Bresha Meadows, teen abuse victim prosecuted for her father’s death, freed on Sunday
This Sunday, Bresha Meadows, the 16-year-old who was imprisoned for killing her father in self-defense, was released from the mental health facility where she was being housed. She will now be spared further torment by a system that often punishes victims, especially women of color.
Her plea deal had her pleading “true” to shooting her allegedly abusive father when she was 14 after being in Trumbull County Juvenile Detention Center in Ohio for 10 months. She was sentenced to 60 more days in juvenile detention and six months in a mental health facility.
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Before the shooting, Bresha Meadows had run away from home multiple times and was diagnosed with PTSD. In 2011, the girl’s mother filed a report with police about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband. She claimed that “In the 17 years of our marriage he has cut me, broke my ribs, fingers, the blood vessels in my hand, my mouth, blackened my eyes. I believe my nose was broken. If he finds us, I am 100 percent sure he will kill me and the children.”
Meadows will be on probation for two years and in time her records will be sealed and purged.
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She was facing the possibility of being tried as an adult for aggravated murder which could have carried with it a life sentence. The Bresha Meadows case, as sad as it is, has a much happier outcome than many other similar cases.
Women of color are often severely punished for protecting themselves. Others like Tewkunzi Green, who is looking at 34 years in prison for stabbing her husband as he was choking her; Tondalao Hall, who is currently serving a 30-year sentence for “failing to protect” her children while their abusive father is living a life of freedom. These are just a few of the many tragic cases that litter the country.
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The Bureau of Justice released a report in 2009 that showed women are most commonly killed by people they know and in 2007 black women were twice as likely as white women to be murdered by a spouse and four times as likely to be murdered by a boyfriend or girlfriend.
According to the ACLU in 2004, black women were 4.5 times more likely than white women to be incarcerated. They also reported that “Girls of color who are victims of abuse are more likely to be processed by the criminal justice system and labeled as offenders than white girls. White girls who are abused have a better chance of being treated as victims and referred to child welfare and mental health systems.”
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