Attorney General Coleman Releases Kentucky’s First-Ever Toolkit to Protect from Strangulation

Maybe Santa is real, because I can’t think of a better gift - Kentucky just rolled out “Responding to Strangulation in Kentucky: Guidelines for Prosecutors, Law Enforcement, Health Care Providers and Victim Advocates”, a toolkit to combat the horrific crime of strangulation.

While our great commonwealth was one of the last states to make strangulation a felony, this manual is one of the first of its kind across the country.

To celebrate, Aveon Air added a dedicated page to house the press release and a link to the manual. Check it out HERE.

Awareness is spreading, but we have so much work ahead of us to ensure that every strangulation victim in Kentucky receives the medical care, safety, and justice they deserve. Part of the work is building bridges between worlds that tend to collide more than they collaborate: the traditional patriarchy of law enforcement and the dedicated matriarchy of advocacy.

I raise this point every time I speak about strangulation, but it bears repeating: men who strangle are far more likely to kill not only their partners, but many others including law enforcement officers. The people who serve and protect our communities are well aware that each day may bring their end of watch, but when strangulation is detected and prosecuted, the risk of homicide is lowered for everyone.

A few weeks ago I met a female officer who works in a nearby city, and she shared that one case in particular haunts her. She has spent countless unpaid hours working to support the prosecution of a violent, sadistic, dangerous man who strangled his partner. I am touched by her dedication, and I also hope that this toolkit means that she and people like her won’t feel so isolated and burdened.

Experiencing the terror of strangulation at the hands of a partner is to be shattered from the inside out. Grasping that your partner is a killer who raised his hand in sickening secrecy; to be buried alive by the system for daring to survive…my pain and hope and rage and vision and strength all point toward one goal: I want to BE THE LAST.

Thank you, Kentucky, for this toolkit. Thank you for choosing to unmask the murderers among us. Thank you for teaching all of us how to recognize the ghosts of the raised hands. If we know where to look, we can’t help but to see.

Where there is smoke, there are dangerous men hellbent on lighting candles for senseless, preventable vigils.

It’s time that they were lashed to the pyre in town square and reduced to nothing more than a pile of ashes.