Earlier this week, a gunman in Florida shot and killed his wife, Liazan Molina, outside of the restaurant where she worked, according to the Associated Press. He then went inside and shot at six other women, killing three and injuring the others. When he was finished, he drove away and apparently committed suicide.
Many news stories about the mass murder have run with the headline that the shooter, Gerardo Regalado, is the half brother of popular former Major League pitcher, Orlando ‘El Duque’ Hernandez. But that is not the most relevant fact. What is relevant: police say the shooter bypassed the men in the restaurant and targeted only women as his victims.
According to the Miami Herald, Molina had left Regalado and started a new job. She was murdered after her second day working at the Yoyito Café-Restaurant in Hialeah. Neighbors told the Herald Regalado was sad about the breakup and had stopped eating. Last week he posted several messages to Molina on her Facebook page.
The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence reports approximately one-third of female homicide victims that are reported in police records are killed by an intimate partner. And, the U.S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that a similar percentage of workplace fatalities of women were caused by interpersonal assaults.
The mainstream media may not cover the domestic violence angle in this case but the signs are there. Seventy-five percent of domestic violence homicides occur during or after a victim has left the abuser. Learn more about domestic violence and its impact on the workplace from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence.
And, for a compelling read on the media’s failure to report on the role of gender and misogyny in crime, read Jennifer Pozner’s article, “From Jonesboro to Virginia Tech – sexism is fatal, but media miss the story.” Pozner wrote (back in 2007), “Journalists could be doing a real service to the culture by focusing on the often-gendered nature of mass violence in America, and by seeking out anti-violence experts who could contextualize these crimes and could offer solutions and strategies for eradicating (or, at least, reducing) this kind of grave violence. Unfortunately, this is not happening.”
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