When Love Turns Violent

As intimate partner homicides in New York City steadily increase, victims and advocates point to misconceptions about gender-related violence.  

By Carolyn Gevinski

Demonstrators place candles in front of the site where Tyquane Jemmott murdered ex-girlfriend Shirley Rodriguez (analog, Carolyn Gevinski).

This article references domestic violence, abuse, and homicide.

Peter Minuit Playground on 110th Street in East Harlem becomes a tranquil hideaway in the summertime. A spectral breeze nudges the empty swings and the oak canopy above. During the school year, children from P.S.108 next door swarm the rusting slides. But on a recent July weekday, when Ruby Swinnie visited to reflect on her childhood, the playground was nearly empty. Only the rattling of the Metro North train overhead along Park Avenue occasionally punctuated the silence.

Swinnie grew up in the neighborhood and still lives here, along with her mother and extended family. This playground is where she met her lifelong friend Shanice Young, when the girls were kindergarteners.

“We spent a lot of time dancing in that handball court over there.” Swinnie gestured behind the park bench where she sat in the shade. Swinnie, 34, wore a t-shirt that read “Find your inner glow,” and a “GRL PWR” bracelet.

On September 18, 2021, just after 1 a.m., Shanice Young’s ex-boyfriend, Justin Soriano, shot her in the head outside her apartment building at 300 W. 128th St. Young had just returned from her baby shower and with her boyfriend and two young daughters was ferrying her gifts into the lobby. Young, 31, and her baby did not survive.

“We were just at her baby shower, and not even an hour after we left, they’re calling me to say that she got shot.” Swinnie recalled, looking shocked nearly three years later.

“I don’t know, maybe I thought Shanice had superpowers or something!” She described Young as the type of friend she didn’t need to see every day to know that they would always be there for each other. “When we met up, it was like time never passed.”

When Swinnie hurried to Harlem Hospital, the first person she saw was Young’s father. “Shanice is gone,” he told her. “They’re trying to save the baby.” Other friends and family, still in their clothes from the shower, were sobbing, but Swinnie could not process what had happened.

“I know y'all are lying. This is not real,” she remembered thinking. In shock and denial, she left the hospital and went home. “When I wake up in the morning, everything should be fine,” she told herself, as if Young’s death were a misunderstanding or a bad dream.

When she woke up and called their childhood friends to confirm the truth, reality set in. “I was just holding her belly an hour ago, and you’re telling me someone killed her in front of her children?”

Peter Minuit Playground in East Harlem, where Ruby Swinnie met Shanice Young when they were kindergarteners (Carolyn Gevinski). 

Intimate partner homicide has steadily increased across New York, far more in some neighborhoods than others, a city report found.

The NYC Domestic Violence Fatality Review Committee annual report shows that intimate partner homicides rose citywide from 24 in 2021 to 31 in 2022.

Although the Committee has not released a report since, an analysis of city homicide reports by Grassroots Magazine showed that intimate partner homicides continued to climb 16.1% from 31 deaths in 2022 to 36 deaths in 2023. The vast majority of homicides occurred in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens.

“Economic instability, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has heightened stress and tension in many households, which can lead to an increase in violent behavior,” said Teal Inzunza, Associate Vice President of Justice Initiatives at Urban Resource Institute, the largest provider of domestic violence shelter services in the U.S. Inzunza also cited social isolation during the pandemic for limiting survivors' access to support systems and resources and making it harder for them to seek help or escape abusive situations.

“The lack of adequate investment in prevention programs and the underreporting of abuse due to fear or stigma” also play significant roles in the increasing rates of violence, according to Inzunza.

Additionally, even though intimate partner homicides continue to rise in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, city expense reports show that Manhattan, the borough with the least homicides, received the most funding (56%) for domestic violence initiatives in 2023. Brooklyn only received 22.5%, and the Bronx and Queens received 16.5% together.

For its part, The Mayor’s Office to End Gender-Based Violence has led multiple awareness campaigns, most notably “NYC Go Purple Day,” during which local landmarks across the city light up in purple and New Yorkers are encouraged to wear purple to show support for survivors. The office also produces a media guide to help news organizations more effectively cover intimate partner violence.

