19-year-old San Diego City College student Diana Gonzalez was found dead in a campus men’s room nearly a week ago. The prime suspect—unsurprisingly—is her husband of nine months, Armando Gabriel Perez, who has apparently fled to Mexico.
I hate stories like this where escalating domestic violence leads to death. I mean, divorce isn’t pleasant and it isn’t fun, but it’s certainly better than laying dead beside a toilet or finding refuge in a country that masses of people try to escape from …
… every day.
And as Ted Hughes can tell you, sometimes marriages just aren’t meant to work out.
While a warrant has been issued for Perez’s arrest and he faces a hefty prison term if found, it’s frustrating that nobody saw this coming and took preventative action.
Gonzalez had filed for a temporary restraining order against her husband of nine months on Sept. 28 after she told police that he kidnapped, assaulted and raped her over a three-day period.
She told investigators that he ambushed her at her car parked just north of campus the night of Sept. 21 and choked her before kidnapping her. He allegedly held her captive in motels for three days, raping her and threatening to kill her, before letting her go home to her parents in National City. She tried to escape once, but he caught up with her and threatened her, according to the police report
Wow. And while Perez was jailed for a few days, the D.A. decided not to file charges against him (and believe me when I say that I’m getting a little bit tired of D.A.s caring more about their win-loss record than in doing what’s right).
Gonzalez did receive a temporary restraining order against her husband, but it clearly wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on.
And what’s really scary is that this was a recurring theme with this guy.
Perez’s ex-wife had also accused him of domestic violence in February 2009, just months before their divorce was final.
Olga Vera-Perez claimed he choked her and threw her against an entertainment center during an argument over $500, according to court documents.
Perez was charged two months later with battery, but it was dismissed this year, in April, for unknown reasons.
Yeah, Armando Perez was a ticking time bomb. He’d recently been fired from Montbleau and Associates, where he worked as a cabinet maker for fourteen years. He had obligations to both his 10-month-old daughter with Diana Gonzalez and the two children from his marriage to Olga Vera-Perez.
A man with a history of violence, in particular of resorting to using his hands against women he’s intimate with, should never have been allowed the opportunity to stab to death a woman who had gone through the system to obtain a restraining order.
Sadly this happens all the time–to give one of thousands of examples, the very same thing happened on the other side of the country to New Hampshire’s Melissa Charbonneau. Tragic.
There is something very, very wrong with our system.
I have never come across anything as useless as a restraining order, ever.
I wholeheartedly agree. There is nothing anyone can do to make a dangerous stalker leave them alone in this country. They just have to wait to be harmed before anything will be done, and by then it might not matter anymore because the victim could very well be dead.
A violent offender will walk right through a restraining order. I suppose they work for nonviolent weirdo stalkers, but a lot of stalkers become violent anyway so even then I don’t think they work all that well.
Not to mention restraining orders can simply enraged people making them even more likely to become violent towards the person who dared to publicly reject them and bash their good name to the police to get said restraining order, I’ve seen it happen.
In this case, it wasn’t the restraining order that did it. He hadn’t even been served yet. But in other cases it’s been the catalyst, definitely.
The DA in this case pisses me off so much. I hope this keeps him up at night.
What is the point of this “article”?
It is not informational or insightful; in fact, it suggests that the suspect killed the victim due to a piece of paper. Restraining orders don’t kill people. People kill people.
Anyone versed in domestic violence issues knows that the most dangerous time for a victim is when she/he leaves the relationship, regardless of whether they also go through the steps of getting a restraining order. It’s the loss of control over the relationship that incites violence, not the restraining order.
@Blue: Uh, reading comprehension fail? I believe Katie was expressing displeasure with the police for letting this guy go on his merry way. You’re right, it has nothing to do with the restraining order; restraining orders mean nothing to a psycho hell bent of maintaining control.
@Erin, no comprehension fail on my part. The title “Death by Restraining Order” said it all.
The police arrested him; they did not let him “go on his merry way” — he was not arraigned on charges (for reasons none of us know) within 3 court days, so he was released. thems the rules.
If the article is about the author expressing displeasure about the DA not filing charges, it’s not insightful, as I stated. No one knows the details of the underlying incident or why the DA decided not to file charges at that time. Until we know more about the whole situation, what happened to Ms. Gonzalez is a tragedy. Pointing fingers at anyone other than the killer is not constructive.
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