♪ > Welcome to "This Week In South Carolina," I'm Gavin Jackson.

The Violence Policy Center found that in 2024, South Carolina's rate of females killed by males was 2.2 per 100,000, which is above the national rate of 1.4.

That year, a total of 62 female victims were killed by males.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and this year we speak with Monique Patton Garvin with the Attorney General's Office as well as Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott.

I opened my discussion with Lott by asking him about why responding to domestic violence calls are so dangerous.

> Well, when we respond, the energy's already up, the stress level's up, there's anger involved, there's danger involved.

You have two parties that are usually going back and forth.

It's one of the most dangerous situations that we have to encounter.

And, you know, fortunately, I've been here a long time, so I've been part of the group.

When I first started my career, we were not trained.

on how to respond to domestic violence.

And we did not do a good job.

It took some people to get the laws changed to really make us do what we're supposed to do, and now, we're doing it.

The training is exactly what we need.

Our response is what it is.

A lot of things have changed in the 50 years that I've been in law enforcement.

Gavin> But it's difficult too.

I mean, deputies have to evaluate, you know, who's the offender?

Who's doing what?

I mean, how do you, like, walk through that?

How do you de-escalate these situations before they really turn violent?

Sheriff Lott> Well, you used the word de-escalate.

That's what we have to do.

So we teach our deputies how to de-escalate situations.

And that's from the tone of your voice, your body language, just everything, your whole demeanor when you come in these.

You know, if you go in there and you throw gasoline on a fire then we gonna have that.

So we try to do the opposite.

Calm voice and you try to separate the parties, try to get them separated.

So usually, I say almost all the time on a domestic call, at least two deputies respond.

So you separate them and then you start listening, but you also talk to witnesses.

You look at evidence, you know, there may be damage to the home, there may be a broken phone.

You start looking at all these things and you evaluate that before you make a decision on who the aggressor is.

And that's what we have to determine, who is the aggressor?

You check to see if there's any marks on either parties body and then, you know, one party will say, "Well he choked me," well you look at their neck, see if there's scratch marks, you see if there's marks.

So there's a lot of complicated issues going on at the same time.

And that's what makes it really very difficult to deal with.

Gavin> And a recent Post and Courier analysis found that at least 37 officers and 99 civilians across the state have been injured or killed in responding to domestic violence calls since 2009.

Five officers have died, and according to the Post and Courier's analysis, Richland County had 10 instances of officer-involved shootings related to domestic violence calls since 2009, and Richland County Sheriff's Department was involved in six of those.

So, does that make it one of the most dangerous calls to respond to, maybe say, from an actual active shooter or situation like that?

Sheriff Lott> Well, we're gonna have more domestic calls than we will an active shooter.

But what we see is, domestic calls involve sometimes being an active shooter.

So yes, it is probably one of the most dangerous calls we go to, but also one of the highest volume calls that we respond to.

Also, unfortunately, every day you have people who just can't get along, and sometimes they resort to violence.

And, you know, we have to respond to those calls.

We don't ignore them.

We know how serious they are.

We also know how they can escalate also.

If we can stop it at the front end, or it's maybe just verbal and it hasn't escalated to the violence level, maybe we'll save someone's life.

Gavin> And in August, a Columbia police officer, Christopher DeLong Jr.

was killed and Officer David Dymock was injured in responding to a domestic violence call.

The gunman, who was 33 year old Adam Dowdy, died on the scene following that gunfight.

I know your office is helping with SLED as part of this investigation, but what can you tell us about that horrible situation in that scene that unfolded there in August?

Sheriff Lott> Well, you pretty much described what it was.

It started off as a domestic.

You had the two officers respond to a domestic call and it escalated very quickly.

Again, you don't know what's in the mind of the aggressor.

You don't know how far they're gonna take their anger and their feelings.

And, you know, again, you want to de-escalate, so you're using different tactics, but then when someone's got on their mind, what this individual had it's hard to stop them.