Despite such efforts, grassroots movements in New York City have long shouldered the primary responsibility for organizing against intimate partner violence, helping victims and aiding families affected by homicide.

“When I went to her memorial in front of her building, there was baby clothes,” Swinnie said. She felt nauseated at the sight. “I had never seen that before. Baby clothes and bottles and baby toys.”

Nearly three years later, organizations like WARM and SAVE are still stepping in to care for those affected by domestic violence. On May 23, three days after Shirley Rodriguez’s ex-boyfriend stabbed her to death on her doorstep at 134 Haven Avenue in Washington Heights, mourners and activists gathered there for a vigil.

“Women are dying every day in this city!” yelled Stephanie McGraw, WARM’s founder. She wore a purple WARM shirt and violet sneakers and stood before a massive shrine that blossomed with flowers and prayer candles; the crowd was also a sea of purple, representing domestic violence awareness.

“We were in the funeral home yesterday, picking out a casket for this family!” shouted McGraw, with palpable fury. Behind her, Shirley Rodriguez’s parents clutched each other. Her father wore a purple button-down and a Yankees cap. “We are sick and tired that we gotta bury another woman!”

“We’re not standing for it anymore. We’re tired. We’re tired,” McGraw repeated, choking up.

Stephanie McGraw, CEO of WARM embraces Shirley Rodriguez’s mother, Mehira Rodriguez (analog, Carolyn Gevinski)

Shirley Rodriguez, 29, had broken up with Tyquane Jemmott, 33, earlier in the month, according to a press release from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg Jr. On May 20, Jemmott waited outside Rodriguez’s apartment building. When she left for work — she was a lab technician at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center — Jemmott jumped out from behind a parked car, ran up and stabbed her multiple times before fleeing.

Rodriguez managed to buzz her apartment, and when her mother, father, and sister rushed downstairs, she told them, “Ty did this to me,” according to the press release.

Police arrested Jemmott at a family member’s apartment building in the Bronx later that afternoon.

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine, sang the demonstrators, as organizers passed around candles. Then they shifted from song to a furious chant.

¡No más violencia contra las mujeres!

Scores of demonstrators marched into the street, blocking traffic.

Crowd gathered to remember Shirley Rodriguez (Carolyn Gevinski).

Memorial grows at Rodriguez’ vigil (analog, Carolyn Gevinski).

Back in Peter Minuit Playground, Ruby Swinnie underscored the importance of breaking cycles of trauma when it comes to intimate partner violence.

“Poverty and lack of education in these communities is what is causing these types of things, abuse of drugs and domestic violence,” Swinnie said. She is one of few in her family to earn a college degree and undertake therapy. “I have tons of books in my house about generational trauma and African studies and what is going on with our people. So many things lead back to slavery times and people don’t understand that.”

Around the same time she lost her best friend to intimate partner violence, Swinnie had narrowly escaped her own cycle of abuse. She started dating her former partner in 2014, when she was 24 years old.

“I was so intrigued by him because he had a book when he walked through the door,” Swinnie said. At the time, she was an administrative assistant at the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health, a residence in the Bronx that had just hired him. Part of her responsibility was to train him.

In 2015, her boyfriend lost his job at the Center -- a woman who said she was also his girlfriend came to their workplace and smashed in a door – and told Swinnie that his family had ceased financially supporting him. Sympathizing, she let him move in.

Over the next two years, he told Swinnie that he wanted to go back to school and that he would get a job; he applied for neither. “You’re not following up on anything!” she exclaimed angrily.

By 2018, when Swinnie had become unexpectedly pregnant with their daughter, Egypt, now 6, the couple had been discussing breaking up. They decided instead to reconcile and raise the baby together.

As Swinnie’s pregnancy progressed, he tried to control her whereabouts, accusing her of cheating whenever she left the apartment. To prove her loyalty, she stayed home and experienced panic attacks as a result. “If I have to hold in my flight, I am literally breaking down, hyperventilating, I can’t breathe, I can’t move, I’m crying,” Swinnie explained.

In December 2019, when Egypt was a year old, an argument broke out. Her boyfriend had been jobless for a year, but criticized Swinnie for making poor financial decisions – while he bought video games and headsets.

