What No One is Talking About in the Jovan Belcher Story

A high profile tragedy like Kansas Chiefs Jovan Belcher's weekend murder-suicide invites a tidal wave of opinion. I don't pretend to have digested all the sound bites, tweets and commentary out there. However, I am a sports fan and more than a casual listener of sports-talk radio. What surprises me is the apparent silence on an issue which seems so obviously at the heart of this story. We're talking about whether or not the Chiefs should've played football on Sunday. We're talking about whether or whether not Bob Costas should've used his half-time comments to speak out for gun control. What we're not talking about is the harsh reality behind the AP's report that "Belcher and longtime girlfriend, 22-year-old Kasandra M. Perkins had been arguing frequently."

Anyone familiar with domestic violence knows this song and verse. It's true that all we know now is that this wasn't the first time Perkins and Belcher argued. As we get more of the story I bet we'll learn this wasn't the first time Belcher talked about shooting his girlfriend. It probably wasn't the first time he threatened her or the first time he demanded to know where and with whom she'd been. It wasn't the first time he waved a gun in her face. Anyone familiar with domestic violence knows this is the subtext for a storyline that goes, "[they] had been arguing frequently" and then ends in murder.

It's not inconceivable that a person with a public persona of steadfast "kindness, humility, respect and gratitude for family and friends" could have been a very different person at home. Some domestic abusers are jerks in public and at home, but most are just the opposite. In the end Jovan Belcher showed himself. He acted like a guy who demanded to be the center of attention. He put himself center stage, making others watch while he 'humbly' thanked his coaches for the chance to play in the NFL and then put a gun to his head.

It didn't have to end this way. Perkins could have told someone and that someone could have listened and believed her story. When the Jerry Sandusky scandal broke, the country was properly outraged by the veil of silence Penn State kept over Sandusky's pattern of abuse. Perhaps as more information comes to light in the Belcher case we can pull back the veil on domestic abuse. No one should have to live in a home under a reign of terror. Let's shift the conversation in the Jovan Blecher story and start talking about what we seem to be avoiding.

Here is some food for thought:

Even the healthiest of relationships experience conflict from time to time. How is abuse different? In a normal relationship, if you hurt someone you care about, you 1) feel remorse and often offer a verbal apology, 2) do what you can to repair the damage to the relationship, and 3), this is a critical difference, make attempts to avoid that behavior in the future. In a healthy relationship, conflict management skills grow and develop over time. In an abusive relationship, conflict escalates over time with the damage becoming more and more one sided.

Abuse can be defined as a pattern of intimidating or degrading behaviors intended to create an imbalance of power and maintain control over a relationship. There is a wide range of theories used to excuse, justify and explain abusive behavior.  Anger, mental illness, stress, childhood trauma, and substance abuse are some of the most common. The real cause of domestic violence, however, is that the abuser has learned that intimidation and bullying work as a means to get what he/she wants.