'Tina's Law' aims to create legislation for domestic violence offender registry
Boise, ID (CBS 2) - " Something needs to be done," says Don Estes, advocate behind Tina's Law.
Every nine seconds in the United States a woman is either assaulted or beaten.
"There's a lot of reasons to either change or create laws," Estes says.
For Don Estes, he says he knows the pain of domestic violence far too well.
"It happened on Thanksgiving, she was just 30 years old, she left 2 kids and was raising 2 other kids," Estes says.
The morning of November 24th 2017, Este's niece, Tina Stewart was brutally murdered by her boyfriend.
"He beat her to death. He beat her so hard that he broke both of his hands," Estes says. "When we were in court, the judge said he had a violent past, and he said, why doesn't anyone know about this?"
That is when Estes says he knew laws had to change. If not for Tina, for the thousands of women in the united states who are experiencing domestic violence and trying to find a safe way out.
"It's time to make a difference, it's time to take a stand and it's time to chance these laws," Estes says. "We have registry for animal abusers across this country why don't one for people who are abusing people, and that's the question i have for congress right now."
Estes is proposing "Tina's Law" in every state in the U.S.
Making critical changes to people with domestic abuse charges.
Tina's Law would require any person with a domestic violence abuse charge against them to be registered, similar to sex offenders.
"Hold them accountable for their actions, they can't run from say Arizona to Washington, to Florida to Hawaii or whatever because they will be on a national registry. You get convicted, you go on this registry. It's a lifelong registry of felony conviction, if you have two or more misdemeanor offenses of domestic violence against the same person you will go on this registry," Estes says.
Estes says that this type of knowledge important for everyone, especially for those who are vulnerable.
"If Tina had known this guy had a violent past she would have never went on a date with him, but she didn't know and there are so many other Tina's out there who don't know about these people with violent pasts, so we are just giving them a safe place to look," Estes says.