Swinnie told her now-ex partner to leave her apartment. He refused. She reached out to unplug the XBox set apartment to prove she meant business. He darted in front of her and violently elbowed her out of the way, then kept punching her with his elbow. She stood back and told him to leave once more. He ignored her.

“I had a mental breakdown,” Swinnie shook her head.“I just started drawing on the walls with paint. I started drawing rainbows, and handprints, and writing love song lyrics. It wasn’t organized, I didn’t care. This is my home, I’m in control of this.”

Though she was mentally unwell, the emotions exploding out of her were symbolic. She felt silenced in her own home and that he ignored her when she finally found the courage to say “no.” Because she was not heard by him when she spoke aloud, she wrote the way he made her feel on the walls.

Her ex-partner called an EMS hotline. The paramedics found her writing on the wall and took her to Mount Sinai Hospital in East Harlem, where she was involuntarily admitted.

Upon discharge at the beginning of 2020, Swinnie described a gut feeling telling her to check her bank account.

She knew her family had intended to send her money when she was in the hospital, so that her ex-boyfriend could use her debit card to have the walls repainted before she arrived home so that Swinnie would not be reminded of her breakdown. When Swinnie checked her bank account, she found it drained of both the $8,000 dollars and her most recent paycheck. She saw charges from his hairdresser and a charge for a new video game headset.

That morning, while he was gone, Swinnie committed to doing what her family had intended him to do with the money and primed her apartment walls.

When her ex-boyfriend walked in and saw primer on the walls, he sneered, “Oh, are you hearing voices again?” he taunted. “I think you need to go back to those people at the hospital.”

Swinnie told him firmly to get out of her apartment and called the police. The police arrived on the scene and Swinnie calmly explained her situation. However, just as she was finished, EMS personnel, whom he had called arrived. Because it had been less than 24 hours since she was discharged, they took her to the hospital.

This time she was taken to Mount Sinai Morningside on the Upper West Side, where she repeated that her daughter’s father, who was not on her apartment lease, had refused to leave, threatened her, hit her, and forced her silence.

The police ensured that her ex-boyfriend removed himself from the apartment.

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic. Egypt’s father reached out. “Again, he butters me up. ‘Oh, I want to see my daughter, it's so scary,’” he said, according to Swinnie. “It was scary! Everybody was dying outside.” Swinnie thought that perhaps the volatile environment had triggered empathy inside of him and he wanted to be with his daughter as the world around them changed. She told him that he could temporarily stay with her and Egypt a few nights a week.

Then he asked her to buy him clothes to keep in her apartment. “When he said that, all of the hairs…” Swinnie gestured to her arms, making a motion to indicate how the hairs stood up.

“This is how he’s tricking me.” Swinnie said to herself.

“I said you have to go. My body is literally telling you.”

This time, he left the apartment.

While organizations like WARM and SAVE work with victims and families, other local groups are demanding preventative education. On June 14, members of groups from Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx gathered on New York City Hall’s steps for the 15th Annual Father’s Day Pledge against domestic violence. The sun beat down on the smiling fathers and activists alike, meeting not to mourn, but to help prevent intimate partner violence before it causes tragedy.

Quentin Walcott, executive director of CONNECT, which works to transform the beliefs and behaviors that perpetuate violence, began by introducing the aims of the Pledge—for men and male figures to pledge accountability and work towards nonviolent solutions. A colleague led the pledge, first in Spanish.

Quentin Walcott initiating the 15th Annual Father’s Day Pledge (Carolyn Gevinski)

“Me comprometo a” [I pledge to] “Nunca cometer, tolerar, ni guardar silencio sobre la violencia en nuestros hogares y communidades” [Never commit, condone, or remain silent about violence in our homes and communities.]

The pledge ends with a promise to talk with boys and young men about healthy relationships.

“It’s going to take men to really step up as men to talk about it and to stop it,” said Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, elected in 2019 and now running for governor. He wore a vibrant “Be Love” pin on his jacket..

Williams has two daughters, and said he hoped that when they start dating, they date men who have taken the Father’s Day pledge and understand “mutuality and respect in relationships.”

