Victim’s sorority sisters urge task force measure

CARSON CITY -- Sorority sisters of a slain Las Vegas woman joined law enforcement officials Monday in backing a bill that would empower Nevada's attorney general to create task forces to examine fatal domestic violence cases -- and try to figure out where the system failed to prevent deaths in the future.

Dressed in the crimson and cream colors of Delta Sigma Theta, Verna Stringer and other members of the Las Vegas alumnae chapter said they were prompted to testify in support of SB66 by the death of fellow member Bronwyn Greene Richards, who was killed April 16, 2010. Police said Richards, a Clark County arts teacher, whose boyfriend is charged with murder in her slaying .

"We lost our beloved sister," Stringer said, her voice choking with emotion.

Kareen Prentice, Nevada domestic violence ombudsman within the attorney general's office, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Nevada leads the nation in the number of women killed by men with handguns.

Nearly a third of women slain in the U.S. in recent years were killed by a current or former partner, she said. In 2000 alone, 1,247 women, more than three a day, were killed by their intimate partners.

A court or local agency can create task forces to examine domestic violence cases. In Nevada, Washoe County has had a domestic violence death team for several years, and Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, is working to reconstitute a team there.

SB66 would authorize the attorney general to convene a team upon request or on its own initiative and provide assistance to rural counties, officials said.

Brett Kandt, deputy attorney general, said the goal is to review the history that leads up to a fatality and how the system handled it. With this information, Kandt said the task force will be able to understand when a person first came in contact with law enforcement and try to determine from that point what could have been done to stem the violence.