Robert D Reed Publishers
FROM LOVE TO FEAR: The Chilling Truth about Men Who Abuse Women and How to Assist Their Escape
WOMEN'S LIVES MATTER
Also available as a Kindle eBook for $8.99
The opening Chapter of FROM LOVE TO FEAR reveals how very prevalent domestic violence is within the United States. While a woman is murdered by her husband or boyfriend every three to four hours of each day, domestic perpetrators frequently commit mass murder as well. Such casualties often include children, family members, and friends who try to protect her, and even the police who at times let their guard down.
Chapters 2 and 3 not only discloses that all batterers are not all one and the same relative to their traits, behaviors, psychopathology, frequency of abuse, potential lethality, and the ability to respond to treatment, the chapters also provide readers with comprehensive methodologies in determining the specific type of batterer they are addressing. What is called the BLAME (Batterer Lethality Assessment Model Evaluator) (see image) places domestic batterers into 3 specific groups: Category One Situational Offender, Category Two Sporadic Batterer, and the Category Three Serial Batterer; Category One being the least dangerous, while Category Three is the most dangerous.
Chapter 4 discusses and explores the many forms of treatment available for men who abuse their intimate partners, and refutes the theory that batterer intervention programs and other forms of treatment are effective in changing the violent behaviors of most domestic batterers. It also describes and discusses in detail the widely accepted myths that associate domestic violence with learned behavior, substance abuse, stress, socio-economics, and anger management issues. It also debunks defense attorneys who often claim that a domestic murder is a crime of passion.
Chapters 5, 6 and 7, provide readers, particularly the police, judicial authorities, medical professionals, shelters workers, and therapists with the Best Practices to employ in addressing domestic perpetrators and the victims they abuse. These chapters are extremely prescriptive in content and can be used by any and all professionals (and non-professionals) as a training tool in addressing such crimes of abuse.
Finally, the last 2 chapters, both 8 and 9, explain why many women choose to stay in such relationships and a detailed safety plan for those who want to get out. It also reveals the catastrophic emotional damage children experience after being exposed to domestic war zones and how to best prevent them from becoming future perpetrators and future victims themselves.
EPILOGUE
As I drove through the streets of New Orleans, the city in which I was born, the piercing sounds of silence penetrated the stillness of night. Only 12 hours earlier, a man had emerged within the pretense of religion, and intentionally plowed his truck into a sea of people walking in the famed French Quarter. In the aftermath, 14 people were killed and dozens injured—innocent victims who found themselves caught within the inner rage of a relentless killer. They were celebrating the onset of 2025. It was New Year's Day.
It was later reported that the violent perpetrator was a man who used his extremist ideologies to justify his killings. It was also reported that prior to his incomprehensible wrath, the assailant had pondered the murder of his own family. Instead, he released his internal fury onto people he didn’t even know, and he was then shot and killed by the police.
While the perpetrator’s traits and behaviors may appear similar to many of the men profiled within the content of this book, there are also differences. Like victims of domestic violence, however, the end result is often the same: mass casualties by men who seek to consume the bodies and souls of others. May God bless the victims; may God bless those families who now suffer within the darkness of eternal grief.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Author Michael Groetsch, as Senior Probation Officer at New Orleans Municipal Court, was the founder of the first court-based program in Louisiana to specialize in domestic violence cases. During his 40-year tenure, he performed more than 50,000 lethality assessments of domestic perpetrators for the New Orleans City Attorney’s Office. He is recognized as a national expert and trainer on the types of men who abuse women, and how to protect their victims.
In 1983, Senator J. Bennett Johnson, from the State of Louisiana, recommended to the White House Administration that Groetsch be considered for a position on the Presidential Commission on Domestic Violence. Over the years, he has won numerous awards for his service to victims, including those from the U.S. Justice Department and the Attorney General’s Office of Louisiana. New Orleans Magazine once cited Groetsch as “knowing more about batterers than any professional in the United States.”
Groetsch is the author of two books and thirty editorials/ essays on the topic of battering. In 1996, he also published one of the first domestic violence lethality models in the country. In 1997, a training film he assisted in producing, Assessing the Danger, won the Silver Screen Award at the International Film and Video Festival held in Chicago. In 1998, his unique insights into batterers were published in the “Dear Abby” column and he later served as an advisor to readers who had questions relative to domestic abuse.
Groetsch is a founding board member of two battered women’s programs, and he has served on the City of New Orleans Domestic Violence Task Force for many years. He has also testified before the Louisiana Senate on the topic of battering, and assisted in the passage of the Louisiana Stalking Law.
Although he retired in 2017, in efforts to make our country safer for women who find themselves trapped in dangerous relationships, he continues to research, write, and train others in how to assist them in their escapes.
Paperback book: 6 x 9, 248 pages
ISBN-13 : 979-8896923206
FOR BULK PRICING, Contact the publisher, Cleone Reed at cleonelreed@gmail.com or call 541-999-6125.
