“We Used to Call it Choking”
by Gael Strack
In March 1995, I received a phone call from Sgt. Anne O’Dell that changed my life and triggered profound changes in San Diego and around the world. Fifteen years ago, I was the head of the San Diego City Attorney’s Domestic Violence Unit. It was the nationally-recognized Unit that Casey Gwinn had started 10 years prior. Anne was the head of the San Diego Police Department’s Domestic Violence Unit. She told me that Casondra Stewart had been repeatedly stabbed to death in front of her friends by her 21-year old boyfriend Alfonzo Terrell Merritt. Casondra was 17 years old at the time. She was a young mother of a beautiful little boy, Javonte. There was a history of domestic violence. The last call came two weeks prior her death, when she called San Diego Police Department to report a domestic violence incident. Her boyfriend had just choked her. By the time the police arrived, Casondra was already recanting. She minimized the incident. She refused to give a detailed statement. No photos were taken of the red marks to her neck. The case was assigned to a specially trained DV detective and he followed up with Casondra. She didn’t budge from her recantation. Since there was no independent corroboration and no victim cooperation, the case was closed and never submitted for prosecution.
Anne called a short time later to tell me that we had a second domestic violence homicide. The next day’s newspaper reported: “A Tierrasanta man, who is accused of strangling his 16-year old girlfriend and setting her a body ablaze in an Oak Park field, was charged with two counts of murder yesterday after prosecutors disclosed that the victim was 5 ½ months pregnant. Mario Andre Rushing, 18, pleaded not guilty to the murder charges and an arson charge. The body of Tamara Smith was found by firefighters Friday night in a field off Federal Blvd and an autopsy determined she had been strangled.” Mario was the father of the child Tamara was expecting and the father of Tamara’s 11-month old daughter, Asha. Read more »
October was Domestic Violence Awareness Month and a great opportunity to reflect on the national and international movement to stop domestic violence. From day one, everyone on our team was working hard to collaborate with many others and bring awareness to this important struggle – we held trainings and workshops around the country and locally, including the San Diego County Bar Association. We participated in the San Diego Domestic Violence Council and the YWCA Domestic Violence Awareness walks and rallies. As we were wrapping things up the last week of October here in San Diego, a small miracle happened. Lt. Lori Luhnow (Director of the San Diego Family Justice Center), Yvonne Coiner (member of the VOICES Committee) and I were invited by KUSI to talk about Domestic Violence for 30 minutes on October 29th. Paul Bloom, the host, wanted to help us bring even MORE awareness to the issue of domestic violence. I was stunned. We didn’t ask him or the station to do this show. Nothing tragic or horrible happened that particular week. 
Last week I attended the Rural Innovations Conference, Exploring Effective Interventions to End Violence Against Women, which was sponsored by OVW and Praxis International. There were approximately 185 rural grantees who attended this amazing three-day conference in New Orleans. There was a who’s who of guest speakers which included Catherine Pierce, Acting Director of OVW; the Honorable Thomas J. Perrelli, Associate Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice; Sujata Warrier, Health Care Bureau of New York; Ulester Douglas, Men Stopping Violence, and many others. (I felt like a groupie at a rock concert). 
Prior to January 5, 2009, I knew nothing about Chico and only recognized the name because Anatacia Snyder, the current president of the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, worked there. Since Anatacia and I never spent much time talking about the City of Chico, I really didn’t know what to expect. I certainly didn’t think anyone would want to go to domestic violence training on the very first Monday of the year, January 5th.