“If we’re not talking about it, how are our kids going to learn about it? If we don’t speak about it, we’re not going to change the generational trauma we’ve passed down,” said Williams. “Our masculinity has harmed a lot of people. So we need to reframe what that masculinity means.”

Teaching teenagers and young people about healthy relationships early on is crucial for violence prevention, since survivors of intimate partner violence are often at risk of becoming repeat victims through a process called “revictimization.”

Public health experts from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln reported in the Journal of Traumatic Stress in 2019 that one sexual victimization experience can increase the risk for subsequent ones. Those at greater risk of experiencing intimate partner violence are more likely to have already been exposed to adolescent abuse from family members or violence in early dating relationships, they found.

An abusive experience can produce severe psychological distress. The resulting symptoms, including those of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), place the victim at risk for later interpersonal trauma as they adapt to maltreatment and discrimination.

Revictimization occurred when Gabrielle Muniz was found dead of multiple stab wounds inside her Bronx apartment in March, 2022. She was 26.

Caleb Duberry, 34, whom Muniz had been dating, murdered Muniz and her daughter Rozara, just 6, the child of another ex-partner. Police tracked Duberry to Boston Secor Houses in the Bronx the following day, where he had stabbed himself to death.

Muniz was the middle of Yanik Rocha’s three girls, between Gisele, the oldest, and Joanna. Rocha’s first husband served in the military, so the family moved around a lot, eventually settling in Kissimmee, Florida. “It was just me and the girls going through the struggle,” Yanik said on a Zoom call. The couple divorced in 2002, when Gabrielle was about 6.

Rocha and her second husband had Joanna, whom Giselle and Gabrielle helped raise.

Gabrielle would paint Joanna’s face in gruesome makeup, dress her up as a monster, and then have her jump out at her mother and Gisele, Joanna recalled on the Zoom call. “I remember that,” her mother said fondly.

The summer before Muniz’s death, Joanna, 15, stayed with her in her Bronx apartment. She described fun trips to Dave & Busters with her sister and niece and taking care of Rozara while Muniz went to school online to earn a master’s degree in biomedical sciences at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine. Her goal was to become a pharmacologist.

Rozara slept in a baby bed, Joanna on an air mattress on the floor. “I would wake up and look over at her, and she’d be laying there with her eyes open, staring at me,” Joanna reflected. “She’d be like, ‘Good morning!’ And I’m like, Rozara, why didn’t you wake me up?” The answer was always because she wanted to let Joanna sleep. “But like, in baby words?” Joanna added, laughing.

“Rozara started to tell her mother that Caleb was sometimes mean to her,” Yanik went on. . “That’s when I knew, and I think that’s when she knew, it was time.”

In early 2022, Muniz applied for a teacher’s certificate in Florida, planning to leave New York with Rozara. Yanik believes that Caleb found out she was going to leave him.

“He knew it!” Yanik exclaimed furiously. “He knew she was going, and he killed her. That’s why he killed her.”

Duberry was not Muniz’s first violent partner, Yanik said.

Muniz met her first abuser after graduating from Columbia University with a bachelor’s degree in biology in 2016. She became pregnant with their child, Rozara, and began to isolate herself from her family in Florida.

They reconnected during the pandemic, and “when we got back into each other’s lives, we took off where it should’ve been,” Yanik recounts.

But Yanik realized that her daughter was not her usual self. She began visiting New York and discovered that Muniz’s boyfriend “beat her to a pulp.”

“He was a leech” who took control of Muniz’s finances, Yanik added.

Yanik visited for Christmas in 2020 and allowed Joanna’s boyfriend to join the family for the holiday; Muniz agreed.

Her partner objected, however. “He came to me and told me that he was upset that I had allowed the guy to come. And I said, ‘Why? Gabrielle said it was okay.’ He’s like, ‘But I’m the man of the house.’”

I said, ‘You’re the man in the house. You beat my daughter.’”

Yanik’s extended family in New York helped move Muniz and Rozara into her own apartment, away from Duberry, in early 2021. But, already a survivor of intimate partner violence when they met, Muniz was revictimized and ultimately murdered by her second abuser.

Yanik described Muniz’s abusers as predators. “They can smell, they can sense, people like Gabrielle,” she said, referring to Muniz’s ability to always see the best in people.

