Friend of Mirkarimi's wife: family 'destroyed'

[Blue_Tires]

Eliana Lopez, the wife of suspended Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, is in Venezuela for a month visiting family - but she's making her voice heard loud and clear on how she thinks San Francisco's criminal justice system has robbed her of her own voice and independence.

She gave permission to her friend, Myrna Melgar, a former legislative aide to Supervisor Eric Mar, to write an opinion piece in the Bay Guardian. Lopez posted it Wednesday morning on the Facebook page of La Casa de Las Madres, a domestic violence shelter that has called on Mirkarimi to resign...

..."The disempowerment of Eliana began on a very small level when her husband grabbed her by the arm during an argument," Melgar wrote. "It was exponentially magnified by the neighbor in whom she confided, who decided that Eliana's strongly held desire to handle her problems with her husband herself was inconsequential.

"The disempowerment of Eliana was then magnified again and again, by the police, the press, the district attorney, and finally even anti-domestic-violence advocates. How did it come to be that a system that was intended to empower women has evolved into a system that disempowers them so completely?"

Melgar writes that nobody consulted Lopez about what she wanted, which was to work on her marriage with her husband, whom she is not allowed to have any contact with. And now the family has no income because Mirkarimi has been suspended without pay.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/28/BAS31NRKL3.DTL#ixzz1qWBjs4cf

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[saras]

1. It's perfectly obvious what she's saying. It appears you just disagree with it.

"...what she wanted, which was to work on her marriage with her husband, whom she is not allowed to have any contact with."

Is that so terribly difficult to understand?

It started here...
..."The disempowerment of Eliana began on a very small level when her husband grabbed her by the arm during an argument,"

And she thought, at that point, that her marriage was worth saving. But the legal system didn't. And made no place whatsoever for her desires. So, of course, they made it substantially worse.

And regarding her looks, just keep in mind that she chose him over you. You're not even in the competition, and putting her picture up that way, like she's your toy to enjoy, is as offensive as what he did, for the same reasons. You don't have the RIGHT to that kind of power over her.

[Blue_Tires]

2. If she wanted to mitigate what happened that night, fine

If she wanted to handle the situation internally and in private, that's her right...

BUT she has to not throw away that right by blabbing to a neighbor, who after hearing that conversation was sufficiently motivated to contact authorities...(not sure if the friends motivation was out of general concern, blackmail, publicity whoring, etc)...

Lopez is married to a public figure, and a popular actress in her own country...She couldn't have been naive enough to know this wouldn't have happened...

And the photo? Fine...You got me...I'm a mortal human male who's maybe a tad jealous about someone being blessed with a wife like that only to treat her that way...

[Blue_Tires]

4. edited n/t

[MineralMan]

6. Thank you.

[bemildred]

5. Maybe next time she will keep her yap shut then.

It's not secret if you tell people.

I mean, I quite agree with her about her "friend", who did treat her like a child, but she acted in a naive way for someone that lives in the USA, she does not get off the hook.

[SoCalDem]

7. She gave her permission to a friend to "write something"..

How would her friend be feeling or her family..if no one had "said/written" anything, and her husband had killed her during an "argument"?

Apparently the "grabbing" bothered her enough to tell about it, and then give permission for someone else to write about it..

Secrecy about abuse often is the norm because the "breadwinner's" income supersedes safety, and because hope springs eternal and wives/girlfriends "just know" that they can change that man or that he will spontaneously stop hurting them/the kids.

[Xithras]

8. California's domestic violence laws are a bit over the top.

I know a woman who spent three days in jail because she and her husband were trying to pry their teenage sons bedroom door open during an argument (they caught the kid with drugs, he screamed that he was going to kill himself and locked himself in his bedroom). While the older sister called 911 for help, the mother and father grabbed a screwdriver to force the door and while they worked at it, she cut her husbands hand.

By the time the police showed up, they had the door open and the kid under control. The police asked about the cut hand, and when they heard the story, slapped cuffs on the wife. Why? Because they'd been called to a "domestic disturbance" with an injury, so someone was going to jail. As the officer told them (and their lawyer confirmed), under California law it doesn't matter whether the injury was intentional, or whether they were fighting with each other, or even whether they were fighting at all. The officer isn't even allowed to use his own common sense...the law specifies that arrests are mandatory when an injury occurs, and an officer who fails to arrest can lose his job.

She was arrested on a Friday afternoon, and ended up sitting in a jail cell until the following Monday. Prior to that, she didn't even know where the county courthouse was. It was a hell of an introduction to our legal system. Stories like this are VERY common in California. Our laws in this state are stupid, and were specifically designed to disempower the victim and get prosecutions.

[Blue_Tires]

9. She's still blaming the wrong people at fault for this whole situation:

1. Her husband, for being a general jaggoff (I'll stop myself here before saying more)
2. Herself, for running to a neighbor and actually videotaping her reaction -- Which by her admission was at least going to be used as a bargaining chip in case they ended up in divorce court...

If she was smart enough to do this, then she was smart enough to know this was going to blow up, ESPECIALLY for public figures...To blame the cops, media, anti-domestic violence advocates, etc. and trying to get the horses back into the barn now is pretty dumb...