‘Domestic violence is never the victim’s fault’: How Tarrant County is honoring, helping abuse victims

Fort Worth Report: Izzy Acheson

Tomeka Garnett, 33, is the children and youth coordinator at SafeHaven of Tarrant County, the county’s only state-designated family violence center. But the organization helped Garnett long before she was employed there. 

“My brother, my mom and I were at SafeHaven. My mom’s boyfriend was physically, mentally and financially abusive, and he cut us off from my mom’s sisters and brothers,” Garnett said. “My mom couldn’t take it anymore. She packed up really fast and grabbed me and my brother with just our pajamas and socks on.”

Garnett and her family fled to a nearby 7-Eleven, where a worker called 911. They were later connected to SafeHaven. 

“We were at SafeHaven for a couple of months,” she said. “My brother actually attended school at one of the shelters. From there we were connected to resources, counseling and housing – my mom still stays in the house they connected her to.” 

Garnett’s experience at SafeHaven inspired her to pursue this line of work. As the children and youth coordinator, she works to provide safety planning, education and counseling services for children. 

Garnett’s story mirrors the experiences of thousands of women who have received services from SafeHaven, which provided refuge to 1,526 women and children in 2021 alone. But, some women were not as lucky. 

In 2021, seven women died at the hands of abusive intimate partners — people they’ve dated or married — in Tarrant County. SafeHaven will memorialize these women at a Remembrance Event on Oct. 20.

The Remembrance Event is one of a series of events for SafeHaven’s month-long campaign to raise awareness about domestic violence and support survivors.

Every year in October, which is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, a team of collaborators from SafeHaven, the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office, police departments and other agencies work together to release the Adult Fatality Review Report – the county’s only analysis of local intimate partner homicides. 

The fatality review team reviews every homicide in the county that might be a product of intimate partner violence, said Kathryn Jacob, SafeHaven’s president and chief executive. The team’s definition of intimate partner homicide, published in the report, was used solely as a tool to look for patterns in each case. 

Out of 17 possible cases reviewed by the Fatality Review team, seven were victims of intimate partner violence in 2021. Three of the victims lived in Fort Worth, and each of the remaining four lived in Arlington, Hurst, Grand Prairie and Mansfield.

Overall, intimate partner homicides have decreased since 2016, though 2020 saw an unusual spike in the number of intimate partner homicides, which claimed the lives of 17 people.