Intimate partner violence is a deeply misunderstood issue, says Dr. Sandhya Kajeepeta, former research director at the Mayor’s Office to End Gender-Based Violence (then called the Office to Combat Domestic Violence). But it’s increasingly recognized as a public health problem requiring societal and structural solutions.

In 2017, the Mayor’s Office released a report detailing news coverage of intimate partner homicide between 2013 and 2016. The city has not released another since, but the same methodology can track news coverage for 2022 and 2023.

Nine out of 31 homicides in 2022 and six out of 36 in 2023 received no media coverage, continuing the average in the previous report of almost 7 homicides annually without coverage. The Mayor’s Office report argued that media coverage plays a key role in shaping public conversation around intimate partner violence. Calling attention to some homicides and not others creates room for misconceptions about the groups most susceptible to violence.

For example, the murders of Orsolya Gaal and Azsia Johnson in 2022 and Alexandra Witek and Theresa Gregg in 2023 each generated more than 40 articles.

Coverage of those four homicides used sensationalized language and focused on the perpetrators’ grisly tactics. Convicted murderer David Bonola stuffed Orsolya’s body into a duffel bag, presumably an attempt to cover up the murder. Isaac Agro shot Azsia Johnson in front of her three-month-old, whom she was pushing in a stroller along the Upper East Side. Edison Lopez stabbed Alexandra Witek and her two sons to death in the family home on the Upper West Side.

Kajeepeta’s past research with the Mayor’s Office flagged sensationalized language -- phrases like “bloodbath” or “slaughter” or “butcher” -- to describe intimate partner homicide. Public health experts caution against such language because “the potential that a survivor of violence is reading this article and could be re-traumatized by reading sensationalized language,” is high, Kajeepeta says.

In three out of four of these particularly gruesome homicides, the victims were white women. Yet in 2023, the victim in 56% of the city’s intimate partner homicides was Black and in 27% the victim was Hispanic. In only 11% of intimate partner homicides was the victim white, highlighting the disparity between homicides that the media cover and the population most at risk of being killed by a partner.

“The media play a critical role in shaping narratives and influencing people's understanding of an issue, and because intimate partner violence is so common, it's really likely that for every article on domestic violence or on intimate partner violence, there's a survivor of violence who's reading the article,” Kajeepeta said. That presents a potential opportunity for harm, especially when reporters use victim-blaming language or language that objectifies or sexualizes the victim.

However, media organizations also have an opportunity to empower survivors through deeper, more equitable reporting, Kajeepeta said.

“One very important area that the media could play a role in is using effective sources and including potential resources. It could be a hotline number at the bottom of the article.”

Kajeepa also argued that reporters should frame incidents within the larger context of intimate partner violence. “We often found that the incidents were not described as being related to domestic violence or intimate partner violence,” she said. “You kind of lose sight of this larger societal problem.”

Coverage of a homicide in January illustrates the issue.

Olga Kirshenbaum, 34, was shot to death by her boyfriend, also 34, in their Park Slope apartment on January 24. Her close friend Lauren Cather, 25, recalled that in 2021, the two women worked as hosts at Cote Korean Steakhouse, a Michelin-starred restaurant in the Flatiron District, and would take the Q train home together to Brooklyn, sharing a cigarette.

“She was the most nonjudgmental, receptive, and accepting person I could’ve been seen and been loved by as a young girl in a crazy New York City industry,” said Cather.

“She loved her new boyfriend,” Jason Jackson, said Cather. “She’d invite him to the bars we’d head to after work and it was evident they cared about each other’s happiness, almost more than their own.”

The day after Jackson shot Kirshenbaum, an article in the Daily Mail memorialized Jackson, who shot himself to death after murdering Kirshenbaum. It did not mention Kirshenbaum by name, only referring to her as “his girlfriend.”

The story quoted social media posts by Jackson’s brother about how he would miss singing with him and was in shock over his death.

A childhood friend told the DailyMail.com that “it's shaken up all of Park Slope,” referring to Jackson’s death.

The article does not identify the case as an intimate partner homicide or frame Kirshenbaum’s untimely death in the context of a larger public health issue, as public health officials like Kajeepeta recommend.

Muniz’s mother believes that communication on a smaller scale is also vital when it comes to intimate partner violence.

