Expert Warns Abused of Dangerous Period

The battered woman who told police Sunday she would be OK waiting alone at home for a few hours until she could move out is typical of victims who underestimate the danger they face, experts say.

Earlier in the day, police said the woman reported being beaten by her husband. After officers left her home, the husband, Richard Ruiz, 40, allegedly returned, shot her and then killed himself.

“That period after a separation is a ‘hot time’ in terms of an abuser’s loss of control,” said Jae Weiss, Community Outreach coordinator for Haven Hills, a West Valley domestic abuse shelter.

“An abuser feels the need to get back the object he controls . . . or exact his revenge.”

The couple had apparently argued frequently in recent weeks. The woman, 35, whom police declined to name, came into the LAPD Foothill Division station Sunday morning to report the beating and ask officers to escort her home so she could move out.

Police accompanied the woman to her Wingo Street home where, after seeing her husband was gone, she told them she would be all right, said Lt. Rick Papke, Foothill Support Operations commander. Officers took a domestic abuse report and gave the woman specifics about where to get help, he said.

At 12:45 p.m., however, police were called back to the house where they found the woman shot in the arm and torso and her 40-year-old husband fatally wounded from a self-inflicted gunshot to his head.

“You can never be too sure and too safe,” said Papke, stressing that domestic violence can easily escalate from verbal abuse to murder.

He said police try to give victims a window of opportunity to break the cycle of abuse they are in by providing shelter and counseling information.

Acknowledging the frustration police must feel in coming to the same house over and over, Weiss urged victims to consider the worst-case scenario in deciding what to do after being abused.

“They should go immediately to a safe place, preferably one the batterer does not know about, and where professional help is available,” she said.