‘We can’t ever forget’
Canonsburg Mayor David Rhome addresses the crowd.
Lisa Hannum, director of Domestic Violence Services of Southwestern Pennsylvania, addresses a crowd of people Saturday morning during a rally against domestic violence held in the Canonsburg Borough meeting room.
Alexandra Brooks, prevention education coordinator for Domestic Violence Services of Southwestern Pennsylvania, speaks Saturday morning during a domestic violence rally in Canonsburg.
CANONSBURG – Purple shirts, ribbons and balloons filled the Canonsburg Borough meeting room Saturday morning during a standing-room-only rally against domestic violence.
“I’m so touched to see so many people in this room,” said Alexandra Brooks, prevention education coordinator for Domestic Violence Services of Southwestern Pennsylvania. “We need a societal shift in how we talk about domestic violence.”
The “A Call to Action, A Call for Peace” rally was held just nine days after Dalia Sabae, 28, of Canonsburg, who was five months pregnant,was killed by her estranged husband, Michael Cwiklinski. Cwiklinski also shot and killed Canonsburg police Officer Scott Bashioum and wounded Officer James Saivea before killing himself Nov. 10, after police responded to the call of a domestic incident at their Woodcrest Avenue duplex.
“We can’t ever forget what happened to Dalia and her unborn child,” said Kristen Clingerman, assistant district attorney of Washington County.
Sabae’s death marks the third time in 13 months a Washington County woman was killed by her estranged husband.
Clingerman gave a statistic that from 2001 to 2012, 6,488 American troops died in Afghanistan and Iraq, but within that same timeframe, 11,767 American women were killed in domestic violence incidents.
“There is so much more progress we need to make,” Clingerman said.
One woman in the crowd asked Clingerman if protection-from-abuse orders did more harm than good for victims of abuse, because often times they anger the abuser. Sabae had sought PFA orders twice, including once after her estranged husband hit her in the head with a heavy bagful of cans at a grocery store last year.
Clingerman responded by saying that protection orders do work, in that they give police the power to make immediate arrests, but they aren’t the end-all solution to the issue of domestic violence.
“It’s just the beginning step of the war we have to fight,” she said. “It was a step that Dalia had to take. Our biggest weapon in this community is education.”
Brooks said education is the reason she organized the rally. After the tragic events last week, she saw several posts on social media that blamed victims for domestic violence, and said the rally would be an opportunity to educate people about domestic violence and to promote her organization’s services, abuse hotline and shelter for people who are being abused.
“Unfortunately, when people die- that’s when the community comes together,” she said. “What’s even more important is to do this throughout the year. We need to be proactive and stop domestic violence before it happens.”
Brooks said that from July 2015 to June 2016, Domestic Violence Services of Southwestern Pennsylvania received more than 1,100 domestic violence-related hotline calls within Washington, Fayette and Greene counties, and filed 979 PFAs.
“This is something that happens across the country and doesn’t discriminate among neighbors,” she said.
Canonsburg Mayor David Rhome, who attended the rally, said that it was part of the community’s grieving process and to “bring the people of our community together to start some normalcy in their lives.”
Rhome said the message from the rally is for people suffering from domestic violence to “reach out.”
“As everyone has tried to explain, there is help, and with that is hope,” he said. “Let us guide you through your next steps.”