ST PAUL, Minn. — At least 39 persons died in domestic homicides in Minnesota in 2023. On Thursday, the organization Violence Free Minnesota honored them and their survivors.
The annual intimate partner homicide memorial drew an overflow crowd of advocates and survivors to the St. Paul College Club. They share the common, tragic experience of losing a loved one to what very likely was a preventable killing.
The list of the 2023 victims included law enforcement officers, family, friends, and bystanders who died while trying to intervene on behalf of those being abused by partners and former partners.
Guadalupe Lopez, the organization's executive director, said that the death toll is the highest since the group started tracking domestic homicides in 1989.
"We want to make sure these victims aren't forgotten," Lopez told KARE.
"We also want to honor the families, to honor the people who decided to do this work, to get up every day and go to courthouses, or offices, or do community work to make sure people feel supported and what they're going through is not, that they don't have to do it alone."
Lopez, who is a survivor herself, said victims don't always perceive how perilous their situations are, or how dangerous it will become when they try to break away from their abuser.
"It's easy sometimes to blame the victim and wonder why they didn't leave, but one of the things I recognized when I went through it was, it's like breathing in a smoke-filled room — you don't know what you're breathing in, and it doesn't happen immediately," Lopez explained.
"This person doesn't go willingly into a relationship and say, 'After date three I'm going to start hitting you, but first I'm going to verbally abuse you, and then I'm going to isolate you'."
She said most people have either suffered abuse or know some who has. That's certainly true for Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who was on hand for the ceremony and spoke of her own experience.
"I’m a child witness and I’m a survivor. I’m here in this space because it took a long time to be able to say that out loud," Lt. Gov. Flanagan explained.
"I became an expert at making myself extremely small, because that’s how I learned how to survive, to simply get out of the way."
Each victim is memorialized on a unique t-shirt as part of a traveling clothesline display to be used in advocacy and education.
One of the shirts contained the image of Antonio Moore, who was stabbed to death last May in Brooklyn Center at the age of 37.
Moore's brother, Deon Terrell, told KARE that his sister Carmen had called several family members to report her ex-partner had struck her and was refusing to leave her apartment.
"She told me that her baby's dad had hit her. I was like, 'I'm on my way right now," Terrell recalled.
He soon learned that Carmen had also called his brother Antonio, who arrived first and confronted the ex-boyfriend in the parking lot.
"She called again. She's crying, uncontrollably crying. And I'm like, 'Carmen, what's going on?' And she said, 'You need to get here, he stabbed Tony.' And I'm like, 'I'm sorry, what'?"
The ex-boyfriend, Demetrius Harris, was initially charged with second-degree murder. He eventually pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter and was sentenced to four years in prison. He's scheduled to be released in December of 2025, after which he'll serve the remainder of his term in the community.
"I had tried to warn my sister. My specific instructions to my sister was to get a restraining order," Terrell remarked. "But we found later that she hadn't gotten a restraining order."
Antonio's sister, Jasmine Moore, says she hopes others can benefit from her brother's death, that abuse victims will reach out to those equipped to help them.
"I hope they will call for help, instead of getting everybody else involved because it could go wrong in an instant," Moore told KARE.
"If you're being abused, it's already a dangerous situation. Call law enforcement, take the necessary steps to get away, instead of bringing other people in and risking their lives as well."
If you are in need of help or services, please call Tubman's 24-hour crisis & resource line at 612-825-0000.
Help is also available by calling 800-799-7233 or texting START to 88788 to be connected with someone from the National Domestic Violence Hotline. The hotline includes more options for support and identifiers of abuse on its website.
For Minnesota residents, Cornerstone MN also offers resources and safe housing for domestic abuse survivors and crime victims. Call 1-866-223-1111 or chat online with the crisis hotline.
If it is an emergency, call 911.
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