Live in Ohio? Please work to get this man recalled and/or arrested.
Please note update with helpful information for people living with abuse, below.
Q: Who said “She got a little upset. Girls do that,” when his wife called 911 after he got drunk and attacked her?
A: Ohio State Senator Kris Jordan.
Q: What is the State of Ohio doing about it?
A: Exactly nothing.
Prosecutor won’t file charges against senator
Sen. Jordan, a Republican from Powell, told deputies that he and his wife had argued over his not cleaning their condo. Cruiser dashboard camera recordings released yesterday detail the deputies’ conversations with the Jordans.
“She got a little upset,” Sen. Jordan told a deputy on the recording. “Girls do that.”
The 34-year-old senator went on to say the incident was “90 percent emotion.”
“I threw some things on the ground, but I didn’t hit her or anything,” he said. “So she’s all worked up about who knows.”
On the recording, Sen. Jordan tells deputies that he works at the Statehouse, “until she gets me thrown out of office,” he said. “Over (expletive) not cleaning the upstairs … and then me pushing some towels over and some other stuff over.”
His wife also was recorded speaking to a deputy outside the home.
She said there have been problems with her husband but she had called his parents when those happened. She said, however, that they were out of town that night.
She also was recorded as saying violent incidents with her husband began about two years ago, sometimes after he had been drinking. She said her husband had been drinking that night but not to excess.
“This is not new,” Mrs. Jordan, 31, said. “He’s done this numerous times, and I just got sick of it and I just had to call.”
…
Assistant Delaware City Prosecutor Joe Schmansky said, Melissa Jordan’s insistence on not pursuing charges was the most important factor in his decision not to file charges.
Here’s another salient piece of information:
She also told deputies there were 10 to 15 unloaded guns in the house.
How many times have we read this story? The story in which the woman complains, but as so many victims of abuse do, hesitates to press charges, so law enforcement does nothing — until one of the guns gets loaded, and the woman is killed.
I’ll be perfectly frank here: I am positively sickened by this story. By the abuse, by the misogyny, by the response of Delaware City’s Prosecutor. I know people who have lived with abuse, I know how it plays out, and I have watched, too often, as society steps back and says: “Not our problem.”
I’m sorry, State of Ohio, this is very much your fucking problem. Aside from the fact that it is a shared, collective good that our citizens (even the female ones!) not live in fear, Kris Jordan is a Senator, for God’s sake! I don’t know what should be done, what can be done — mandatory anger management classes? Senate censure? — but I know that someone has to do something.
Else the next call may very well be for an ambulance.
UPDATE: If you or someone you love is also living with an abuser, you can always call the National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1- 800?799?SAFE (7233), 24/7, 365 days a year. If you’re not sure if you’re in an abusive situation, or are not sure what to do next, here are some good resources: Get Help, Am I Being Abused?, Teen Dating Abuse and Information for Immigrants and Refugee Women.
h/t Mac McClelland at Mother Jones, Ohio politics blog Plunderbund, and the Columbus Dispatch.
Crossposted at Emily L. Hauser In My Head.
So, my dad started drinking heavily when i was about 11 years old. And, yeah, what Jordan said to the officers sounds like something my dad might have said. Do they have children? If so, mama needs to get them out of there asap.
His responses absolutely reek of alcoholic abuser, don’t they? This is part of why I’m so sickened by the whole thing — if those officers and the prosecutor don’t hear what you and I are hearing, they need to damn well get themselves some training.
And then they need to book him whether his wife wants them to, or not. Just getting arrested for that bullshit, even if your victim doesn’t press charges, sends a message.
I don’t know if they have children. Good lord, I hope not.
Yes, he sounds like a “functioning alcoholic” who’s a mean, abusive s.o.b. when he gets drunk.
It would be great if the police arrested him, but it depends on how the laws are written in Ohio. Can they arrest him if his wife doesn’t press charges?
It’s oh so very frustrating – laws still seem to favor the hetero-male population.
Utter bullshit. Dude needs to be arrested at the very least. Let him cool his heels in jail overnight and see if he can be a little less arrogant when he gets out. “The little lady is just upset.” Um, fuck yeah. I would be, too. Only, I would have pressed charges against his ass.