Calls to L.A. Domestic Abuse Hot Lines Soar

Both men and women are flooding domestic violence hot lines as a result of the O.J. Simpson murder investigation.

“Now, the calls are up 80%. It seems the more this unwinds, the more the phones start ringing,” said Andrea Thompson Adam, hot-line coordinator for the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women. The commission’s hot line usually fields about 1,300 calls a month.

“The women say, ‘If it could happen to Nicole, it could happen to me. . . .’ The men say things like, ‘I’ve pushed my wife before. Does this mean I’m a batterer?’ It’s really shaken the tree,” Thompson Adam said.

According to the Los Angeles County Domestic Violence Council, the county’s other 18 hot lines for battering victims have reported increased calls and higher attendance at support groups.

The Domestic Abuse Center in Northridge has quadrupled its calls as a result of the Simpson case, a spokeswoman said.

Since the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Lyle Goldman, increasingly graphic details of the Simpsons’ stormy relationship have emerged. He was convicted of misdemeanor spousal battery in 1989 after beating Nicole Simpson so severely that she required hospitalization. On Wednesday, as O.J. Simpson awaited trial in the slayings, police released a transcript of a 911 call his ex-wife made in October. On the tape, which has been broadcast nationwide, she could be heard pleading for help because Simpson was breaking down her door.

The increase in calls to hot lines is the result of the unusual exposure of Nicole Simpson’s experiences and people identifying with her, said Patricia Occhiuzzo Giggans, executive director of the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women.

“They’re seeing their lives played out on TV--the intimidation, how fearful they are, how they keep the guy close to control his anger and abuse, how they almost accommodate him in some ways, especially when children are involved,” Giggans said.

At least half the callers volunteer that the Simpson case inspired them to call and more callers than before are using the words domestic violence to describe their situation, staffers said. The calls started to increase Monday and have continued to rise.

Some women have been motivated to take the first step to addressing long-term abuse. Roz Wolpert, a volunteer counselor at Santa Monica’s Sojourn, a multi-service program for battered women, said she has noted a 60% increase in callers on her shift. She recalled one woman who said she had been in a battering relationship for seven years.

“She told me the only reason she was finally calling is what’s happening on the news,” Wolpert said. “I was beside myself, I was so happy that something good could come from this.”

But for some callers, the details of the Simpsons’ turbulent relationship have triggered flashbacks to previous traumas. “They say, ‘This is making me scared, the Simpson thing. . . .’ Some said they wanted to leave the area,” said Jan Tyler, program director of Human Options in South Orange County.

The calls have come from all parts of the region and beyond. Many have been referred to multicultural hot lines and shelters with programs that are tailored to the callers’ ethnicity and are conducted in their native language.

Most of the recent callers are women but the counselors have also received calls from men, a few of whom say they have been battered and some of whom wonder if they are batterers.

“A lot of times people don’t honestly recognize what this behavior is. It’s learned behavior,” Thompson Adam said. Some people may have grown up with violence in their home or neighborhood, where they heard men say, “You have to slap ‘em every once in a while to keep ‘em in line,” she said. “People believe that, even though it’s just a joke.”

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Growing Violence Against Women

More than 1.4 million domestic violence-related calls for help have been reported by law enforcement agencies to the state Department of Justice since domestic violence was first made a separate crime from all other general assault crimes in 1986. These numbers include all calls, whether or not an arrest was made.

WHO ARE THE ATTACKERS?

A total of 400,000 individual interviews conducted between 1987 and 1991 by the U.S. Department of Justice showed that relatives and friends were responsible for 33% of attacks on women in cases where there was a single offender. By contrast, family violence accounted for only 5% of all violence against men:

WOMEN MEN Relative/intimate 33% 5% Acquaintance 35% 50% Stranger 31% 44% Unknown 1% 1%

* Percentages are based on total number of victimizations for the five-year period, rather than on the annual average.

WHERE TO GET HELP:

Counseling: Los Angeles County Commission on Assaults Against Women: (213) 626-3393 or (310) 392-8381 East L.A. Rape Hotline 1-800-585-6231. Pacific Asian Rape Hot Line: (800) 339-3940

Shelters for women: Los Angeles: Sojourn (310) 392-9896 Su Casa (213) 402-4888

San Fernando Valley: Haven Hills (818) 887-6589

Pasadena: Haven House (213) 681-2626

South Orange County: Human Options (714) 494-5367

Sources: state Department of Justice; U.S. Department of Justice