Sexual Abuse & Domestic Violence

U.S. Attorney General William Barr said he plans to see for himself the hardship crime imposes in rural Alaska.

“I think Alaska Native women, you know, face unacceptably high levels of violence in very remote areas, and I’ve actually scheduled a trip up to Alaska specifically to visit some of these communities,” Barr said in response to questions from Sen. Lisa Murkowski at an appropriations hearing.

Barr called for creative and effective solutions to help a “vulnerable population.”

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a bill that takes a new approach by essentially establishing pockets of “Indian country” in Alaska, at least on a trial basis. The renewal of the Violence Against Women Act would empower tribal courts in up to five Alaska villages to take up cases of domestic abuse and other violent crimes, even where the suspect is non-Native. An amendment by Congressman Don Young strengthened the proposed pilot program by saying the jurisdiction should be over an entire village.

The Senate has not voted on the VAWA renewal bill yet. Barr provided no detail about the timing or the itinerary of his upcoming trip.

Alaska tribal courts could get a power boost if Congress passes a bill to renew the Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA.

The bill would allow up to five Alaska tribes territorial jurisdiction in their villages to prosecute crimes like domestic assault, sexual violence and stalking, whether the accused is a tribal member or not.

Congressman Don Young spoke on the House floor in favor of the Alaska pilot program. He cited grim statistics, saying women in Alaska Native villages suffer the highest sexual abuse rates in the nation.

“Yet Native villages currently lack any efficient tools to criminally prosecute the offenders,” he said.

Tribal courts are already taking domestic violence cases, but jurisdiction can be tricky. That’s because, with one exception, Alaska tribes don’t have reservations, or specific geographic areas where their laws apply.

The VAWA bill aims to solve that, at least experimentally. Tribes participating in the pilot program would get “Indian country” jurisdiction, like Lower 48 tribes have over reservations, to enforce VAWA crimes.

The version of the bill that reached the House floor previously said jurisdiction would be limited to certain lands owned by Alaska Natives, or Native groups. Young submitted an amendment to expand the area.

“My amendment would add jurisdiction of all lands inside Alaska Native villages, to cover where the majority of violence actually occurs,” he said.

Young’s amendment passed. It says, for the pilot project, a tribe can have jurisdiction over a village that is at least 75% Alaska Native.

Kenai attorney Andy Pevehouse foresees a problem.

“The question is, does the village have a defined border?” he asked.

Pevehouse represents a former Togiak resident, a non-Native man named Ronald Oertwich. By the authority of Togiak tribal court, Oertwich was banished from the community in 2017, allegedly for bootlegging whiskey. Last week, Pevehouse filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of Oertwich, against the village, the tribal judges, the city of Togiak and the state. Pevehouse disputes the Togiak tribal court had the authority to prosecute his client.

“If the tribe can assert jurisdiction absent geography or membership, then where does the tribe’s jurisdiction stop?” he asked.

The tribe has not yet responded to the lawsuit, and its attorney did not answer an interview request.

On Thursday, the House passed the VAWA reauthorization bill by a 263-158 vote. Young was among the 33 House Republicans who voted in favor of the bill.

The fate of VAWA now rests with the Senate.

A new report released Monday substantiates major problems at Alaska’s only psychiatric hospital.

The state Ombudsman’s Office conducted an investigation into complaints about treatment of patients at the Alaska Psychiatric Institute in Anchorage.

“In this case, the evidence did support the allegations that API was not acting to prevent or mitigate violence toward patients from staff or other patients,” said Alaska State Ombudsman Kate Burkhart.

The investigation was prompted by complaints in June 2018 by a hospital safety officer warning that API staff members were excessively restraining and isolating patients, as well as using force in ways that are unlawful under the facility’s own guidelines. Since 2015, Burkhart’s office has received 42 complaints about API, 31 percent of them related to patient neglect and mistreatment.

“There were significant instances where staff caused harm to patients, where patients caused harm to other patients, and API did not respond proactively to prevent or to mitigate the results of that harm,” Burkhart said.

There were other findings that the use of seclusion and restraint were used in situations where there wasn’t an imminent threat to safety.

“That is impermissible under federal law and API policy,” Burkhart added.

The report is comprised of interviews with staff over several months, as well as an extensive review of documents. It details upsetting incidents, such as one patient sexually assaulting another in view of a nursing station. The report documents how employees mishandled procedures for dealing with those cases after the fact.

This report comes several months after a different investigation looked into unsafe working conditions for staff at API. That document was released by a private law group, and it found significant problems faced by employees at the facility connected to under-staffing, inconsistent training and taxing work loads.

Burkhart’s office made 11 recommendations to the state’s Department of Health and Social Services, which oversees API.

