ROOSEVELT — She grew up in a home where she never heard her father raise his voice to her mother. So when Sabra Barton was just about two months into her marriage to a man she used to think of as her best friend, she knew something was wrong.
"I was seeing red flags. He was very possessive. Before we were married, people told me to be careful, but I loved him and he told me that people were just jealous. I believed him because I loved him," relates the 38-year-old woman who attended Brigham Young University and Southern Utah University and is employed by the Ute Tribe Education Department.
Barton said the abuse began slowly at first, but it quickly escalated. Friends noticed she was unhappy. She rarely smiled and she could see that the problems in her marriage were affecting her three children.
She never knew what to do to avoid his jealous rage. The violent outbursts were always followed by kind words and promises, she said. Once her husband beat her badly enough that she was hospitalized. Barton said that at one point during the 45-minute beating, she thought she was going to die. Her husband told Ute Tribe security guards that she had tried to commit suicide.
She spent a week in the hospital and then moved on to physical therapy. She entered counseling to heal her shattered psyche.
"(My husband) told me that nobody would believe me . . . he played with my mind so much that I believed him."
After eight months of marriage, the couple divorced.
Henry Howell, 33, Fort Duchesne, was charged by the Bureau of Indian Affairs police with misdemeanor aggravated assault and endangered imprisonment. The Ute Indian Tribe does not have a criminal code dealing specifically with domestic violence, and Barton's injuries weren't serious enough for the crime to be prosecuted by federal authorities.
Barton pursued her case through the Ute Tribal Court for a year. During the process she said her paperwork was lost or misplaced more than once and delays were granted often at her ex-husband's request, but she was never notified of postponements. It was easy for her to see why a lot of American Indian women don't come forward when they suffer domestic violence, she said.
"They know the abusers will just get a slap on the hand."
Last month, Howell pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of simple assault and false imprisonment. The plea was entered in "abeyance," meaning that if he does not violate any court orders for a year, the charge will be taken off his record. He wasn't ordered to serve jail time, but was required to complete a domestic violence course through the state of Utah. Failure to complete the program will result in a 90-day jail term, according to Roland Uresk, who served as tribal prosecutor on Barton's case.
Meanwhile, Howell remained employed by the Ute Tribe as an anger management counselor at the Red Pine Treatment Center, where his job included counseling those who have committed violent crimes. After Barton's story was reported in the Uintah Basin Standard, Howell was fired.
A 1991 conviction against Howell in U.S. District Court for assault resulting in serious bodily injury and assault with a dangerous weapon sent him to federal prison for two years, followed by two years of probation. According to court records, Howell attacked a bouncer at the Hilltop Bar with a knife after the man stepped in to stop him from beating his common-law wife, who was pregnant at the time.
The former common-law wife was going to be the main witness in Barton's case, had it gone to trial.
"To me, having him admit it was stronger than getting a jury conviction . . . and he admitted he was lying about me," said Barton.
Barton decided to share her story now to encourage women, particularly American Indian women, to get out of abusive relationships. "I am willing to do what I have to do to make sure that we are not going to tolerate this kind of abuse any more.
"We can stay a victim or we can become a survivor. I knew I deserved more than this," she emphasizes. "I am still receiving counseling and still have flashbacks, but I don't have anybody controlling me. I can breathe. The biggest thing in life is that I just want to be happy, and sometimes that's the hardest thing to ask for."
On the Ute Reservation, victims of domestic violence are aided by crime victim advocate Merelynn Cambridge and through counseling at Indian Health Services. The problem on the reservation is the same as it is nationwide, said Cambridge — women are reluctant to report the crime and economic ties keep them bound.
"A lot of time, the native people do not like to report it. They feel like it's a personal thing and a family thing. They feel it can be resolved between the couples or partners. But normally it (is not)," Cambridge noted.
Often, the only way to get the crime noticed is to be beaten badly enough that the woman is hospitalized, so that it becomes a police matter because at that point reporting is mandatory, she said.
Cambridge, who is the only victim's advocate on the reservation and is on call around the clock, said for some reason springtime brings increased cases of domestic violence on the reservation. Her job consists of letting a battered woman know that she has options, and to be there when the whole scene is played out again.
"We don't try to force them to do anything they don't want to do, that is part of the healing. It's their decision, they are going to be living with it. We can point to the resources available," she said.
Counseling for abused women on the reservation is free through the Indian Health Services, and there is money available for them through the state's Crime Victim Reparation Fund, Cambridge said. "Sometimes it gets overwhelming because we see the ladies go back to the relationship and we just wait."
JoAnn Perank has been the director of social services for Indian Health Services in Fort Duchesne for the past year. The Uintah Basin native is a member of the Northern Ute Tribe and holds a master's degree in social work from the University of Utah.
After working on different reservations where American Indian communities were "aggressively fighting" domestic violence, Perank said it was disheartening to return home to see that in some cases battered women she deals with on the Ute Reservation were not even aware they were victims of the crime.
Although the Ute Tribe does not have a specific criminal code for domestic violence, it does have a code for assault — in which the crime of domestic violence falls. Despite that, she said she has been "surprised to see that in the tribe here that law enforcement was not enforcing the (assault) code," in some cases of domestic violence.
She blames the problem in part on "tribal politics," and on a victim's reluctance to prosecute a husband or boyfriend for committing the crime.
"A hickie and a black eye is not 'Indian love;' you've been beat up! A lot of time crime victims will say, 'he loves me, that's why he did this to me,' or 'this is why I am being isolated or this is why he is monitoring all of my activities, because he really loves me,' I find that a lot among these women," Perank stated. "When we start identifying abuse, that is when we really start making a change. The one thing we like to reiterate is that domestic violence — being assaulted physically, emotionally, sexually by your partner is "not traditional."
Domestic violence is a widely denied "public secret" on the reservation, Perank noted. Neighbors and family members are reluctant to report signs of abuse. It is so broadly denied that when Perank was applying for federal grant money for a domestic violence program, a tribal leader told her "that problem doesn't exist here." "I think we need to start here with basic education, working with tribal people and with law enforcement. I am not saying that law enforcement doesn't perform, but there needs to be a sense of urgency (in making arrests) at the scene of violence. We want to see the courts hand down judgments that are more supportive of victims and children of domestic violence. We are trying to address a serious problem."
Perank recently applied for a grant through the Department of Justice requesting funds for a campaign titled, "Honoring Ute Women," to promote education and awareness of domestic violence on the reservation. "Whether or not we get the funding, we need to start getting going on this," she said.
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