Simpson Case Sets Off Domestic Abuse Alarm : Safety: Calls for help are increasing ominously. Counselors and police say current media attention will focus concern.

In January, a 15-year-old Oxnard boy allegedly killed his mother’s boyfriend to stop him from beating her. In February, a Moorpark woman was shot and killed two days after divorcing her husband. In April, an Oxnard man allegedly shot his wife after an argument.

Now, in the wake of the slayings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman and the arrest of mega-star O.J. Simpson, public attention has focused on the issue of domestic violence.

And while the counselors and volunteers who have spent decades trying to root out one of this county’s pervasive social ills welcome the spotlight, they also mean to remind everyone that domestic violence is nothing new.

“I can name five people right here in Ventura County who are not as famous as Nicole Simpson, but they are just as dead,” said Jamie Leigh, executive director of the Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence.

“I think people still don’t realize the severity of this problem,” she said. “But you can be sure we will take advantage of this attention to let people know.”

Those who have followed domestic violence cases in Ventura County point to a yearly rise in calls for help as proof of the crisis and residents’ increasing recognition of it.

“Each year, as people become more aware of this problem, we get a better picture of how bad things are here,” said Marty Bolton, director of crisis services for Interface Children, Family Services of Ventura County.

During the past five years, calls have doubled to the Interface hot line, one of two in the county taking domestic violence complaints. In the year ending June 30, 1989, the hot line received 518 calls; so far in the current period, it has received 1,020 calls.

In recent days, officials at Interface said, the media focus on domestic violence has prompted a 40% increase in calls to the hot line.

“I think the Simpson case has had an incredible impact,” Bolton said. “We’ve had people who have called and said that they’ve heard all of the same things that Nicole Simpson heard.”

Simpson has pleaded not guilty to the slayings. However, he was convicted in 1989 of beating Nicole Simpson, who was then his wife, and was placed on probation. But on at least two other occasions--in 1985 and 1993--police were called to Nicole Simpson’s home on a spousal battery complaint that she later declined to pursue.

Those familiar with local incidents of alleged domestic violence call it a textbook case.

Spousal abuse, Leigh said, occurs in three stages. In the first stage, the woman walks on pins and needles to avoid triggering an argument. If she acts perfectly, she believes, she can avoid a confrontation.

In the second stage, Leigh said, the man’s steadily building anger erupts, either as vicious verbal abuse, damage to property or physical violence.

Leigh calls the third stage “the honeymoon,” when the husband apologizes and showers his wife with gifts. At that point, both are convinced the violence will never occur again. But, Leigh said, it almost always does--resuming the cycle.

“If you look at what occurred in O.J. Simpson’s case--the police calls to the house, O.J.’s destruction of her property, even the suicide note--absolutely everything is classic,” Leigh said.

Nor is it surprising, Leigh said, that the public has long viewed Simpson as a charming figure.

“It’s one of the very common characteristics of a batterer to have this discrepancy between his public and private life,” she said.

“It’s one of the reasons the women often find it so difficult to come forward. They think that because everyone likes their husband, no one will believe her.”

What was most dismaying about the Simpson case, Leigh said, was that even though Nicole Simpson called police and pressed charges at least once, the system apparently failed her.

“The message O.J. got from the court was that (the abuse) was not that serious,” she said. “The message was that he was a special person and he could get away with it.”

Police officials in Ventura County said they believe there are enough safeguards to prevent the same result from occurring here.

Oxnard Assistant Police Chief Tom Cady, who helped develop the county’s recently adopted uniform plan for responding to domestic incidents, said the system is set up to convict offenders.

Officers in Oxnard, where about 1,200 domestic violence calls were received last year, respond to every domestic call with tape recorders and cameras so they can document the abuse if the woman changes her mind about pressing charges.

In Ventura, officers are in close contact with abuse-prevention groups, which provide shelters for women. Police also carry the number for a hot line to counsel men and to help them cool down. In addition, a new state law, which will go into effect in July, imposes harsher penalties for people convicted of spousal battery, including required group counseling.

Still, officers on the street said they don’t see the problem going away.

“Domestic calls are very frustrating for us,” said Officer Juan Reynoso, who works a neighborhood patrol in the Montalvo section of Ventura. “We’ve gained a lot of ground in the past few years in terms of how we handle the cases, but you can only do so much.”

On weekends, Reynoso said, police respond to several domestic calls a night. Often, they return again and again to the same houses.

“I remember one woman in Ventura that we used to see every single week,” Reynoso said. “Every week he would berate her, and then she would convince him to leave. But somehow, he always ended up coming back. At one point she had a restraining order. But then she let him come back.

“One night she called after he had trashed their entire house,” Reynoso recalled. “She came up to me and said, ‘I think he could have killed me.’ And I said to her: ‘That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you.’ ”

Increased vigilance by police and prosecutors would help, Leigh said. But also needed, she said, is more education and counseling for abusers and their victims to break patterns of household violence.

Both Leigh’s organization and Interface provide shelter and counseling for abuse victims as well as help for batterers.

Women are almost always at the receiving end of household violence, officials said. Of the more than 200 spouse abusers being counseled by Interface, fewer than five are women, Bolton said.

One hot line operator in Thousand Oaks said he believes the added publicity stemming from the Simpson case can only help.

“I think that with everything that’s been happening, people are finally realizing that we need to take domestic violence seriously,” said Carlos Zaragosa, who answers hot line calls on weekends for Interface. “I think it’s opened people’s eyes.”

FYI

Two 24-hour hot lines offer information about shelters, counseling and other services available to victims or perpetrators of domestic violence: Interface, at 1-800-339-9597, and the Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence hot line, at (805) 656-1111.

Domestic Violence in Ventura County

Number of domestic violence calls to Interface hot line:

Year: Number of calls

1989-1990: 518

1990-1991: 632

1991-1992: 627

1992-1993: 776

1993-1994: 1,020

Estimated number of domestic violence calls to police last year: 4,000

Misdemeanor cases prosecuted: 800

Felony cases prosecuted: 30 (not counting homicides)

Source: Interface Children, Family Services of Ventura County; Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence; district attorney’s office.