A new report released this week shows dozens of Wisconsinites were victims of domestic violence-related homicide throughout 2010. 

Throughout the previous year, 58 people were killed in connection with domestic violence incidents, a report released by the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence said.

The report found that domestic abuse-related deaths decreased from 67 in 2009 to 58 in 2010. Of these 58 deaths, nine were residents of Dane County. Twenty-nine of the 51 homicide victims were female and 22 were male, according to the report, but most of the perpetrators were male.

The report comes out each year to show the gravity of domestic violence in Wisconsin and is hopefully a means to the end of domestic violence, WCADV spokesperson Patti Seger said in an email to The Badger Herald.

“Homicide is the most extreme end of the spectrum of violence,” Seger said. “To better understand how abusive relationships might sometimes turn lethal, we examine each death in as great a detail as we are able. We look for common themes as we seek to better understand the circumstances that lead to homicide.”

The 2010 report examined 11 “themes,” which are different types of domestic violence that have been documented throughout the past decade.

Some of the themes that were closely examined in 2010 were “Gun Violence,” “Homicides By Legal Intervention” and “Returning Veterans,” according to the report.

Guns were the most often used weapon in domestic violence homicides in 2010, according to the report.

A homicide through legal intervention is when a police officer responds to a call and ends up firing upon and killing an individual in the line of duty, the report said.

Six suspects were killed by police in 2010 alone, while police killed only five suspects between 2000 and 2009, according to the report. 

There were two cases of homicide that involved soldiers returning from the wars in  Iraq and Afghanistan. Both of the perpetrators suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after returning home from war, the report said.

The report added that cases involving LGBT relationships may go unreported because the relationship may have been “coded” as two people who were “friends” or “roommates” and were not known or reported as two people in a partnership or relationship.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, according to a statement from the University of Wisconsin branch of Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment.

Today on East Campus Mall is the National Day of Unity hosted by PAVE on campus, PAVE spokesperson Jacqueline O’Reilly said. Students can stop by and sign pledges to be involved in healthy relationships and avoid abusive ones.

O’Reilly said students who are victims of domestic violence, or know someone who is, can use the resources offered on campus, such as counseling and care through University Health Services, or using End Violence on Campus, which supports students and also works on prevention.

Due to a reporting error, in the original article it said that nine of the homicides were in Dane County, when the nine victims were actually residents of Dane County. The article has been corrected to reflect this change. We regret the error.