LETS BE CLEAR ABOUT THIS, SHALL WE??? The following article illuminates how 1,500 women die every year in the not-so-progressive United States of America. This murder, like so many others, was, quite likely, COMPLETELY PREVENTABLE! Shame on us! ************************************************************* Nina Castro stood to face her murderer this week in a Griffith parking lot. Her death was a surprise only to the men who could have saved her. Men are surprised when women are murdered by domestic partners. That happens about 1,500 times a year. Men have killed 15,000 “loved ones’ since 2004. Women are attacked by men 500,000 times a year. We are surprised so often that we’ve constructed the only defense possible. We demand critics not challenge our surprise because that would be “hindsight,” and “hindsight” is “Monday morning quarterbacking,” and that’s not fair. You can’t judge a man’s actions by “20-20 hindsight” or even “20-20 foresight” because that intellectual acuity would be, what’s the word? Oh, yes. Normal. But, Lord, we men are a dense brood, convicted by our history. And if you do not know that the smartest woman in your life is invariably better as a human than you are, then you have not been paying attention. That’s who men are. We don’t pay attention. Sometimes that makes us charming in a daffy, vacuous way. Sometimes it makes us vile. Speaking as a more-or-less average man, I will admit that men often do not absorb important facts that plop down in front of them. Why? We allow ourselves the comfortable, lazy myopia. We’re men. It’s our right. Yes, I’ll admit it, even though no one has granted me the authority to speak for my gender. Men are often as bad, indifferent and cruel as women know them to be. Males do not know this intuitively about their lesser selves. Nothing speaks to this casual callousness about women as clearly as the murder of Nina Castro. A third of all female homicide victims are murdered this way every year in the U.S. Domestic partners kill only 2 percent of male murder victims. That should suggest who should be most fearful of domestic thuggery. Castro became another line item in 2014’s running ledger this week. Her estranged husband — a strangely antiseptic title for what he actually was — shot her in the head, deliberately staging the revenge murder in front of his two teen children. Then he fled and soon killed himself at his Gary home as police approached. Everybody was shocked. Judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, police. All the King’s Men were totally mystified. And sorry as all heck. So there was no plan to protect Nina Castro from being murdered, though you must excuse this premise. It will seem to be hindsight, which as we all know is unfair. Maybe the judge could have denied bail to estrangee Remanard Castro after he was charged with raping his soon-to-be ex-wife at gunpoint in February — the type of vicious, violent crime that would seem to be a good indicator of future danger. Or the judge and prosecutors could have attached a global positioning device on the guy before he got out on bond. That would have given his wife a running start. The Legislature gave judges that power four years ago. Sorry. No money. It’s too expensive. Besides, it’s just domestic violence. Official participants along Nina Castro’s death walk noted her apparent failure to seek protection, as if she had no right to safety unless she petitioned for a legal document. It’s the woman’s job to flee and hide. A piece of paper that prevents spousal murder is a legal device that only a man could have invented. At every step toward death, Nina Castro’s fate was administered and left vulnerable by men who might have saved her or tried. They only needed to hear her husband’s stated intent. Just pay attention. She and her children would suffer, he said. She didn’t run from her life and responsibilities, even after she was raped. She had a good job and children to raise. Mr. Castro made sure that his children witnessed the execution of their mother. He had warned her she’d be sorry. He warned everyone. Of course, 70 percent of all spousal murders occur after the woman leaves. Men are surprised by that fact, too. By this time, we all should have become progressively unsurprised and more stupefied by the evil that men inflict on women. The mindless violence against women has dragged down the nation’s soul. Women know. Ask them. They cannot escape the cruel price that male indifference spawns. Only men are surprised. David Rutter was an editor at six community newspapers for more than 40 years. His column appears on Sundays in the Post-Tribune. Contact him at david.rutter@live
Posted on: Sun, 27 Apr 2014 15:45:32 +0000
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