The city plans to repeal the city law of Domestic Battery being a crime, in their thinking that the DA will be forced to begin prosecuting.
Two domestic violence survivors addressed the Topeka City Council on Tuesday evening after it heard the first reading of a proposal targeted at forcing Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor to resume prosecuting domestic batteries committed in Topeka.
“I just ask that somehow there has to be a resolution,” Jo Charay told the council.
Charay and Claudine Dombrowski appeared separately before the council during the public comments portion of its meeting.
She said domestic battery cases should be prosecuted in district court instead of Topeka Municipal Court because “the city does not have the resources and the agencies to deal with domestic violence the way that the county does and the state does.”
The council is expected next week to consider the proposed changes, which would include repealing the part of the code that bans domestic battery.
Dombrowski told the council her mother always told her two wrongs don’t make a right. She said repealing the part of city ordinance banning domestic battery would be “the second wrong” after Taylor stopped prosecuting those crimes.
Dombrowski also said criminal activity undoubtedly would increase when the consequences for it are removed.
