This is not a surprising headline. We have all been inundated by the media about the story of the missing pregnant marine and the man who allegedly killed her (currently on the loose). The female marine (Maria Lauterbach) had taken out a protection order on the male marine (Cesar Laurean), after she accused him of raping her.
However, the story is not that simple--which is no big surprise to anyone who studies domestic violence. He is married, but was in a relationship with Lauterbach. She accused him of rape and took out a protection order, but it's unclear in what order those events occurred. After the rape was reported, they continued some kind of relationship--when asked why Laurean was not arrested after the claim of rape, authorities replied:
Military officials have said Laurean was not taken into custody after Lauterbach reported the rape allegation because there was information the two carried on "some sort of friendly relationship" after she filed the complaint. (from CNN)Ugh. Add this to the fact that her own mother called her a "compulsive liar," and you have a huge mess for law enforcement.
Finally, I have one question: In the same story, the local Sheriff stated:
Riiiiight... because domestic violence between two military officers cannot take place off base. Wasn't VAWA designed to overcome this specific problem? Dr. HnK, any thoughts? Perhaps military bases don't count?Brown said the military protection order was not shared with civilian law enforcement.
"We had no reason to be on his trail," Brown said of Laurean. "This has nothing to do with the civilian world. Nothing about this had anything to do with the civilian world."
(I have now met my blogging obligations for the week. You get what you ask for, Velma.)
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2 comments:
First, with your permission, I will retitle your post to include it in the "Totally Unshocking Crime Headlines" series. This headline is, indeed, completely unshocking.
Second, I wasn't totally certain about this issue so I looked it up: military protection orders are NOT covered under the Full Faith and Credit provision of VAWA. Thus, while the sheriff was technically correct, I'm not sure he's totally justified in saying that it has "nothing to do with the civilian world". That statement seems an awful lot like passing the buck, IMO. I guess it depends on whether the alleged abuse ever occurred off-base or not.
Here's the specific info I found about military protection orders and FFC:
"The federal law does not explicitly cover orders of protection issued on military bases or installations. In fact, most military orders will not meet the requirements for validity under VAWA since they are usually issued by a commanding officer without providing the respondent with an opportunity to be heard. This means that military orders of protection are generally not entitled to full faith and credit. The question that remains is whether military bases are required to enforce orders of protection issued by state or tribal courts. Commanding officers on some bases are directing military police (MPs) to enforce civilian (state or tribal) orders of protection issued against service members. Such enforcement usually consists of informing the local civilian courts or law enforcement agency of the violation and assisting the civilian authorities in investigating and prosecuting the violation in civilian court."
Source:
Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence (PDF file here).
Hmmm...the applicability (or lack thereof) of FFC to military protection orders may a good research question for us to pursue, ShockProf. A follow-up to our VAW article, perhaps?
P.S. Here is a great commentary (with links) from Feministing about the coverage of Lauterbach's disappearance relative to that of Stepha Henry. The post condemns media refusal to actually identify cases of violence against women as such (e.g., no mention of intimate partner violence, violence against pregnant women, etc.) and refusal to cover violence against women of color with the same vigor as violence against young, white women (a.k.a. Missing White Woman Syndrome) -- both topics we've covered here before.
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