Texas had its second-highest domestic violence homicide rate in a decade. The majority of those deaths involved a firearm, and most of the victims were women.
Areport from the Texas Council on Family Violence found that 216 Texans were killed by an intimate partner in 2022, the second highest number of victims in the past decade. The highest was in 2020, which had 228 victims.
Sarah Hilderbrand, who co-wrote the report, said during a town hall about the report that 2022 also had the highest number female domestic violence victims that were killed with a firearm.
“The number of women killed by a male partner with a firearm has nearly doubled in the last decade,” Hilderbrand said.
Hilderbrand said women in states with higher rates of gun ownership are more likely to be killed by someone they know. The number of Texans who own firearms has tripled between 2011 and 2020 according the report.
Texas has a state law that prohibits people subject to a domestic violence protective order from possessing firearms unless they’re a peace officer. But most counties in Texas don’t have a system in place to collect and store those weapons. There’s also a North Texas case headed to the Supreme Court in November that could render that law, as well as a similar federal statute, unconstitutional.
Hilderbrand said she estimates as much as 40% of the perpetrators of domestic violence killings last year were prohibited from owning a firearm.
Macieo White was banned from owning a firearm when he shot and killed his girlfriend, 22-year-old Shiakar Brantley, in Houston in April 2022. White had been charged previously for violence against Brantley according to the Honoring Texas Victims 2022 report.
Morgan Payne was also killed with a firearm. The 28-year-old Morgan Payne Collin County resident had recently ended her relationship with her ex-boyfriend, Jase Hooper, when he shot her in March 2022 according to the Honoring Texas Victims 2022 report. More than half of the victims listed in the report had made an effort to end the abuse.
Hilderbrand said the most dangerous time for people in abusive relationships is the immediate period after separation.
“Leaving does not always equal safety, and it is in fact an increasingly dangerous time for victims of domestic violence,” she said.
Hooper died by suicide after shooting Payne according to the report, which found that homicide-suicides increased by 17% in the state from 2021 to 2022. Texas also had the highest number of family annihilations, where more than one family member is killed, in the country since 2020.
Christina Coultas, the CEO of Hope’s Door New Beginning Center in Collin County, said homicide-suicides show the impact of isolation in family violence situations. Coultas also said abusers often use children as a way to control their victims.
“That control is ‘I’ll kill all the kids. It's the one way I can hurt you forever,’” she said.
Coultas said homicide-suicides are often a result of isolation, which is why connecting with families experiencing abuse and providing resources is essential. And Gloria Aguilera Terry, the CEO of the Texas Council on Family Violence, said the best prevention for domestic violence starts with the community.
“You can leverage your circles and influence, use them to advance conversations that are uncomfortable” Aguilera Terry said.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or get help online at thehotline.org.
Got a tip? Email Caroline Love at clove@kera.org.
Caroline Love is a Report For Americacorps member for KERA News.
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