Council outraged that victims serve protection orders

After learning that battered women in Philadelphia are largely responsible for serving their attackers with court stay-away orders, aghast City Council members yesterday called upon the Committee on Public Safety to explore alternatives to a process they deemed dangerous for abuse victims.

"The current system . . . is absolutely preposterous and untenable," Councilman Bill Green said in a statement. "Not only are we causing the abuse victim additional mental anguish, but we are placing the victim in additional danger of physical harm."

Green, along with Council members Maria Quinones Sanchez, Curtis Jones Jr. and Blondell Reynolds Brown, introduced a resolution authorizing the safety committee to hold hearings on the service of protection-from-abuse orders, or PFAs.

Yesterday's resolution was prompted by a Daily News series on domestic violence that ran in late December.

The series followed one victim's exhausting and frightening quest to serve her alleged attacker with a temporary PFA issued by Family Court.

"It really stuck in the councilman's gut and he's been thinking about it ever since," said Green's spokesman, Seth Levi.

In Philadelphia, unlike everywhere else in the state or region, victims bear the burden of serving their attackers with the PFA. Outside the city, officers with the sheriff's department or local police department are responsible for the job. The victim either drops off the paperwork at the police station or the court transmits the papers directly to police, the Daily News reported.

Philadelphia is unique, however, because of the high number of PFAs sought here. About 14,000 city residents file for PFAs each year, the highest rate statewide, court statistics show.

Though Pennsylvania law states that any "competent adult" can serve the paperwork, many Philadelphia victims do it themselves, because they don't have money to hire someone or they don't have a friend or relative willing to risk their safety to help, police and victim advocates say.

Because the task can be so perilous, victims here can ask police to escort them to the perpetrator's home or workplace. And about half typically do, police statistics show. Officers helped serve about 7,000 of the 14,000 protection orders filed in Philadelphia in 2005, police statistics show.

Cynthia Figueroa, executive director of Women Against Abuse, praised city police for their commitment to helping serve PFAs.

"I believe that police actually have been providing support to victims, but I'm glad to see that the City Council is paying close attention to domestic violence," Figueroa said.

Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller, chair of the Committee on Public Safety, will pursue hearings, though no dates have been set yet, said her spokesman, Michael Quintero-Moore. *