A Tragedy--and More

The Orange County community was touched by the mournful story of Bertha Chevas, a 30-year-old Anaheim woman who was shot and killed by her estranged husband. Her recent death left six children, ranging in age from 5 to 13, orphaned and homeless.

Chevas, authorities said, was a battered wife who moved several times trying to escape the attacks of her husband, who finally found and killed her and then turned the gun on himself.

Her death is a tragedy. But even more tragic is that hers is not an isolated case. Statistics are hard to come by because wife-beating is such an under-reported crime, but the best estimate is that each year about 15 million women in the United States are victims of domestic violence. In Orange County police report receiving at least 23,000 domestic violence calls a year.

Many of the women involved in those calls are desperately looking for help, but there are only three shelters and four programs in Orange County for battered women. All of them together provide fewer than 100 beds for women and their children who need to flee to safety from domestic violence but have no place else to go.

As with other community needs, such as detoxification and child-care centers, that’s not nearly enough. Nor are there adequate funds available to provide more. The small tax levied on marriage licenses to support domestic-violence programs accounts for about 30% of the budget of one of the largest shelters in the county.

The need is not only for more beds but also for more counseling for the battered spouses and for those who do the battering--and for the children, because experience has shown that today’s young victims of domestic violence often grow up to be tomorrow’s batterers.

Bertha Chevas’ violent and senseless death must heighten public awareness of the serious problems and dangers that battered women face, and this awareness must be turned into expanded support programs to help them and their sick spouses who do the battering.