in our shift, we were dispatched to a domestic violence call.  I immediately recognized the address, since I had responded to domestic calls at the residence in the past.  My partner and I reviewed the new law prior to our arrival and mapped out how we were going to handle the complaint.  Using typical police procedure, we separated the parties; my partner would talk to the husband and I would talk to the wife.  However, for the first time, I would explain the new options to the battered wife.   

            Upon our arrival, the wife met us at the door.  We could see that she had been physically assaulted -- she had minor bruising on her face and she moved very stiffly.  She told us that her husband had hit her.  At that point, we asked for his whereabouts and were told that he was in the backyard working on his car.  After ascertaining that he did not intend to become violent with us, I left my partner to speak with the suspect in the rear yard.  I returned to the house and began to explain the new law and procedure to the victim.  She was very surprised by the fact that she had the "power" to have her husband removed from the home and arrested.  She promptly agreed to sign the Statement of Domestic Violence form, granting us authority to arrest her husband.  I assured her that the suspect would be held in jail until he appeared in front of a judge on the next court day.  Upon her approval, I returned to the backyard and nodded to my partner.  At that point, we asked the suspect to follow us to our vehicle parked in front of his residence.  Once in front of the vehicle, we informed the suspect that he was under arrest for domestic violence.  Of course, he did not believe us since we had been at his residence on several other occasions and never arrested him.  In very colorful language, he told us that we were full of it and directed us to leave his residence.  At this point, the victim came out onto the front porch to watch the arrest take place.  As the suspect began to walk away, we grabbed him and the battle was on.  We were eventually able to subdue and handcuff the suspect.  During our altercation, however, the victim became concerned for her husband and called out that she no longer wished to have him arrested - I guess it became too real to her.  After placing the suspect in the police car, my partner convinced the victim to sign the Statement of Domestic Violence and we proceeded to transport the suspect to the Lucas County Jail.  

            The ride to the jail was quite informative for the suspect.  During his transport, the suspect repeatedly stated that a man could not be arrested for domestic violence, that a man could not be forcibly removed from his house on "trumped up" charges.  His anger was now directed towards us, the police, and not his wife.  He felt that we were abusive in our application of the law and our physical restraint of him.  He threatened to file charges about our handling of the situation. We explained the new law to him, but I don't think that he actually believed us until he was booked at the County Jail and placed into a cell.   -
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            The aftermath of this arrest prove to be quite informative for me as well. The suspect followed through on his threats to file internal charges against me and my partner.  The charges ranged from abuse of authority to police brutality, the first and only time that such charges were made against me during my 26-year-long police career.  Ironically, the victim, his wife was a witness to his complaints against us and had to speak out on our side.  We were cleared of all charges and I continued to use the Domestic Violence Act to the fullest extent of that law.  My unit, however, never received another domestic violence complaint from that residence.  I don't know if the husband stopped abusing -not likely---or that the wife just stopped calling. 

            Since 1979, Ohio's Domestic Violence Act has evolved into a preferred arrest policy which stipulates that officers with reasonable cause to believe that a family member is the primary physical aggressor may arrest the offender immediately.  The new act does not require abused spouses to sign a written statement of abuse before an arrest is made.  However, officers who investigate domestic disputes are required to complete a written report regardless of whether an arrest is made.  Officers must articulate in their reports why an arrest was not made.  The revised act has resulted in more domestic violence arrests; however, a new controversy has arisen regarding the protection granted to domestic partners.  Since the Ohio Domestic Violence law has never required marriage as a prerequisite for prosecution or arrest, protection also covered same-sex relationships.  This protection has recently been called into question since Ohio voters passed Issue 1, a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriages in 2004.  The passage of the amendment has led some defense attorneys to ask for the dismissal of domestic violence charges against suspects in same-sex domestic violence cases, and domestic violence between unmarried couples carries lesser charges.  It will be interesting to see how this issue plays out.

(c) 2006, Shirley Green

Shirley Green is a doctoral student at Bowling Green State University. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Toledo (UT) while working full-time as a member of the Toledo Police Department. Upon retirement, she applied for and received a graduate assistantship to UT, where she completed her thesis, "The Ties that Bind and Set Loose: The Story of the Franck Brothers in the American Revolution" (advisor: Dr. Ruth Herndon). Shirley's twenty-six years of police service gave her first-hand knowledge of domestic abuse and the public and systemic response to familial violence as a social problem. In the years following the 1979 act, she was responsible for the enforcement of domestic violence statutes in the city.