And so the officers did nothing wrong.

I mean, I've looked at the body cam and saw it, they did nothing wrong.

It was just someone that was intent on taking their lives and it happened.

Gavin> How does that ripple through the law enforcement community?

I mean, what's it like immediately after you lose an officer, even if it's in a fellow department like that?

Sheriff Lott> Well, it's not a fellow department, we're all the same.

It doesn't matter if we wear the blue of Columbia Police Department, or the black uniforms from the Sheriff's Department.

We all feel that pain.

Our officers responded.

They were there, you know, so the law enforcement family, is a very close-knit family.

So it impacts all of us when one is lost, it's felt throughout.

And, you know, unfortunately, we've experienced it six times since I've been sheriff.

And I will tell you, we still remember those that we've lost.

And Columbia Police Department will do the same thing.

But to watch the community come together in support, I think is one of the reasons why we're able to put these uniforms on and go to work every single day.

We know that by and large, most of the community has our back.

They support us.

They know we do a very dangerous job, and our job is to go out there and protect everybody.

And so when you lose one, everybody loses one.

Gavin> Sheriff Lott, we're talking a lot about shootings and guns are the main weapons used in domestic violence situations.

There have been changes in the laws when it deals with offenders and firearms and possessing those.

Are these weapons getting out of the hands of the offenders as required by law you think?

Sheriff Lott> Not as much as it should.

I think that's one thing is falling through the cracks, is that not enough weapons are being taken care of, and not enough protective orders have been taken out.

You know, we know about all these things, so we refer people.

Okay, you need to get a restraining order, you need to get a protective order, you need to relocate.

And, you know, we partner with Sistercare.

We actually have, Sistercare has a space in our office here, so they're right there.

So when a call comes in, we're able to get them help immediately, if that's what they need.

So we try to be a resource also, not just ourselves, but other organizations that are involved in helping domestic violence victims.

> Yeah, and it sounds like reports of intimate aggravated assault are down by 22%.

Richland County has had about 546 cases reported in 2024.

What are you seeing statistically when it comes to this crime and maybe crime in general here in Richland County?

What are you attributing these trends to?

> The downward trends is education.

You got to do enforcement and education, just can't do one without the other.

And I think education is a big thing, that we're educating particularly women, and that's tends to be most of the victims of domestic violence, that you don't have to accept that.

That is not something that's part of being in a relationship is being abused, and that is either mentally or physically abused.

And I think we're doing a better job on educating, but we're also giving them more resources.

You know, that's very traumatic to leave your home, leave someone who is providing for you, your children.

And so you have to have somewhere for them to go.

You have to have support for them, because their life is gonna go on, it's just gonna be completely changed.

So better job with resources, better job with education, I think a better job also enforcement.

When you take all of those things, I think that's when you get the results we have now.

Gavin> When you talk about education, Sheriff, what more do you think needs to maybe happen when we start looking into teen dating violence?

Maybe some of these, the beginnings, these sad roots of what could be a long-term problem when it comes to relationship violence.

Do you think enough is being done when it comes to the schools, maybe parents need to be more involved when looking for warning signs.

How do you see this whole education aspect coming together?

Sheriff Lott> I think we need to do more in school.

I mean, our SROs do a good bit.

We want all of our kids to be exposed to, this is what happened.

But when they see it at home and they see that's a behavior, that's a learned behavior, then they expect this is what a relationship is supposed to be.

If it's a male, "Okay, I'm supposed to abuse the female."

If it's a female, "I'm supposed to be abused."

We're trying to break that cycle.

And so if they don't get the education at home, then we have to get it somewhere and I think school's a great place to do it.

So we try to do that as much as we can, assist in the school.

Gavin> Sheriff, how have you seen domestic violence maybe evolve in your time in law enforcement too, especially with social media?

Even sextortion is, it seems like it's kind of an aspect of all this that people don't really address as well.

But it's something that's becoming more and more on the scene here, too.

