The sun was setting behind the Redondo Beach Police Station when a woman named Caroline took the stage. It was mid-October 2015, the night of the Redondo Beach Police Department’s Candlelight Vigil to raise awareness against Domestic Violence. Caroline was shaking as she looked out over the crowd. Just minutes earlier, she sat among them, crying.
First, a deep breath. Then Caroline began.
“I stayed for many reasons. I stayed out of love. Out of duty for our children. I stayed out of fear,” she said. “But then he began threatening the kids, and threatening my life…and it just continued to get worse.”
Her voice was trembling. Sentences were punctuated by sobs.
“It took me a long time to realize that I couldn’t protect them,” Caroline continued. “My biggest fear was that my boys would grow up to be like him…and that my daughter would end up with someone like him.”
She thought that she kept the abuse she suffered at the hands of her then-husband hidden. But her oldest boy heard everything. Then one night, he saw everything. He and his siblings had enough.
“A few of them got hurt trying to protect me,” she said.
Audience members began crying. Caroline paused, and took another deep breath. Her voice grew firmer.
“I’m here tonight because I survived, and I want you all to know that there is hope. I found my courage. I found my strength. I have my freedom and my independence. I’ve become successful by bringing myself back up from the pits,” she said.
“You can find happiness, but it’s a struggle. You have to have faith, and the support of people…like this woman, right here.”
Beside her was Ericka Sazo-Gonzales, the coordinator for the Redondo Beach Police Department’s Domestic Violence Victim Advocacy program, and Caroline’s personal advocate.
Gonzales has been working as an advocate in Redondo for more than a decade as part of her personal crusade against domestic violence.
In that time, RBPD’s groundbreaking program has handled more than a thousand cases, roughly 140 each year – and the number keeps climbing, which is a good thing. As domestic violence awareness increases, so does reporting; and as reporting increases, so do their opportunities to change lives.
Gonzales’s colleagues within the City of Redondo Beach and RBPD call her a firebrand and the heart and soul of the DVVA program. In March, she was named woman of the year by the Los Angeles County Commission for Women.
But in October, she was simply there beside Caroline. The two women hugged.
A training junkie
Gonzales is a native of Guatemala. She moved to California in 1992 along with her husband, a U.S.-born citizen who grew up alongside her in Central America. The two sweethearts were separated when he moved back to the United States, post-graduation, and reconnected after college.
“Seven years later, we got married, so I moved here,” she said, smiling.
Growing up, however, was difficult. Domestic violence was a regular occurrence in her household. “Not daily…but often,” she said.
She remembers being eight years old, feeling hopeless about the abuse within her family and her powerlessness against it, when something steeled itself inside of her.
“I made a promise to myself, that I would grow up and do something.”
“Something” came years later, while raising her two children as a stay-at-home mom. She saw an ad placed by Rainbow Services, a domestic violence outreach organization and shelter based in San Pedro. “I saw it in the newspaper, a little blurb saying they needed volunteers,” she recalled. “I read it, thought about the promise I made, and put it down.”
The next day, Gonzales picked the paper back up, saving it from the recycling bin. “I said to myself, ‘I did promise I was going to do something…’ and called the number.”
She interviewed with Rainbow, took her first training course and from there, it just took off, Gonzalez said.
A “training junkie,” the new volunteer dove in, feet-first. A year later, she began volunteering with the Women’s Shelter of Long Beach. There, she began working with the Long Beach Police Department; she called clients, following up on their cases and spending time with survivors of domestic violence.
Around 2002, Gonzales learned about Redondo Beach’s DVVA program during a fair that brought a number of domestic violence awareness programs together. It was there that she met then-coordinator Ann Poole. Soon after, she began volunteering there, as well.
Pie in the sky thinking
The Domestic Violence Victim Advocacy program began, in earnest, in the mid-1990s, according to City Attorney Michael Webb, who was then the City Prosecutor.
“When I got here, there wasn’t anything in place [for victims]…just was a form, pre-filled out for victims to come out and drop charges,” he said.
The only contact domestic violence victims would receive would be after their alleged abuser was arrested. “The public defender would call to see if the defendant wanted the charges dropped and the offender released,” Webb said.
It wasn’t long before Webb learned of a federal grant proposal request, for law enforcement agencies to produce “innovative programs” to assist domestic violence victims. He assigned the grant proposal writing project to paralegal Marion Lagatree.
“They didn’t want the same-old, same-old, where a domestic violence victim would slip through the cracks again,” she said.
The accepted belief at the time, Lagatree recalled, was that domestic violence was “just one of those things” — a private, household matter in which police shouldn’t get involved.
“I was given the task of writing this grant and I just went ‘pie in the sky,’ thinking up anything I wanted,” she said.
Her idea was an immediate response team: people would go directly to the scene of a domestic violence incident, speaking to victims once the area was safe. She wanted training and pagers for volunteers, so they could be reached wherever they were. Lagatree also asked for hotel and taxi vouchers for victims, so they didn’t have to stay at the scene of their abuse; she wanted toys for children, and clothes for both kids and the victim; she wanted meal tickets and gift certificates, so victims could eat for a few days away from their abusers.
