AUGUSTA, Maine — Physically abused by his father as a boy, Maine Gov. Paul LePage is using his weekly radio address to refocus attention on domestic violence following two recent shootings in Maine.
One involved a man who killed his girlfriend before taking his life. The other involved a woman charged with killing her boyfriend before a failed attempt on her own life.
LePage says this year’s Domestic Violence Report reveals a record number of perpetrators committing suicide after killing loved ones. The report says 70 percent of offenders had a history of suicide threats or attempts and that in two-thirds of those cases perpetrators killed one or more family members before committing suicide.
He says it’s important for people to take suicide threats seriously and to discuss with law enforcement or health professionals access to firearms.
I was physically abused by my father when I was a kid. As a result I’ve always been sympathetic to the underdogs, the abused, the houseless, the neglected, the people on the fringe of society…LaPlage seems oblivious and/or condescending to those kinds of people..
Im surprised you didnt blame the rise in abuse on LePage…. I wouldnt leave my child alone with a Priest/Rev… So your comments really dont hold any water…
I wouldn’t leave my child alone with LePage. He seems to have trouble with his temper and really poor judgement.
That is Mr. LePage to you.
That would indicate respect, which he has not earned.
You better get use to another 5 1/2 years of him….. Bottom line Honey..
Doubtful. Very doubtful.
God I pray NOT!
He has done more to address this issue than any of our past govs. Just because he hasn’t made himself into a victim that seems to bother a lot of people. I grew up in NY and there were survivors of the holocaust who were shop owners. You would never know the horror they experienced, they thought beyond themselves and went on with life. Stop making yourself and others into victims.
But he IS a victim. That trauma may be buried beneath a “coat of varnish” and belief that “that was a long time ago and I’ve grown beyond it”, but it’ s there. Unless he’s actually tackled it and dealt with it in a systematic way, whether he recognizes it or not it creeps into his ability in dealing with other people, particularly in stressful situations. It’s not anything people should be afraid to deal with, unless they think it makes them somehow less than manly or some other god-awful cultural measurement. It’s nice to think that because people don’t wear their childhood trauma on their sleeves, they have put them behind them. And I’m not considering a few slights or insults one may have suffered. Considering serious trauma is the point of this. I’ve known such people as you have mentioned, but I never once thought they were able to forget and “get on with their lives.” Actually they do get on with their lives, insofar as working . paying the bills, having kids and the rest, but those lives are full of a pain you and I, bless our little hearts, may never know. What, if not an entire collective trauma experienced first-hand and passed to later generations, lies behind the behavior of the State of Israel in dealing with the rest of the world? It is much deeper, I submit, than the fact that they moved in on the Palestinians and sixty-five years ago set up a state. When one suffers from deliberate violence and abuse at any age, there is a victim, whether it makes us uneasy or not. There are no magic wands to wipe away the trauma, no drink to dissolve it (think of the way our fathers so often dealt with the trauma of combat) and most people have experienced some sort or another that effected them in the long term. No one simply works around it. None of my rant is meant to suggest that past trauma be an excuse for current misbehavior, but it might well be a cause, and misery avoided by identifying and treating the cause is a step forward, in my estimation.
The governor has often spoken about his own history of domestic violence as a child. One would hope this would give him more empathy, not less, for the victims of domestic violence. I think that in some way, he is sincere when he says that this is an issue of concern. However, he does not seem to make the connection that victims of DV need assistance, some of the very programs that he cuts and then cuts some more so that there can be more tax breaks for individuals who are not in need.
I completely agree!
I’m all for stoping domestic violence….but what can anyone do to stop it..?,,its away seems that someone wonts to do something about it…..after someone get hurt or killed…!!
