{"id":181798,"date":"2016-09-06T12:01:30","date_gmt":"2016-09-06T18:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=181798"},"modified":"2017-01-17T15:10:49","modified_gmt":"2017-01-17T22:10:49","slug":"grieving-then-moving-into-action-after-victorias-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/09\/grieving-then-moving-into-action-after-victorias-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Grieving, then moving into action, after Victoria\u2019s death"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Victoria

Courtesy photo<\/p>

Victoria Martens<\/p><\/div>\n

COMMENTARY:<\/strong>\u00a0When I first read about 10-year-old Victoria Martens\u2019 death<\/a>, I spotted my hands clenching and realized they were grabbing at something. I felt rage. I thought about snapping the necks of her killers.<\/p>\n

Not again.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been through this before, starting in 2002 with a string of seven child-abuse deaths in Do\u00f1a Ana County over three years. I\u2019ve immersed myself in the horrific details so I could tell those kids\u2019 stories. I\u2019ve gone through the stages of grief over and over.<\/p>\n

\"Heath

Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

I still recall reading in an autopsy report how being raped and tossed around a room tore 5-month-old Brianna Lopez\u2019s body apart<\/a>. I remember driving in the desert looking for the spot where Uriah Vasquez Ordo\u00f1ez\u2019s father cremated the 15-month-old\u2019s body<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve shaken my fist at the sky and screamed. I\u2019ve wept. When I read Brianna\u2019s autopsy report, I vomited.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019ve fantasized about homicide.<\/p>\n

On Aug. 24, police allege, the boyfriend of Victoria\u2019s mother and his cousin injected Victoria with methamphetamine to subdue her. Then they raped, choked and stabbed her \u2013 hours before her birthday party. Victoria\u2019s mother reportedly watched for her own \u201csexual gratification.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Police found Victoria\u2019s dismembered body burning in a bathtub in the Albuquerque home.<\/p>\n

Gov. Susana Martinez was angry. \u201cJustice should come down like a hammer,\u201d she said<\/a>. State Rep. Javier Martinez expressed urgency<\/a> about increasing funding for early childhood programs, which his family has utilized<\/a>.<\/p>\n

People in Albuquerque and Las Cruces held birthday parties<\/a> for Victoria.<\/p>\n

As for me, there was that primal, powerful fury.<\/p>\n

Our society is a reflection of us. We all have dark corners. My rage at Victoria\u2019s killers comes from one of those places. Admitting that helped me move from anger to despair to sorrow. Then tears flowed.<\/p>\n

Victoria\u2019s killers will likely spend most of their lives in prison. But what about the next child? And the one after that? I\u2019ve learned, unfortunately, that there will be others.<\/p>\n

What our children need from us is honest self-reflection, individually and collectively. The laws we enact, the programs we fund<\/a>, who we elect \u2013 these choices shape our society. When a family is wrongly denied emergency food assistance<\/a>, or critical behavioral health services are eviscerated<\/a>, or someone who shouldn\u2019t be on the streets is wrongly released from jail<\/a>, or someone on supervised probation isn\u2019t being supervised<\/a>, bad things happen. Families move closer to crisis.<\/p>\n

Children who live in such homes are more likely to be abused and killed.<\/p>\n

And every time one of us sees a child treated inappropriately and doesn\u2019t report it, or turns away from people in need, we contribute to a world in which adults kill children.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s so much justification for despair. But there\u2019s also reason for hope.<\/p>\n

In spite of the efforts of a few powerful people<\/a>, we came together to change state law<\/a> after Brianna\u2019s death. Before that, the maximum sentence for intentionally killing a child was 18 years, while killing an adult could land someone in prison for 30 years. Today, intentionally killing a child under 12 carries the same penalty as killing an adult.<\/p>\n

But we still assign a lower value to the lives of children ages 12-17. Killing those kids carries a maximum penalty of 18 years.<\/p>\n

We need to come together again. Our law must value all children as much as adults.<\/p>\n

But we must do so much more. It starts by grieving, and continues by acting. We can create a better society. Our children need us to make the choice to do that.<\/p>\n

Heath Haussamen<\/a> is NMPolitics.net\u2019s editor and publisher.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What our children need from us is honest self-reflection, individually and collectively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55852,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[3304,234,142],"class_list":["post-181798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-child-abuse","tag-children","tag-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}