TOUGHER PENALTIES FOR STRANGULATION AHEAD?

Domestic violence program coordinator Audrey Bergin opens a protective case and takes out a strange-looking flashlight.

“So, that’s the actual light. It’s for detecting bodily fluids, fingerprints gun shot residue, bone fragments…”

This is Northwest Hospital’s new forensic light. Forensic lights are usually used at crime scenes on dead bodies. But the domestic violence team here uses their light on the living.

It’s part of a program the hospital runs with Baltimore County police and local prosecutors. The light helps identify and document patients who may have been strangled in episodes of domestic violence. Cassie Offutt is a case manager. She takes out two close-up photos of the same woman to show how the light works.

“The first picture is just a front view of a woman’s neck. In regular daylight, it shows absolutely no injury to the neck area. And the second picture is with the forensic light source that shows a little bit of a fingerprint bruise, or a thumb bruise, right in center of her neck.”

The pictures sum up one of the problems with strangulation. Victims and first responders often don’t realize the severity of injuries caused by it. Just a few seconds can render a person unconscious; a few minutes can cause brain damage. There’s also growing interest in whether strangulation victims suffer from memory loss or strokes weeks later. But unlike a black eye, neck injuries caused by strangulation are often so subtle, even invisible, that it takes a special light like the one at this hospital to detect them.

Strangulation is becoming a key consideration as to whether a woman risks death, if she stays with her partner. Vivian Huelgo is the chief counsel of the American Bar Association’s commission on domestic violence.

“The Journal of Emergency Medicine is the one that did the study on strangulation being an important risk factor for attempted and completed homicides of women. And that’s where we see over 40-percent present as a factor in those attempted and completed homicides of women.”

That’s why several states have begun treating strangulation as a serious crime. Today, domestic violence groups and first-responders will try to convince lawmakers in Annapolis to do the same. Supporters of House Bill 819 and Senate Bill 593 want to make strangulation a first-degree assault. Michael Cohen is the executive director of the Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence.

“A lot of prosecutors don’t realize how very dangerous it is and that it falls into the definition of 1st degree assault. So it could be prosecuted as a 2nd degree assault, which doesn’t have as great a penalty. We want people to realize how very serious it is and also that there are ways to document it now that demonstrate that it has occurred and also to educate our prosecutors and other law enforcement officials about the consequences of this act.”

Cohen says that by changing the law, there’s a greater chance an abuser will serve jail time — which could help keep victims safer.

I'm Sarah Richards, reporting in Baltimore, for 88-1 WYPR.