After death of baby, S.F. domestic violence victim advocates ask whether Chesa Boudin is doing enough

The news itself was crushing. A 7-month-old baby boy named Synciere Williams died Tuesday. The man charged with taking care of him that day, Joseph Williams, 26, was booked by police for allegedly murdering the child. And, it turned out, he’d been arrested twice recently on suspicion of felony domestic violence, in January and March, before being released without charges.

But when Kathy Black, the executive director of La Casa de las Madres, a shelter for domestic violence victims in the city, read how District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s office had explained the tragedy, she felt even more devastated. His spokesperson said the woman in the previous cases had refused to cooperate with prosecutors, so he couldn’t file charges.

“No, no, no!” Black told me, her voice rising. “Domestic violence is a crime against the state of California, and the district attorney’s job is to work with what the Police Department has gathered at the crime scene and develop the evidence to present a case. That’s his job — it’s not the victim’s job.”

The notion that charging cases hinges on whether battered victims will stand up in court against people with whom they’re in a relationship — and may rely upon for income and housing — is so old-school, Black was surprised to hear the famously progressive district attorney use it as justification for dropping the case. It’s true that such a lack of cooperation can make proving a case more difficult, but it certainly doesn’t make it impossible.

“It’s so archaic,” Black said. “Oh, my God. It’s just shocking to me.”

Williams is far from the only person to be arrested by police on suspicion of felony domestic violence and then released by Boudin with no charges. In the last three months of 2020, city cops made 131 arrests for felony domestic violence, and Boudin’s office dismissed 113 of them. He charged just 13 of them, one as a misdemeanor, and the other five are still being reviewed.

That means 113 alleged perpetrators were released with no consequences — no mandatory attendance in a batterer’s program, no assignment to anger management classes, no required supervision for visiting children, nothing.

“If there’s no charging, there’s no leverage,” Black said. “The message is, “Nothing happened to me. It’s over. I got away with it.’”

Boudin said in an interview that he hasn’t changed any policies related to prosecuting domestic violence cases since taking office in January 2020 and that a 28-year veteran of the office makes the charging decisions in felony domestic violence cases.

“Domestic violence cases continue to be a priority for me and the office,” Boudin said. “We will as a matter of policy prosecute any domestic violence case we think we can prove with or without the cooperation of the victim.”

SOURCE:

sfchronicle   https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/heatherknight/article/After-death-of-baby-S-F-domestic-violence-16125362.php