Kids need to be taught (since some parents won’t teach them or are violent themselves) that physical and emotional violence is wrong. Parents need to stop hitting their kids in anger. Until people let go of their barbaric belief that spanking children is okay, kids will always believe that hitting and terrorizing children is perfectly normal and will likely do it to their own kids. And a good percentage of them are going to grow up believing its okay to hit their partners because, hey, he/she “made me mad.”
thank you for that reply..to bad that only afew people are going to read it…
Don’t worry; I’m sure I’ll have reason to write it again on these boards. :)
What a bunch of ” BULL”.
Yes the no spanking thing has turned out so well. Now its therapy and medication before they are teenagers.
I am no expert, but it seems the number of domestic violence cases increases as the economy goes down. It would help to have a sympathetic government to help Mainers through the rough times instead of ridicule and punish them. Some of these incidents start when people feel they have nowhere to turn.
Domestic Violence, in itself, is a problem however, the problem is compounded by uneducated and inexperienced police officers. Let me explain.
A year ago, two Hancock County Deputies arrested a man after they were informed the suspect’s girlfriend is a type 1 diabetic suffering from a mental illness and agoraphobia. The suspect informed the deputies that his girlfriend is in a state of diabetic keto-acidosis which renders her anti psych medications and gastroparesis medications useless simulating rapid withdraw. The Deputies were also told his girl friend was in need of “Emergency Medical Treatment.”
Following the man’s arrest neither of the two deputies or any other law enforcement agency returned to the woman’s home, or called, for a followup/check. Less than 24 hours later, the suspect made bail and returned home to find his girlfriend in a diabetic coma which resulted in a 5 day stay at Ellsworth’s ICU. Maine Public Safety’s statement concerning the issue, “Don’t worry about violating your bail conditions. It was an emergency situation.”
My point is, Domestic Violence statistics would be much lower if law Enforcers were not so quick to assume the roll of Judges versus investigators. It is prevalent in today’s society for Judges to sit on the highest seat in the room. There is a reason why law enforcement sits on the sideline and not at one of the two tables.
Why were the Deputies there to start with just wondering?
She states she called for an ambulance. However, due to her medical condition the dispatcher could not understand her and sent the sheriff’s office instead. In return, the responders were notified of the medical condition and the necessity of a hospital.
Thanks
Pushing to end domestic violence to pushing against providing people universal health care. Yup, must be cheaper.
There are not many times I stand with our Governor, but I thank him for for keeping attention to and denouncing domestic violence.
Ask any health professionals dealing with this sort of problem whether they can take on more case of this sort than they already cope with, and I’ll bet they’ll throw up their hands in dismay. As for the governor’s interest in the matter, counselors familiar with the research on the effects physical and verbal abuse on children would probably agree that some of his behavior stems directly from them. So, while it is good that he points to the rise in reported incidents of abuse, he might add that as a victim who got little or no professional help he recognizes the need for more resources and training by which present-day victims can be identified and treated before they become another generation of abusers themselves. And, he might actually push for those necessary resources. If this isn’t a category of need that requires greater public commitment and resources I don’t know what is. it is not enough to pull the old dodge by thinking “it isn’t any of my business.”
Paul Lepage is clearly a Sadistic sociopath and that is a genetic condition
Lepage gets pleasure from seeing people suffer. He especially enjoys the suffering of those closest to him. It is Lepage’s lack of empathy for other people that attracted
the Koch Bros, Linda Bean and the Florida Heritage Society who’s money got him elected.
I have to wonder how much the bad economy adds stresses to people’s domestic lives, resulting in domestic violence. Taking people off of much needed benefits programs, poor job prospects, loss of jobs take a toll on society… Those that have been preventing much needed stimulus and have advocated massive tax cuts paid for by taking from the elderly, poor, sick, and children bear some responsibility for the stresses that lead to domestic violence…
Yes, Gov. LePage, I’m talking to you…
Paul Lepage pretends he cares about abused children when all the while he defends a friend of his who facilitated a pedofile priest .
Good point. LePage got elected to make sure that his pedophile friends get away with it and to cut funding so that they cannot be caught. You are so smart.