“I couldn’t sleep at night envisioning that Gabrielle wanted to talk to me,” Rocha said tearfully. “For some reason, Gabrielle felt like she couldn’t tell me what she was going through.”

Asked what she would tell parents of young women whom they suspect are being abused, Rocha replied,“Communication. Communication. Communication.”

The family has worked hard to balance their grief with a bit of optimism.

Joanna, who is a freshman at the University of Florida, was looking forward to a business trip to Chicago. Described by her mother as an “overachiever,” she recently began working for a company that sells bags, backpacks and other travel accessories.

“Gabrielle definitely made an impact on Joanna, so when I see the things that Joanna’s doing, I know that Gabrielle is there,” their mother said.

Swinnie was similarly optimistic about her daughter’s opportunity to grow in the wake of violence and manipulation. After a three-year custody battle with her ex-partner, Swinnie was granted full legal custody of Egypt, with sole decision-making authority, in July 2023.

“I’m honest with Egypt about everything,” She said. Unlike most parents, Swinnie doesn’t teach her daughter about Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. She wants to show Egypt utter honesty so that her daughter learns authenticity and will understand when people, especially boys, are being manipulative.

Whenever Swinnie mentioned Egypt, her face lit up and she looked out at old-fashioned metal slide and swings that she and Young used to play on in kindergarten.

Egypt graduated from kindergarten in June. “She was valedictorian,” Swinnie added with a hint of pride.

Local and National Intimate Partner Violence Resources:

NYC's 24-hour Domestic Violence Hotline (Línea directa de violencia doméstica de Nueva York las 24 horas): 800-621-4673; TTY: 866-604-5350

NYS Domestic and Sexual Violence Hotline: 844-997-2121.

New York State Adult Domestic Violence Hotline (habla español): 800-942-6908

Womankind (formerly New York Asian Women’s Center) Multilingual Hotline: 888-888-7702

Email We all Really Matter with subject line “I need Help”: contactwarminharlem@gmail.com

National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673

2023 to 2022 Annual Comparison of Intimate Partner Homicides: Demographic and  Incident Characteristics  

• Intimate partner homicides increased by 16.1% - from 31 in 2022 to 36 in 2023. 

• Intimate partner homicides in Brooklyn increased by 38.5% - from 13 in 2022 to 18 in 2023. The most intimate partner homicides occur in Brooklyn. 

* The Mayor’s Office report condensed black hispanics and white hispanics into one category. 

News Coverage of Intimate Partner Homicides in New York City (2022-2023)

• Total number of articles published in 2022 was 199 

• The total number of articles published in 2023 was 219. 

• In 2022, 9 homicides had 0 articles published about them. 

• In 2023, 6 homicides had 0 articles published about them. 

• The average number of articles published per homicide was 6.4 in 2022 and 6.3 in 2023. 

2022 data:

* In cases of NYPD witholding identities pending family notification, the location of the homicide was used as search term. In cases where 0 articles were written and a victim name could not be identified, but there was an intimate partner homicide recorded in the city’s annual homicide report, search term was N/A.

2023 Data:

* In cases of NYPD witholding identities pending family notification, the location of the homicide was used as search term. In cases where 0 articles were written and a victim name could not be identified, but there was an intimate partner homicide recorded in the city’s annual homicide report, search term was N/A.

METHODS:

A.  Data Collection 

• We conducted a systematic and comprehensive search of the LexisNexis database for all newspaper articles covering New York City intimate partner homicides published in all news outlets in the tristate area. Our search terms were victim’s or perpetrator’s name as well as the terms ‘murder’ and/or ‘homicide’. The search excluded articles published prior to the homicide. 

• Using a standardized data abstraction form, reviewers abstracted information on the following variables: 1.  Level of coverage: Level of coverage was measured by the number of articles published per homicide.

* Grassroots Magazine used the same methods as the Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence report released in 2017, covering the years 2013-2016. However, this report only covers the years 2022 and 2023 so as to avoid data discrepancies influenced by COVID-19 lockdowns. 

Carolyn Gevinski is a co-founder and co-editor-in-chief at Grassroots. She can be reached at carolyn@grassrootsmagazinenyc.com