By Amanda Goodman | 3TV | Read the original article (external site)
Mesa police say a man was attacked and killed after confronting another man during an alleged domestic violence situation. It happened on Sunday at an apartment complex on Country Club Driver near Rio Salado Parkway.
Mesa police said they had been to the apartment earlier in the day after a 911 hang-up call and would have arrested the suspect, but they didn’t because the victim initially denied there had been a physical fight.
Domestic violence advocates say there are many reasons why victims might not be forthcoming with police. One of the biggest ones is fear.
“It is fear, it is also kind of the realization that if they’re on their own, financial reasons if there are children, where am I going to go? So lots of reasons, cultural reasons, maybe there’s pressure on her to make this relationship work,” said Dr. Maria Garay, CEO of Sojourner Center.
She said when police respond to domestic violence calls, it is very common for victims to clam up and not tell officers what is really going on.
It is a scenario Mesa police say they encountered on Sunday.
“Both parties stated that it was just a verbal argument and there was no physical contact between her and him at that time,” Detective Esteban Flores said.
The detective said because of that and because there were no obvious signs of abuse, all the officers could do on Sunday was ask Abraham Perez to leave the apartment he shared with his girlfriend in order to cool off.
Perez, police said, would eventually return with a weapon.
“At that time, the neighbors were going down to confront him again about him being in an argument or injuring his girlfriend at that time and that’s when the attack took place,” Flores said.
Police said Perez attacked one of those neighbors, a man named Mike Madril, with knife, killing him.
Later the victim would recant her original story.
“Said that she had been abused the first time and didn’t tell the officers when they first responded,” Flores said.
Had she done so, Flores said they would have been able to arrest Perez.
“We don’t know how much she was threatened prior to the police knocking,” Garay said.
Garay said this case exemplifies just how dangerous domestic violence situations can be.
Her advice for anyone thinking about intervening, be very careful so as to not put yourself in harm’s way and for victims she points out there are a lot of resources at Sojourner Center, both emergency and long term, available to help them get out of the abusive situation.
Garay said as tragic as this case is, she hopes it can serve as an opportunity to turn this loss into a lesson we can all learn from.
“This is another opportunity for us to look at what happened here and what can we do to do better as a community because it’s not one entity that’s going to help us address this issue, it’s all of us together,” she said.
Perez was caught a couple of hours after the stabbing. He is now facing first-degree murder and domestic violence charges.