How an improved Cincinnati partnership plans to curb domestic violence

On Sept. 27 Tanisha Huff, a 37-year-old from East Price Hill, filed a restraining order against the father of her child after he pointed a gun at her. She feared for her life, court documents said. A temporary restraining order was granted and there was a warrant out for his arrest.

She was shot to death in her less than a week later. The man accused of killing her told police it was an accidental shooting. He was on parole after serving 10 years in prison for rape and kidnapping. Earlier in 2017, he served jail time for beating a woman.

Huff’s death is a chilling example of domestic violence in Cincinnati, a public health crisis that advocates are trying to change with a closer partnership with Cincinnati Police.

Huff is not the only Cincinnatian who has died at the hands of a partner this year. According to Women Helping Women, an informal count of homicides linked to domestic violence in Hamilton County this year sits at eight.

Women Helping Women and Cincinnati Police will announce plans to help combat gender-based violence in the region on Thursday. The nonprofit, founded in 1973, already works in tandem with the police department to respond to domestic violence and sexual assault but wants to do more.

The event on Thursday will serve two purposes. To announce plans for a domestic violence response team and ask local companies to answer a call to action.

“Our overarching theme is for us to expand our lens and to really focus on solutions in our community,” President and CEO of Women Helping Women Kristin Smith-Shrimplin told The Enquirer.

Women Helping Women performed more than 16,500 crisis interventions last year and is on target for surpassing that number in 2017, the group said. It is seeing a 38 percent spike in sexual assault services.

Shrimplin said to combat those spikes, there needs to be a community response.

A new protocol between Cincinnati Police Department and Women Helping Women in responding to domestic violence, funded by Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, will be announced Thursday morning.

The program will be called Domestic Violence Emergency Response team, or DVERT, and will begin in January 2018.

Shrimplin said Women Helping Women will respond directly to domestic violence calls and provide services on the scene instead of contacting victims the next day. The goal is to get survivors to services immediately and focusing on people who are repeatedly victimized, with the ultimate goal of preventing homicides.

More: He’d threatened her with a gun Sept. 27. Tanisha Huff was dead just days later.

More: Sheriff IDs divorced couple dead in Columbia Township murder-suicide

While police are focused on securing a crime scene and perpetrators, Women Helping Women representatives will immediately connect with victims. This includes getting them into shelters or hospitals, setting up protection orders and making a crisis plan.

As for the call to action, Women Helping Women representatives said more than 150 representatives of community and business organizations will attend the event.

“This call to action is about corporate leadership in the empowerment of survivors and about our region coming together to end this serious public health epidemic that impacts one out of three women and teens,” Shrimplin said.

The announcement will occur during a breakfast at 8 a.m. on Nov. 2, at the Westin Hotel. For more information visit https://www.womenhelpingwomen.org.