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Sasha Morgan, who heads up the Victim's Advocacy Project, works with detective Greg Kevin of the Sunnyvale Public Safety Department to follow up with women who have called police in emergency domestic violence situations. 'We go out there with the intention to stop the violence,' Kevin said.

Family Matters

Domestic violence affects everyone--even residents of affluent Sunnyvale

By Justin Berton

Sharon Vance didn't want her Japanese exchange student in the other room to hear the yelling in the middle of the night, so she asked her husband to please lower his voice.

It didn't work.

Not a day passed in the 23 years of their marriage when he didn't call her "stupid" or "idiot," and on that fall night in 1987, things would reach a new level of violence.

Her husband had just moved back into the house after three years of separation even though her four children warned her, "Don't let him come back. He hasn't changed."

But Vance, who was working one full-time job and three part-time jobs, allowed him to return because she needed the financial security, and besides, her husband had been to counseling, and everything could get better again.

Then he knocked her to the bed and began to choke her.

Vance reached out for the phone to call the police but her husband ripped the cord from the wall.

Her children, who had witnessed the abuse and who were there all those times when he would embarrass them in public by cursing Vance, didn't do much to help.

"They chose to ignore it," Vance said.

Vance certainly isn't the only woman who lives in Sunnyvale to survive domestic violence.

And her family--including her father, who once advised her to return to her husband to keep from being a "single woman with children"--certainly isn't the only family to stay silent during the abuse.

A Santa Clara County study prepared by the Domestic Violence Council and released last month found that 20 percent of those surveyed said domestic violence is still "a private family matter."

David Lee, director of community education at Support Network for Battered Women in Mountain View, said families still keep quiet on the issue for reasons that aren't so new.

"They're embarrassed, or they think speaking up might make things worse. Or they've been instructed not to speak about it," Lee said.

"What this research is showing us is that there's a need for every member of the family to learn that domestic violence is unacceptable."

In Cupertino and Sunnyvale, the heart of Silicon Valley, domestic violence is just as prevalent as in other parts of the country.

According to a report from the National Domestic Violence Hotline--which logs more than 90,000 calls per year nationwide--the second largest number of calls received in the third quarter of last year was made from the 408 area code.

Though Lee and others who work in prevention and education are quick to point out that the high number of calls from the area code can be attributed to effective advertising and better local support services, no one is willing to say the violence happens any less in the area.

"Living in Silicon Valley, people don't want to recognize that domestic violence happens in a wealthy, educated place," Lee said. "Just because a woman makes a high salary doesn't stop [her] from being abused."

He recalled a woman from the valley who told him she didn't go to shelters when she needed to flee from her abuser; rather, she used credit cards and stayed in hotels.

In Cupertino 105 reports of domestic violence were filed with the Sheriff's Department last year.

Cupertino is also home to a shelter where three women and their children live, according to Mary Ellen Chell, director of community services.

"They live there, but we can't let anyone know where it is," Chell said.

Getting to the point where a phone call is made and help is sought can be a long journey, Vance said.

"I didn't call because I was always afraid of the time between the phone call made and the time the police arrived," she said.

Greg Kevin, a detective for the domestic violence unit of the Sunnyvale Public Safety Department, said that with the help of new laws and more training, local police have changed their attitude and their approach to the issue.

"It used to be the police were taught to be mediators," Kevin said.

"It was like, hand them a card, 'We'll see you later; give us a call when your court date comes.' Now we go out there with the intention to stop the violence. If it takes an arrest, we'll make an arrest, and we'll follow up."

The follow-up system--one the department and the Support Network collaborate on to provide--is called the Victim's Advocacy Program. Volunteers such as Sarah Killingsworth, a third-year law student at Stanford, make phone calls from the Sunnyvale Public Safety Department to all victims listed in the police reports filed each week.

Killingsworth calls about 15 victims a week in Sunnyvale, making contact with about five or 10, she said.

"You make that crucial contact, and then it's up to them," she said.

Though numbers and hotlines are relatively easy to provide, what's not so easy is to find is emergency shelters close by for victims from the Cupertino and Sunnyvale area.

Currently, there are 56 beds in shelters for victims of abuse in all of Santa Clara County, none of which are located in Sunnyvale or Cupertino.

The closest emergency shelter will break ground in September at 611 El Camino Real in Santa Clara, next-door to the new police station. The new center, which will also serve as a transitional home for women, who can stay for six months to a year, will have 28 beds.

"If police need to take a woman out of her house for her safety, they can take them to us," said Norman Harris, acting executive director of Next Door, a shelter for domestic violence victims.

"Nobody goes without shelter," he added.

Vance said the night her now ex- husband (who lives out of the state) tried to choke her was the first time she ever reached for the phone to call police. "Not once in 23 years," she said.

In 1990, Vance left her husband for good and has since spent much of her spare time volunteering with the Support Network as a hotline counselor and as a response-caller for the advocacy program.

In September of last year, she received an outstanding achievement award from the Sunnyvale Public Safety Department for dedicating more than 1,100 hours of volunteer time to victims of domestic violence.

"I don't want you to pity me," Vance said. "I've been through it, and it's over."

Where to find help

The following agencies provide services for victims of domestic abuse

Support Network for Battered Women
24-hour Crisis Line: 650/940-7855
Spanish: 800-57-BASTA

National Domestic Violence Hotline
800-799-SAFE

Next Door--Solutions to Domestic Violence
English and Spanish, 279-2962

Asian American Community Involvement
975-2739

Discover Alternatives
683-4118

Sunnyvale Public Safety
730-7100

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, April 15, 1998.
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