In February, the Dunleavy administration introduced a plan that could eventually privatize the facility. Burkhart said her office began its investigation prior to that decision, and that the report’s recommendations could be incorporated regardless of who is managing the facility.

There’s a new group in Homer just for men. The Homer Men’s Leadership Forum began late last year in part to address concerns brought up by the #MeToo movement.

The leader of the group hopes the discussions will attract men from all different parts of the community to talk about issues such as toxic masculinity. He hasn’t achieved that goal yet, but he’s going to keep trying.

On a Saturday morning at the Kachemak Gun Club and Range, about 10 guys are taking turns aiming at clay pigeons. The Homer Men’s Leadership Forum is putting on the event partly to encourage more men to get involved in the group. But some, like Doug Koester, have been a part of it since the beginning.

“Well so far, it’s been really great for me just to get together with people and maybe talk about things that are a little bit outside of the ‘man box’ that often society or social norms put us in,” he said.

He added that the group doesn’t have an agenda, and mostly he enjoys having a place to talk with other guys without judgment. Still, he’s passionate about discussing certain topics. Koester works for the domestic violence shelter in town.

“For me, that’s what I love to talk about, is like what is our role as men in our society, and why is (it) sometimes men perpetuating that violence,” he said.

Addressing that is one of the reasons that Erik Schreier began the group. He said he wanted to address issues raised by the #MeToo movement.

“Some people in my sphere had been asking me for advice — men and women — on relating to each other, and how men are relating to themselves and men and boys in the community and at large in society,” Schreier said.

He said his goal was to get different men together to start a dialogue about change. At the first meeting, about 15 guys showed up. Schreier showed a TED Talk about consent and “locker room talk.”

“It was great,” Schreier said. “It was a huge outpouring of guys coming together, talking about it. Some guys were confused. Some guys were like, ‘I don’t want to feel bad for being a guy. I don’t think I’ve ever done this, and here I’m being kind of vilified for being a man.’ So that’s fine. Let’s talk about it.”

Now about a handful of men attend the monthly discussions, and topics range from artificial intelligence to self-care. But most of the attendees are like Koester and are already committed to addressing issues of toxic masculinity.

“It’s like the guys who really need to talk about this stuff aren’t in here,” Schreier said.

That’s partly why he’s expanding the group beyond just discussions into monthly activities like volunteering and the shooting event at the gun range. Schreier said that event was successful at getting a variety of folks involved.

“(I came to) meet up with other guys and shoot a little bit,” John Carrico said at the range. “Haven’t been out to the range in about three and a half years, and it sounded like a good time.”

Carrico has volunteered with the men’s leadership group but has never gone to a discussion. He said he’s not sure he’ll attend one and doesn’t know if it’s important to have a space for men to be vulnerable.

“I think that friendships do a lot of that,” he said. “To go outside of that circle takes a little bit of trust.”

Schreier said the shooting event didn’t inspire any new members to join the last discussion group, but he partly blames the low attendance on lack of advertising. He adds that words like “vulnerability” and “feelings” usually turn guys off. But he said he’s happy with the regulars in the group and believes they are effecting positive change.

Still, he’s trying to figure out the magical words to get more men to come.

“Free coffee,” he said, laughing. “I try to get the guys to just want to come together and hang out. I want to let them know that there’s no obligation. You don’t have to come and hold hands and cry. We’re not trying to do that. Not a requirement.”

He said if his group just inspires one guy to make a change, it’s a success.

Senators are weighing a bill that would make a series of changes in response to an infamous case in Anchorage that involved sexual misconduct and physical assault but resulted in no time in prison.

Soldotna Republican Sen. Peter Micciche, the bill sponsor, said the measure would prevent a case like that of Justin Schneider from happening again.

“The public was — and most of us were — just so disturbed by the fact that that could occur today in this state, (which is) number one in the nation for sexual assaults,” he said.

Senate Bill 12 would include actions similar to Schneider’s as a sex crime, adding unwanted contact with certain bodily fluids as a crime, and it would require that people convicted of similar offenses register as sex offenders. The bill increases the penalty for knowingly causing another person to become unconscious by means which could include strangulation. It would no longer allow jail-time credit for for pretrial electronic monitoring for crimes against a person. It also would require formal consultation with victims on plea agreements.

In August 2017, Schneider drove a woman a short distance. After he stopped and she walked away, the woman reported to police that he tackled her and choked her to the point of unconsciousness before masturbating on her.

Schneider pleaded guilty to assault and served a year with electronic monitoring, without going to jail. Public outrage over the lack of jail time led to then-Judge Michael Corey losing his retention election.

Corey called in to testify in favor of the bill.

