The Denver Metro Domestic Violence Fatality Review Team (DMDVFRT) was formed in 1996 as one of the first such review teams in the country. A committed group of professionals came together after the murder of Terry Petrosky by her estranged husband, along with her co-worker Dan Suazo and the first responding officer, Sgt. Timothy Mossbrucker. This case served as a graphic and tragic example of why we all need to take domestic violence more seriously and the devastating impact on not only the intimate partner victim, but on the community at large. The goal of the DMDVFRT is to learn from the most tragic cases to help reduce domestic violence-related deaths by identifying common risk factors and potential intervention points.
The DMDVFRT conducts in-depth reviews of fatalities occurring within an intimate partner relationship and presents the information to a multidisciplinary committee with professional members. Members of the DMDVFRT include a broad range of professional expertise, including community-based victim services, perpetrator treatment, law enforcement, prosecution, judiciary, probation, child advocacy services, medical providers, and system-based victim assistance, who commit their time and expertise to analyze fatalities to better understand potential risks and gaps in services or intervention. While the DMDVFRT produces information that professionals can learn from, the reviews prioritize expert input and analysis to better inform policy and practices.
The review team looks at fatalities that occurred within the Denver metro area, comprised of the 1st 2nd 17th and 18th Judicial Districts. In January of 2022, the Rose Andom Center took over management of the Denver Domestic Violence Coordinating Council to continue this important work.
The Rose Andom Center based DV Fatality Review Coordinator researches, collects, inputs, and analyzes some of the most exhaustive domestic violence fatality data in the state, reports the findings and utilizes the expertise of the review team to develop recommendations for imporved intervention to prevent future deaths. This work enhances advocacy efforts to effectively leverage the civil and criminal legal systems to develop policy and practices to help victims achieve long-term safety for themselves and their families.
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The DMDVFR’s goals include increasing victim and community safety, offender accountability, and reducing the number of deaths related to domestic violence.
A long-time aspiration of the DMDVFR has been to increase and broaden its focus and functions and expand this work statewide. This was achieved with the passage of Senate Bill 2017-126, which resulted in the creation of the Colorado Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board (CDVFRB). With bipartisan support led by Senators Lucia Guzman and Bob Gardner and Representatives Millie Hamner and Yeulin Willet, the bill was passed by the Colorado General Assembly and signed into law by Governor John Hickenlooper on June 8, 2017 as Colorado Revised Statutes (C.R.S.) 24-31 (702, 705). The new law enables communities across Colorado to form DVFRTs in order to enhance existing efforts to prevent domestic violence fatalities.
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