How do you see that changing, and what are some of the signs that maybe parents and teens and others should be on the lookout for before it's too late?

Sheriff Lott> Yeah, social media has been a game changer.

You know, every child has a phone and they stay on the social media all the time.

And so there's a lot of what you just said, sextortion, and there's a lot of bullying that goes on through social media.

And that domestic violence, again, it's not always physical.

It's also mentally.

And so you can mentally abuse somebody through social media and we see that.

So again, education plays a part with our kids.

You know, the bad things about social media.

You know, internet's great, can research anything you want to, but it's also a lot of bad stuff.

So we need to use that to our advantage more and reach out to our kids through social media and let them know, the rights and wrongs of being in a relationship.

Gavin> And kind of getting close to wrapping up here.

When you look at, obviously the education aspect, but switching maybe to the policy angle of all this, do you think more needs to be happening out of the Statehouse to help tackle this?

Obviously, we always talk about you can't necessarily always legislate your way out of these issues, but do you think that there needs to be any additional policies or additional moves or different approaches to help, you know, add some more tools to the arsenal?

What do you think more needs to be done?

Sheriff Lott> At home.

You know, we talked about the Statehouse a lot and, you know, we need to pass a law, but, you know, you gotta start at the home.

That's where the education starts.

So we have a lot of young parents that just don't know how to be parents.

I think we need more parents support group, more resources for our parents to learn how to be a parent.

And then, you know, it's not easy being a parent and there's difficult times, and they need someone that they can talk to, someone that's gonna give them advice.

So I think we need to do a better job through that.

And that can be done through the sheriff's department, that can be done through the schools or churches.

There's a lot of ways we can do that without turning to the Statehouse.

I think the Statehouse really supports fighting against domestic violence.

I've seen that over the years.

There's always more we can do.

There's always some things that we can tweak, but again, the home is where it all starts.

Gavin> Gotcha.

That's Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, thank you so much.

Sheriff Lott> Thank you.

> Monique Garvin is the Director of the Violence Against Women Act Programs and the State Human Trafficking Task Force at the South Carolina Attorney General's Office.

I asked her what current statistics and trends are showing us in the state.

> So I think the trends for domestic violence have continued to increase in many ways.

And then sometimes it's been pretty steady.

So it just really depends on the year.

But what we are seeing now, is that there has been an increase in the complexity of these crimes.

I think we saw a lot of that, particularly around the pandemic in 2020 when people were isolated in their homes.

And so we saw abusers really using some innovative tactics to really maintain that power and control.

And in South Carolina, because there is such a strict definition of domestic violence, it really gives us an opportunity to mostly focus on the domestic violence homicides that we see.

And while we know that those are the most extreme cases of domestic violence in South Carolina, it does give us an opportunity to understand what things have happened.

And it also gives us an opportunity to look at case reviews and reports so we can really see what things may have occurred prior to the abuse or prior to the homicide to help us understand domestic violence.

So nationally, we know that there are about 12 million people who are experiencing domestic violence each year, which is an incredibly large amount.

And given South Carolina's history with domestic violence and how we look across the state, we can make the assumption that many of those cases may be happening in our own backyard.

So, we have a silent witness ceremony that we host every year.

And so that allows us to look at domestic violence statistics.

And so last year we saw, I believe it was 40... 46 cases of domestic violence that were perpetrated and that resulted in homicide.

But since we have hosted this ceremony since 1998, we've seen anywhere between 40 and 51 victims who've lost their lives to domestic violence.

And this is not only looking at just the most extreme cases, but we're only looking at those who meet the household member definition.

And so that includes those who live together, formerly lived together, married, cohabitated, formerly cohabitated, or those who may have a child in common.

And so that really is just a very small percentage of those who may be in relationships.

It doesn't look at teens or those who may not live together.

We know that there is a high percentage of college students also experiencing abuse.

So I think when we try to understand the scope of it, it can sometimes be limiting.

