According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), one in four women and one in nine men in the United States suffer physical violence at the hands of an intimate partner. It is estimated that 10 million Americans will go through the trauma of domestic violence in a year.
On Saturday, May 29 one of those 10 million Americans was revealed to be Genesis Ozuna, the wife of Atlanta Braves outfielder Marcell Ozuna. According to Sandy Springs, GA police, officers witnessed Ozuna “grabbing the victim by the neck and throwing her against a wall,” per Sergeant Salvador Ortega. “Officers were able to immediately take the suspect into custody without further incident. In addition to the strangulation attempts, the suspect also struck the victim with his arm which has a cast from a previous injury.”
Ozuna was in Atlanta after getting treatment for two broken fingers suffered during a game in Boston on Tuesday.
Ozuna was charged with felony aggravated assault by strangulation and misdemeanor battery. If convicted, aggravated assault by strangulation when inflicted on a domestic partner has a minimum sentence of 3 years in prison in the state of Georgia.
Marcell and Genesis Ozuna have three children together.
What makes domestic violence so insidious is the perversion it makes on the idea of family. People form families for a lot of reasons, but at the most basic is that family members should look out for the safety and security of each other. When a family member — especially a husband to a wife, or a parent to a child — is the actual source of insecurity, it ruptures that basic underlying foundation from which people should be able to stand in the world.
I have no idea what the particular circumstances of the Ozuna’s relationship are. Regardless of what they are, in the end Marcell Ozuna allegedly turned on the woman who he pledged to keep safe and turned that pledge upside down. That’s a choice that Marcell Ozuna made, in that moment. He — and all of the other 10 million Americans who choose to perpetrate domestic violence a year in this county — could have made a different choice, but chose violence.
Fans will want to know what the repercussions are for the Atlanta Braves baseball team, what it means in the wake of the four-year contract Ozuna signed this offseason. It’s natural because the relationship that fans have with Ozuna is not family, but as a part of the sports enterprise that they have decided to invest their attention and hopes. And there will be plenty of time to figure that out.
For now, I hope fans will take just a moment to think about their relationships, their families. Are you a victim of domestic violence? Are you a perpetrator? It’s never too late to start a different path.
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE)
Georgia Domestic Violence Center
Intervention Alliance – programs to help end cycles of abuse
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