The Sycamore community was rocked last week with a cowardly act of violence. Lidia Juarez was killed at the Illinois Department of Human Services, her workplace, by her estranged husband, Antonio Juarez. This was the first homicide in Sycamore since 2012.
Lidia was a long-time employee of the Department of Human Services and was loved by many in the community as she served the most vulnerable in our society. Later the same day, Antonio Juarez was killed in a shootout with police in Lyon.
While this murder is extremely tragic, there is a deep problem at the root: domestic violence. Mr. Juarez pleaded guilty to domestic battery charges a couple of year ago and had violated two orders of protection since then. In my humble opinion the judicial system failed Lidia and her family.
According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, every 9 seconds in the U.S. a woman is assaulted. Domestic violence is not limited by age, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, gender, or race.
On January 27 this year, the President signed an executive order – which has been shot down by three federal courts -- banning travel into the United States from six mostly Muslim countries, claiming an imminent threat to our national security from a relatively small number of people.
Instead, why not address the most imminent threat to the majority of Americans? Women make up more than 50% of the U.S. population.
Why not use the power of Executive Orders to protect women? Foreign terrorism is not the greatest threat to women in America; domestic violence is.
I’m Joe Mitchell, and this is my perspective.