She got it, receiving $59,000 for the first year of the program. In the program’s second year, RBPD Sgt. Joe Leonardi, who would later become chief, ensured that the program would survive, placing the program in the police department’s budget. “Mike was the firestarter and Joe Leonardi was a catalyst to keep it going,” Lagatree said. “He really believed in the program, and in intervention.”
Lagatree did much of the work herself those first two years, personally following up with each and every victim. But organizing the program was full-time job on top of being a paralegal within the city, leading to the hiring of the program’s first full-time coordinator, Denyse Clark.
Ann Poole followed; Webb credits her for a partnership with the Beach Cities Health District, providing further ongoing funding for the program. In 2007, Gonzales was moved up from volunteer to coordinator when Poole retired.
The program is invaluable to her office, City Prosecutor Melanie Chavira said. One of her biggest difficulties is getting victims to come out and share their story. They need to recount it, time and again before police, a prosecutor, a district attorney, and investigators.
“And, worst case, a courtroom with 12 jurors, a judge, court reporter and bailiff,” Chavira said. “Ericka and her team really guide the victim through the process, from beginning to end. They give the victim someone to talk to, they find them shelter and counseling services…they even escort them to their car to protect them from harassment in the parking lot.”
Redondo’s program is unlike any other in the South Bay, or even the county, Chavira said. During her time with the Los Angeles Police Department, Chavira found that even they lack similar resources for responding to domestic violence calls. “It speaks volumes to the fact that the city takes domestic violence so seriously,” she said.
The idea is spreading, according to current RBPD Chief Keith Kauffman.
“The rest of the department is looking to duplicate what’s happening there, with constant follow-up with victims…it’s just a great model,” he said. “I was dumbfounded by the amount of work that they do, and the passion of the volunteers — that advocates almost become part of the family for these victims, even years later. That kind of stuff is unheard of elsewhere, and I’m so happy to have it here.”
The Domestic Violence Victim Advocacy program, as currently staffed, has 19 volunteers, two of which are on call for 12 hours at a time. And, as RBPD Sgt. Rick Kochheim says, Gonzales is willing to step in at a moment’s notice for a victim. He recalled the story of a homeless woman who was abused by her boyfriend. Gonzales was put in touch with her, got her into a shelter and off of the street and has been working to connect the woman with her family.
“Even though she coordinates and schedules the program, she’s still boots on the ground,” Kochheim said.
Lagatree credits Gonzales with carrying on the program that she was proud to begin in the mid-‘90s. “Ericka is the person who really breathed life and color and dimension into this program, keeping it going and taking it to the next realm from my piecemeal, pie-in-the-sky idea,” Lagatree said. “She gave it the warmth that it has now…she’s the program’s heart and soul.”
The program’s growth, Webb said, has been incredible. “By every metric, it has grown by leaps and bounds compared to the initial thought from Marion’s brain to what it is now,” he said.
“I couldn’t imagine it’d get to be the robust situation it is today.”
Shining Stars
Though the Domestic Violence Victim Advocacy Program holds multiple events throughout the year, including toy drives in December and a Dog Costume contest in the fall, the Candlelight Vigil is among the most visible.
It’s a call to action, a reminder that domestic violence is a silent problem that needs dealing with; as Webb reminds, without intervention, “domestic violence becomes progressively worse until it ultimately ends with terrible tragedy.”
Thankfully, Gonzales notes, the program’s recidivism rate is small — only two cases out of about 50 in the last quarter-year period involved multiple calls to the same house.
“It’s not very high…but since problems are different in each case, we can only do so much follow-up,” Gonzales said. “When the client isn’t calling us anymore, or has moved on…we try to follow up and see what turns in their life. We hope we’re doing the best.”
Some clients do come back, she said; sometimes, they’re in a different situation, such as a divorce, or having custody disputes, and they’d like the support of the program. Sometimes, they come back because they want to see how they can help.
“Some of them want to speak up, or bring donations — they’ll be in a different situation, ‘I have this donation, I’m working at a place and donating all these sweatshirts, what do you need? what can I help with?’ It varies,” she said. “There’s something that they want to contribute.”
No matter what stage a survivor is in, Gonzales said, the fact that a victim has reached out for help is a success in itself. “Picking up the phone, calling the police, is a level of success,” she said. “Calling someone with services, going to counseling…the idea is, we’re trying to connect with people, give them the resources so they can find the answers or the road they’re looking for.”
And when survivors have reached peace, Gonzales reaches out for those who might want to speak at the vigil.
“They’re all so brave.” Gonzales said of the speakers. “To be able to go out there in front of everyone, to share a bit of their story — and by sharing it, they’re reliving it — it’s powerful,” she said.
“They’re all stars,” Gonzales said. “That’s what I call them. Shining stars.” ER
If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, or you would like to learn more about providing assistance for those in need, contact the Redondo Beach Domestic Violence Advocacy program at 310-379-2477, ext. 2336.