But what I think is most important to realize is that behind every number that we see, there's a person, there's a family member, there is a community member who's been affected.

And our goal is to always to have fewer reports.

But really, the goal is to make sure that no other people are having to experience harm.

Gavin> Monique, you were talking about last year's Silent Witness ceremony, which is always a somber event at the Statehouse every October for Domestic Violence Awareness Month and looking at those folks and carrying those silhouettes of folks that lost their lives, the ones that we know about, like you said, the ones that you can verify that die by homicide in these situations.

But, what do you expect to see this year?

I know we're kind of having this early in the month, but do you know what the trend, unfortunately, is for the past year, or the most recent statistics for what this ceremony's gonna show?

Have we seen a decline at all or is it pretty much similar to what you've been experiencing?

Monique> So it's pretty consistent.

We will release those numbers next Tuesday at 10 a.m.

in the south steps at the Statehouse grounds.

But the numbers are pretty consistent.

I think that we've seen a consistent well, I wouldn't say increase, but a consistency across the state.

And I don't know if that is because, we are just consistently seeing the same types of abuse, but I think it's been pretty consistent across the state.

Gavin> And we looked at SLED numbers too.

I know, we did see a decrease actually, in intimate partner assaults from 2023 to 2024, where they dropped off from 27,700 to 25,700.

So, a slight decrease there in SLED reporting.

So, do you think maybe that's indicative of maybe some efforts to try and get some word out about, you know, intimate partner, you know, teen dating violence, dating violence, and intimate partner violence.

I mean, is that something that needs to break through?

Because that's really the first stop in many ways on the road to potential homicide in these situations.

Monique> Yes, absolutely.

So I think that the numbers do fluctuate.

I mean, even over the last almost 30 years that we've looked at the domestic violence homicides, the numbers do fluctuate and go up and down, I think until we can see a consistency across multiple years, what I really want to advocate that there are decreasing numbers of domestic violence incidents, particularly because there's so much that goes into data collection, you know, especially when you're talking about a very intimate household occurrence, those are just the ones who report it.

And so there really isn't enough evidence to verify that there's a decrease.

But what I will say, to your point, is that I do think there have been several efforts around the state that really contribute to the way that we understand and see domestic violence.

I know there's been a lot of legislative work around developing teen dating violence policies in our state because, as I mentioned, the household member only looks at those in those four categories.

And so looking at that and wanting to make sure that we are really capturing the scope of the crime, but also being in a position to prevent it from happening and holding offenders accountable earlier or not offenders, but those who perpetrate earlier.

So that it does not continue to increase in complexity and harm across our communities.

Gavin> And one interesting statistic that I saw from the Violence Policy Center, which tracks a lot of these unfortunate statistics, found that black women were murdered at a rate more than twice that of white women.

Is that something that we see here in South Carolina as well, that you can speak to?

Monique> So, we have consistently seen a disproportionate number of women of color, particularly black women, who are affected by this crime.

However, we also see that there is a disproportionate use of firearms when we're looking at domestic violence in this crime as well.

One of the limitations of the VPC report is it only looks at femicide rates, and the femicide rate is really looking at women who were killed by men in that report.

So it gives us again, a snapshot of what could be happening, but it doesn't tell the entire picture.

What we've been seeing is a steady increase in the number of male victimizations as well.

So I think that we have to really utilize all of our data resources to really understand the scope of the crime, because every part of every data collection or every data resource is telling a different part of the story.

That really helps us develop a comprehensive response to domestic violence.

> And when we talk about the drivers of domestic violence, I know, there's a lot of things that interact in different ways, especially from an individual level, to the relationship, to the social and societal levels, but one main factor that I kind of see that crosses through a lot of those has to do with economic stability within the relationship and also just money at large.

So I'm wondering, like anecdotally, especially with how things are going with the economy and with the affordability issues that we continue to hear about, and though our job market's strong, I'm just wondering, do you see any of that playing a factor in some of this anecdotally, in terms of if we're seeing an increase, if we're seeing some more things happen just because money is tighter in some of these situations?

