the Informer

Courtesy of Courant.com

One year ago the University of Hartford lost one of its students to domestic violence.

Tiana Notice was a graduate student in the Communication Department and a 2007 graduate with a B.A. in politics and government at the university. On Sunday, Feb. 14 a rally was held at the State Capitol in her honor to address the issues surrounding domestic violence.
The rally brought family, friends and political figures out to support new legislation that would call for GPS systems to be used to keep track of domestic violence offenders.

Rev. Patrice Smith opened the rally with a prayer and asked God to give strength to the family of Tiana Notice. “Domestic violence is a pattern of behavior to control their partner, and it is getting out of hand,” she said.

Tiana’s father, Alvin Notice, gave an emotional speech in honor of his daughter. “When you lose someone, it doesn’t go away,” he said.
In the year since Tiana’s death Mr. Notice has established the Tiana Angelique Notice Memorial Foundation in his daughter’s memory and supports a legislative task force that has been crafting new domestic violence legislation in Connecticut.

“My goal today is to assist and support victims and call attention to domestic violence,” he said. “GPS will tell the victim if the offender is in an area that they should not be and allow them to seek refuge.”

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal supports the proposed legislation and said we cannot allow domestic violence to persist. He demanded the use of GPS tracking to aid victims of domestic violence. “We have an obligation to use this technology to protect women of domestic violence,” he said.

Speaker of the House Christopher Donavan said there are fifty thousand recorded domestic violence assaults in Connecticut per year. “Fifty thousand is fifty thousand too many,” he said.

He proposed a three-pronged approach to address domestic violence that includes education that teaches kids the dos and don’ts, public service announcements and increased communication between law enforcement and other agencies.

Increased communication is just one approach to combat domestic violence; Harvard Law professor Diane Rosenfeld has been working with the Tiana Notice Foundation to bring the GPS law to Connecticut.

“If Tiana had the GPS she would be here today,” Rosenfeld said. She worked to establish the GPS law in Massachusetts and said since the law was passed in 2006 it has been 100 percent effective in keeping victims of domestic violence safe.

State Rep. Kenneth Green of Bloomfield said he would work to bring the GPS legislation to a vote this year.

“It is my goal to make these recommendations effective this year,” he said. “We must strengthen restraining orders and provide the GPS system and save lives.”

Nicole Suissa, the current president of the Roosevelt Institute that Tiana Notice established during her time at the university, said today we make ourselves resilient to domestic violence. “With each step we break down the walls that offenders hide behind.”
Tiana’s story is one that the family will continue to tell as her father said he finds strength in telling his daughter’s story. Now he goes to schools to educate kids on issues of domestic violence.

After asking a group of kids if it was okay to hit a women one student responded, “Yes because my father hits my mother.” Notice said.
He believes in the need for greater education about domestic violence because he sees that “children learn from what they see at home,” he said. After the rally a reception was held in Suisman Lounge, where family, friends, teachers and students came together to honor and remember Tiana Notice.

Her mother Kathy Lewis felt blessed by the amount of people who came out in remembrance of her daughter. “Valentine’s Day is about love and in this room there is a lot of love for Tiana,” she said. The family urged people to contact their legislators and ask for support for the proposed GPS legislation.

With the passing of this legislation and efforts educating students, Mr. Notice hopes we can “break the silence of domestic violence.” For more information on the Tiana Notice foundation and the domestic violence legislation go to www.tiananoticefoundation.org.