Free Thought Project – by Matt Agorist
Portage, IN — If you have never Googled the phrase “40% police” then you may not know that multiple studies have shown that police officer families experience a rate of domestic violence far greater than the average family. The phenomenon of wife beating cops has been a stain on the thin blue line for decades, backed up by countless news stories, many of which are horrifying in nature. The following case is a telling reminder that 40 percent of police officer families reportedly experience domestic violence.
Crestwood police officer Dino Anthony Pavoni, 38, was arrested last year for choking his wife until she lost consciousness in front of their children at a northwest Indiana campground. One of his children filmed the incident which served as evidence in the wife-beating cop’s arrest.
A person claiming to know the family says that the chief of police is now censoring the video and he has uploaded them to YouTube to make sure they do not get completely suppressed.
Pavoni has been charged with one felony count of strangulation, three felony counts of domestic battery and one misdemeanor count of interference with the reporting of a crime, according to an arrest report from police in Portage, Indiana. He has a court date for April 5, 2021.
According to the source — despite the existence of the horrifying video — Pavoni is still gainfully employed with the Crestwood police department.
As the Chicago Sun Times reported a the time:
Officers were called for reports of a disturbance at 3:08 a.m. May 17 at the Lakeshore Camp Resort, 5300 Old Porter Road, according to police records. Investigators learned Pavoni got upset and began yelling at his wife, 39, after she woke him up to ask for help closing the awning of the trailer they were staying in.
During an ensuing struggle, Pavoni allegedly hit one of his children with a door before hitting his wife, knocking her to the ground inside the trailer and choking her until she lost consciousness, according to police. The three children witnessed the attack and one of them recorded videos of it while another called police, the report says.
During an interview with a Portage officer, Pavoni denied hitting his wife and claimed she attacked him before having a seizure and falling to the ground, according to the report.
After lying to the cops about his wife having a seizure, his child pulled out the video and showed it to cops. He was then arrested on the scene.
His daughter also told officers that Pavoni shoved her through a doorway where he slammed the door on her arm over and over. This is all evidenced by the newly leaked video.
According to the source close to the family, he says he has been blackmailed by prosecutors for sitting on the video of the incident. He was reportedly threatened if he released it but has done so anyway.
Out of respect for the victims, we will not post the video on this site. But it can be viewed on YouTube here. In case it is censored, we have archived it here and here.
What this case illustrates, frequent readers of the Free Thought Project already know, and it’s that police officers in the United States have an exceedingly higher rate of domestic violence than any other occupation. The average rate of domestic violence among most families in America is around 10%. As mentioned above, the National Center for Women and Policing points out, two studies have found that at least 40% of police officer families experience domestic violence. That is a four-fold increase.
Even mainstream media has tried to “debunk” these statistics, citing our Facebook page Police the Police in the process.
Is this popular meme accurate?
We do some digging.https://t.co/Cm581pbQte pic.twitter.com/hmfAd3at0l— Adam Forgie (@adamforgie) January 1, 2019
Though they noted the results were “complicated,” they came to the same conclusion.
A simple Google search will illustrate how police officers are arrested for domestic violence on a near-weekly basis. It is also estimated that the incident rate for domestic violence is likely far higher than reported as many women stay silent out of fear of retaliation and the fact that their abuser’s brothers in blue will cover for them.
As this case illustrates, and as TFTP has previously noted, a report by a government-appointed watchdog group shows that most of the time, abusive officers who commit these crimes, do so with seeming impunity. The above case is a perfect example of why that is so.
A study conducted by the Domestic Violence Task Force called Domestic Violence in the Los Angeles Police Department: How Well Does the Los Angeles Police Department Police Its Own? revealed that performance evaluations of cops with a history of domestic violence are largely unaffected. The study of the LAPD examined 91 cases in which an allegation of domestic violence was sustained against an officer.
- Over three-fourths of the time, this sustained allegation was not mentioned in the officer’s performance evaluation.
- Twenty-six of these officers (29%) were promoted, including six who were promoted within two years of the incident.
The report concluded that “employees with sustained allegations were neither barred from moving to desired positions nor transferred out of assignments that were inconsistent with the sustained allegation.”
Sadly, it is estimated that many of the abused women never come forward as they know the likely result — which is getting shamed by the department for reporting it and potentially more abuse.