This morning's Star Tribune features a report on Minnesota's latest domestic dispute to end in tragedy. Three people were found dead on Sunday in a farmhouse in the southern part of the state.
The tribune was able to discover that the people were a 25-year-old woman, her stepfather, and a 28-year-old man who had been charged with assaulting the woman in December. The man, Shaun Haugen, had been released from the local jail just last Thursday after having violated the no contact order.
The tribune reports that this is at least the third such incident in recent months, and further states that:
In 2008, 3,119 of the 10,798 protective orders issued in Minnesota were violated. In 2007, there were 3,365 violations of the 11,374 orders filed. The first violation of an order is a misdemeanor. A second is a gross misdemeanor, and a third is a felony.
One quick Google search lead to one potential thought--tailoring protective orders or security measures when some of the more serious factors are present in a woman's request for a protective order. One study found that two huge indicators of protective order violations and further abuse is any continuing relationship once the order is issued, and any patterns of stalking. Although the courts are already stretched thin on domestic abuse work, there may need to be one extra step in the issuance of such orders to prevent the tragic endings that have been occurring with more and more frequency.
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