Letter to the council on domestic violence

To the Renton City Council,

I write to you this morning as a resident of the Renton community and on a very personal level as a survivor of domestic violence.

Project Be Free worked at the request of the Renton Police Department to create a safer space for me in my house and community. It was back when Project Be Free was first starting — when law enforcement officers were the champions of this organization in Renton. Not the council as one of you would lead others to believe, but retired Sgt. John Awai and Commander Lance Gray.

Yesterday’s walk hit different for me. Both for the abuse I endured within my home as well as within my community. So to end the walk at Council Chambers last night was a very somber ending for me. It wasn’t a safe space for me.

We came together as a community with DAWN — the Domestic Abuse Women’s Network — for the Purple Lights Night Walk, the proclamation, and the reception at City Hall. Those lights carried powerful symbolism — they represented hope, awareness, and solidarity.

But awareness means little if it is not accompanied by truth and accountability.

I’ve learned through lived experience that those who have been aggressors of domestic violence do not get to decide when they have atoned for their actions. That right — that sacred privilege — lies only with the survivor.

And when a person with a documented history of violence uses a position of privilege and power to re-brand themselves as a champion of the very cause they once violated, especially without atonement for those they have hurt, it doesn’t heal wounds — it reopens them. It re-traumatizes survivors. It mocks the process of recovery and turns awareness into performance.

Even more heartbreaking — and dangerous — is the silence that surrounds it.

When colleagues sit quietly beside such conduct, refusing to speak the truth for fear of political backlash or discomfort, that silence becomes complicity.

Silence is how domestic violence survives.

Silence is how it spreads — from homes, to workplaces, to seats of power.

And silence from leadership as they watch others continue those patterns of abuse to members of our community, tells every survivor watching: “Your pain is negotiable.”

But it isn’t.

Not here. Not anymore.

Domestic violence is not just an act — it’s a pattern of behavior: control, intimidation, manipulation, fear. And when those same patterns are mirrored in public conduct — in how someone treats others, confronts them, threatens them, or uses influence to harm — that’s not leadership. That’s a continuation of abuse.

To truly stand with survivors, we must move beyond proclamations and purple lights. We must call for integrity in leadership, accountability in action, and truth in representation.

Leadership is trickle down. I hate to politicize public safety, but as it continues to be done by you, I will join in this time. We are seeing it on a national level. Where people are politicizing parties instead of politics. Where folks are lashing out and punching down based upon a R or a D they are forced to sign to their ballots in order for their vote to count. Where people are allowed to be divisive, to call names, to paint with a broad brush for the sake of their own gain. In the ‘80s and ‘90s if you said someone had been shot because of the words they had spoken, because of their allegiance to the color red or blue, one would have assumed it was a gang war and beef between the Crips and Bloods.

Instead, it’s politics. Our very government that is supposed to be entrusted with making the best decisions on our behalf. For the greater good. For our community. (There’s a reason partisan politics don’t belong in community leadership, yet some of you proudly wear those flags of endorsement while others sit by silently and watch this trickle down polarizing partisan leadership ooze all over the community and decisions guiding policy.) Is it a wonder folks on our streets feel justified in shooting each other in cold blood when we have community leaders laughing and making a mockery of others being shot and killed in the name of politics?

So to this Council, I say thank you — for the steps you’ve taken toward awareness. But I also ask more of you — for the courage to confront what’s uncomfortable, to speak truth even when it’s close to home, and to ensure Renton’s light against domestic violence and abuse shines with honesty, not hypocrisy.

Because our community deserves better.

Our survivors deserve better.

And healing begins only where truth is spoken out loud.

Thank you.

Diane Dobson, Renton