“I followed the law as it was, as I was required by my oath,” he said. “And quite frankly, I was crucified for it.”

The provision to end pretrial credit for electronic monitoring for some crimes would partially repeal a law the Legislature passed four years ago by wide margins.

Sterling resident Marie McConnell testified against this provision. She said people being monitored face significant restrictions and pay large fines.

“Ankle monitoring is a severe reduction in freedom and liberties,” she said. “It is a form of punishment. It’s like the adult version of being grounded as a kid, with costs.”

The Senate Finance Committee discussed the bill on Monday and will consider it again at a future meeting. The Senate Judiciary Committee has already advanced the measure.

Watch the latest legislative coverage from Gavel Alaska:

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Tarah Hargrove stands before a massive painting. One side is dominated by gray cinder blocks and stencils of guns, the other by a yellow sky filled with birds. And in the center is a giant portrait of Hargrove herself. Her chin is lifted, and she looks defiantly at the viewer, magenta radiating from her hair.

“So my inner narcissist was like, ‘Yay! My face!” Hargrove said, laughing about her first impression of the four-panel mural painted by University of Alaska Anchorage students. Though she’s lighthearted, she knows that sharing her story — her truth — through the artwork is essential.

Last fall she was invited by a professor, Steve Gordon, to tell a group of beginning art students about her life. She started with her unstable childhood: Her abusive stepfather had substance misuse problems, she was raped and she attempted suicide. Despite that, as a young adult she did well in school, started her own business and helped raise her younger sister.

Things got rocky again in her early 20s, and eventually she started using and selling street drugs and ended up in prison. Hargrove said she feels like being open and honest about her decisions, both good and bad, has ripple effects.

“When we’re being honest, and we’re being vulnerable, and we’re being intimate — intimacy is the key to having connection,” she said. And through those connections, people are more likely to care about others and take time to stop and help people. To engage with them.

Hargrove wasn’t always so willing to engage with others or with herself. She said her turning point is illustrated on the mural with the overlapping, seemingly endless images of guns. Before going to prison, she was violently beaten by her ex-boyfriend.

“Like, I got my ass beat so bad it changed my life,” she explained. “And my gun was involved. It was my gun that they used on me, on my head. So it was, I mean, it’s kind of pinnacle (for me).”

She permanently lost hearing in one ear and realized she needed a dramatic change in her life. When she went to prison, she participated in different programs that helped her deconstruct the way she looked at the world and start her path to recovery. She said she started removing the layers of dishonesty and bitterness she used to justify her actions. She wanted to be candid and straightforward.

And those are some of the traits that struck Arlitia Jones when the two women first met for the mural project. Jones is a playwright who took the nighttime art class at UAA because she wanted to learn to paint. She thought she’d be painting flowers and still lifes, not someone’s intimate story of trauma. It made her nervous because she wasn’t sure someone could be truly open about their difficult past.

Jones said Hargrove was not what she expected. “My first reaction to Tarah was when she walked in and I saw this woman, I was like, ‘Wow. That woman doesn’t look like she’s had anything happen. She’s very physically beautiful, and so strong.’”

And then Hargrove opened up about her story and laid out all of the details.

Meeting Hargrove made Jones re-evaluate some of the assumptions she makes about people and their life experiences.

“Now walking around, I’m not going to say that, ‘Oh, I never judge people anymore,’ because I do. Every day,” Jones said. “But just there’s this little voice in the back like, ‘Wait a minute, you know, you don’t know that whole story and how we cover up.’”

Jones said she hopes that when people see the mural, they’ll see Hargrove’s strength and determination. That she has to work hard every day to keep her relationships strong and to care for her daughter, but that she’s doing it. Her story, like the painting, has moved from dark to light.

Hargrove wants people who see the piece to think about all of the young people they meet.

“So you’re going to Christmas and there’s like that one kid who acts like an a˗˗˗˗˗˗, and you’re like, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ There’s probably something really wrong with them,” Hargrove said.

She asks that people don’t just write the kid off — like adults did with her.

Hargrove never says her life was hard. She likens her experiences to special access to extra information about the world that helps her connect with others.

“I’m not trying to be like, ‘The quality of my life is better than other people’s,’ but the quality of my life is better than other people’s,” she said matter-of-factly. “Because I’m aware, and I get to love people for real. I have no qualms about that.” She said she’ll take extra steps to help people, even if others judge her for it.

The two women hope this mural and the six others that will be on display around town will change perceptions about the effects of childhood trauma. Because if people receive love and support, their stories don’t have to end with more pain. They can begin again — with hope.

The murals will be on display from Feb. 8 to March 8 by the Downtown Transit Center in Anchorage. In April, they’ll be at the Loussac Library before moving to the Mat-Su Health Foundation in May.