You gotta love his approach to DV. He makes all these statement’s about the damage of DV, it’s cost’s and the damage it inflicts on the victim’s and society, and the consequences of domestic violence, then does all he can to cut the resources and funding needed to deal with it. What and who does he think is going to help the victim’s, the Tooth Fairy and Santa ? If there is one issue that both GOP, TP, Democrat’s and Inde’s’ should ALL be screaming about it’s this one. That Paulie makes himself out to be a victim I have no issue with . But when he uses’s that same issue as some kind of weird rationalization to cut the very resources and funding to deal with this issue, that he supposedly holds in such high regard, than yes, I do take issue. This DV issue, especially with the Weather Service calling for a nasty winter coming, is going to be seen again and again. If there was ever a reason for the Statehouse Dog and Pony Show to stop and come together for the benefit of both Mainer’s today, but for the Mainer’s of tomorrow, namely the kid’s, this is the reason. Question is, regardless of how the Election turns out, will they ? That kind of leadership hasn’t been seen in Augusta in a long time, absent the recent Budget mess. Maybe it’s time it came out and made it’s presence known……
Mike, the State of Maine has no money.
…..
And your source for that is where because they owe the hospitals and other health care professionals hundreds of millions of dollars. Please provide your sources.
Then Sir, if the State is indeed broke just where is LePage getting all of this money from for the E-W Highway feasibility study ? What, Cianbro and Vigue are gonna float Maine a loan ? Someone please show me so we can all see just how well Paulie and Company are managing the State’s resource’s for the citizen’s who depend on the State for their safety.
Is $300,000 all you need Sir to fund all of your programs?
Go ask the DV folk’s at DHHS what good $ 300,000.– could do for them. Think of what that money could have done, and indeed should be doing, for Carlson’s victim’s. And it’s amazing that no one has even begun to mention any type of matching fund’s or grant’s for these type program’s that are out there. How many bodies does it take, Sir, for Maine to realize that it’s time to start focusing on what is a core issue, that being the public’s safety and right to live free of bullying and abuse ? To date all I’ve seen is ‘official’ Maine tossing anyone that doesn’t agree with LePage and his bunch under the legislative bus and not bothering to see just how much damage, both immediate and long-term, is being deliberately inflicted on Maine’s citizen’s. That this is happening, by a so-called self-proclaimed victim of domestic violence, is the height of hypocrisy.
It also calls into question The Governor’s seriousness and commitment to addressing domestic violence. And that’s something that the voter’s are going to be asking themselves between now and both Nov 6th, and, the next Gubernatorial election. And with BDN, and the other paper’s in Maine, reporting on DV cases on a daily basis, this issue is NOT going to go away, no matter how much LePage or anyone else wants it to. If there was ever a time for the Legislature to get off their collective keester’s, this is it. DV cuts across all levels of Maine, politics be dammed. The Legislature is gonna have 2 years after the Election to show us all just how serious they are about this before they have to run again, and next cycle with LePage and his DV speech’s as baggage, before the voter’s make their next big, and serious, decision. Both Democrat’s and the GOP need, now, to start sitting down and working toward some type of solution, or at least an outline of a solution, before this whole mess goes KABLOOEY in their collective face’s. Body’s on the front page of the paper or the news are not going to do anyone any good except for pushing the public to call, and vote, for more drastic action.
…
“70% of offenders had a history of suicide or attempts…..”
The LePage/Republican solution?
Cut funds for mental health.
So big on Domestic Violence LaPage…then why are men getting only 48 hours after breaking the PFA order??? and then gets out, does it again and gets 45 days for another PFA!! You and your stand against Domestic Violence is a JOKE LaPage!!!!
It is amazing to me that even when LePage tries to bring an issue to light for the state to start a dialogue about what can be done, he still gets flamed by people. LePage derangement syndrome at it worse.