> I think money can certainly be one aspect of why people harm or exploit other people.

I don't think it provides a full picture of what is occurring because ultimately, I mean, abuse is really about power and control.

And so while financial piece may be one aspect of how that abuse and control is perpetrated, it isn't the only one.

We know that there's physical, there's emotional, there's psychological.

But I have spoken with victims who have told me personally that they were experiencing not the other forms of abuse, but the financial component.

And a lot of that really resulted in the abuser looking to prohibit them from leaving.

And so they wanted to perpetrate that crime.

So they wanted to ruin their credit, their reputation, get cars or homes in their name so that when they wanted to leave, they had limited access.

They weren't able to actually pursue that.

But I certainly believe that financial abuse is not really always considered part of domestic violence, it's sort of seen as separate.

And so part of our work across the state is to really understand, help people understand that there are multiple ways in which abuse and control can occur, and being able to identify those earlier signs like financial abuse or emotional abuse, can really result in us not seeing those more harmful or more detrimental or lethal forms of violence.

So I think that's critical to understanding domestic violence and I can certainly see how the current conditions of our society can exasperate those things.

But I think it's also important to keep that as part of the broader picture of how it occurs.

Gavin> And that being said, Monique, when we look at those warning signs and maybe it's a slow creep of something happening, kind of walk people through what those warning signs look like, how it could be translated one way or the other, people are maybe trying to say, "Oh, just text a lot" or something like that.

I mean, what warning signs do you think people don't clock and that they need to be aware of before it spirals?

Monique> So interesting that you asked me this because I actually went to a local high school recently, and I had an opportunity to talk to youth about domestic violence and not even domestic violence, just safety and healthy relationships.

And it was astonishing just the number of perceptions that they had about relationships and what it looks like to navigate those relationships.

I think for young people particularly, there is an influence from social media and other forms of entertainment and movies and music that really shape and inform how they understand relationships, whether they're healthy or not.

And it's also interesting because it gave them an opportunity to assess their own unhealthy behaviors while they aren't being abusive, but just even assessing how they're interacting in their environment.

So I think it's education that has to happen across the lifespan, both male and female.

But, what I oftentimes talk about when we're thinking about domestic violence and how it's perpetrated is that abusers don't always start out abusive.

They genuinely are kind, they seem healthy, they have a lot of what people call green flags, they're nice, they are generous, they're trustworthy.

But over time, we see a slow shift of that behavior.

And so you may hear words or phrases like, you know, "I'm the only person who will love you."

We may see insults or demeaning behavior or words, controlling finances, as we mentioned earlier, pressuring them to use drugs or alcohol.

And there's lots of ways in which we can identify that.

And they're gonna use very innovative ways anyway.

But what I think is really at the core of the conversation around abuse and healthy relationship is consent, and if someone is pressuring you to do something or that you don't feel comfortable doing and they don't give you an opportunity to say no without retaliation, that to me is an indicator, that to me is a red flag, not just for domestic violence, but for sexual assault too, because we know those two things oftentimes can work hand in hand.

And so I think consent is at the core of the conversation as well as boundaries in communication.

Gavin> And really quick, Monique, what would be a good resource for folks to turn to if they want more information about this?

Monique> Yes.

If they want more information, they always can contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

We also have partners, SCCADVASA, the South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault for resources, SCVAN, as well as our office, who provides training to law enforcement and community members alike.

So there are a plethora of resources in the state, DV organizations, that anyone can have access to.

If you want more information, you can certainly reach out to those specific organizations for help.

Gavin> Well, thanks, Monique.

That's Monique Garvin, the Director of the Violence Against Women Act programs and the State Human Trafficking Task Force at the South Carolina Attorney General's Office.

Thanks as always.

<Thank you> You can find this report and more at YouTube.com/@SCETVNews.

For South Carolina ETV, I'm Gavin Jackson, be well South Carolina.

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