Eight kids had been killed in home violence incidents throughout Colorado in 2024 — the best quantity because the state started monitoring annual home violence deaths eight years in the past, in response to a report launched Tuesday by the Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board.
The youngest baby to die was 3-month-old Lesley Younghee Kim, who was discovered useless together with her mortally injured mom in a Denver residence in July 2024.
The oldest had been every 7. They embody Jessi Hill, whose father killed her and her 3-year-old sister, Summer season, earlier than dying by suicide in January 2024, in addition to 7-year-olds Dane Timms and Tristan Rael. The remaining kids who died had been toddlers: Xander Martinez-King, 1, Xena Martinez-King, 2, and Aaliyah Vargas-Reyes, 1.
“It’s a wakeup name, I hope, for folks in Colorado,” stated Whitney Woods, government director of the Rose Andom Center, which helped compile the board’s report. “It is a actual drawback.”
Seventy-two folks died in home violence incidents statewide in 2024. That’s up 24% from the 58 domestic violence deaths in 2023 however stays beneath pandemic-era peaks, when 94 people died in 2022 and 92 people died in 2021.
The pandemic years additionally noticed elevated numbers of youngsters killed, with 4 kids killed in 2021 and 6 in 2022. Throughout the opposite years, not more than three kids died in any given yr, the board’s studies present.
5 of the eight kids killed in 2024 died amid custody disputes between their dad and mom, the report discovered.
“These findings spotlight custody litigation as a high-risk interval for households experiencing home violence and level to the pressing want for stronger safeguards inside household courtroom proceedings,” the report concluded. The legislatively-mandated board, chaired by Colorado Legal professional Normal Phil Weiser, started monitoring home violence statewide in 2017 and makes annual suggestions for coverage adjustments aimed toward stopping deaths.
The fatality overview board final yr advisable that the state’s baby and household investigators and parental duties evaluators undergo coaching on home violence, notably round understanding the dynamics of home violence and the best way to consider the chance of lethality in the course of the custody course of. The Colorado Judicial Department continues to be growing such coaching, with work persevering with in 2026, the report famous.
“That’s to my thoughts a name to motion,” Weiser stated. “And we’re working with the courtroom system on this proper now — how will we be sure our household courts and the overall system for addressing home violence offers safety, assist, providers, in order that we don’t see these deaths occur?”
The rise in home violence deaths got here even as statewide homicides declined 17% to a five-year low. Roughly one in six murder victims in Colorado in 2024 died throughout home violence incidents. Home violence victims account for 18% of all murder victims statewide, the best proportion in 5 years, the annual overview discovered.
“That’s actually alarming on this line of labor, for us,” Woods stated.
The rise in home violence homicides amid the drop in general homicides “means that whereas broader public security interventions could also be decreasing normal violence, they aren’t having the identical affect on (home violence fatalities),” the report discovered.
The rise additionally comes at a time when many organizations aimed toward stopping home violence and supporting survivors are going through funding shortfalls and uncertainty, Woods famous.
Among the many 72 folks killed in 2024, 38 had been victims of home violence, 26 had been perpetrators of home violence and eight — all the kids — had been thought of ‘collateral victims.’ The victims had been overwhelmingly feminine and the perpetrators overwhelmingly male.
Throughout all 72 deaths, weapons had been used 75% of the time. The second most typical sort of assault was asphyxiation, which was concerned in 8% of all deaths, adopted by a knife or sharp object, utilized in 7% of deaths.
“Sometimes, folks will make feedback like, ‘If somebody needs to kill somebody they will kill them with a knife,’” Weiser stated. “I feel it’s honest to say entry to firearms makes it much more seemingly {that a} home violence perpetrator will kill someone.”
Eradicating weapons from a suspect when home violence begins will be an efficient prevention technique, Woods stated.
The report makes quite a lot of suggestions aimed toward stopping home violence deaths, together with passing a brand new state legislation that might require law enforcement officials to take weapons (these in plain sight or found throughout a lawful search) from home violence suspects on the time of arrest and maintain onto these weapons for 48 hours or till the suspect first seems in courtroom. Suspects might then retrieve their weapons in the event that they had been allowed to legally posses them.
“By empowering officers to disarm abusers instantly on the scene, the proposed legislation would offer pressing safety for victims and responding officers, create a interval to scale back the possibility of deadly escalation, and supply a instrument for legislation enforcement to fill the relinquishment hole,” the report reads.
The report additionally recommends adjusting Colorado’s legal guidelines round third-degree assault, suggests legislation enforcement ought to give assets to each folks concerned in a home violence incident even when there’s not sufficient proof to make an arrest, and widening the scope of fabric gathered by native fatality overview boards.
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