quote: The mother of three was attacked with an AXE four hours after filing a domestic abuse complaint this month.”

No gun needed to attack an unarmed woman!!!! Too bad the Canadian government won’t allow her to protect herself!
I don’t know about Canada, but here in the U.S., the USSC has stated numerous times that the police have NO duty to protect you; therefore, it is up to YOU to protect YOURSELF !!!!!!!! Buy a firearm and learn how to use it !
Please, Do not wait for to find out that a restraining order does NOT work either……

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Police broke ‘promise,’ battered woman says
Date: Nov 20, 2004 11:46 AM
PUBLICATION: Toronto Star
DATE: 2004.11.20
SECTION: News
PAGE: B02
BYLINE: Betsy Powell
ILLUSTRATION: Ron Bull Toronto Star Wyann Ruso talks yesterday aboutinjuries to
her eye. The mother of three was attacked with an axe four hours after filing a
domestic abuse complaint this month. Her husband has been charged.

——————————————————————————–

Police broke ‘promise,’ battered woman says

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Wyann Ruso says police officers let her down when they “promised” but
failed to arrest her husband, who is now accused of attacking her with an axe and
a hammer four hours after she filed a domestic abuse complaint at a Scarborough
police station.

“I wish they would take this situation more seriously than what they did,”
Ruso, 53, told a news conference yesterday. “I wouldn’t be going through this
if they arrested him when they promised me. I wouldn’t be going through this, I
wouldn’t have almost died.”

She was making her first public comments since the Nov. 3 assault that left her
with a broken jaw, a fractured skull and several cuts. The blows to her head were
so severe she may suffer permanent vision loss.

Wearing a pink sweater, jeans and a baseball cap, Ruso was guided into the union
hall at the Toronto local of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers – where she has
worked as a secretary for 30 years – by her lawyer, Peter Rosenthal, and co-worker
Sherry Smith.

Her husband of 34 years, Giuseppe Ruso, is in jail. He appeared in court yesterday
for a bail hearing, which was put over to Dec. 1. He’s charged with attempted murder,
uttering death threats and careless storage of a firearm.

Reading from a prepared statement, Ruso gave a solemn account of events leading
up to the attack in the garage of her Baylawn Dr. bungalow while her disabled daughter
and nanny were inside. She said her marriage was breaking up and alleged her husband
had told her “that he would rather kill me than let me go…my husband had
a rifle, I thought he might try to shoot me with it.”

She took the weapon to work, where Smith persuaded her to go to police. “We
went to 42 Division and gave the gun to the police. I told an officer about my husband’s
threats to kill me. She assured me that he would be arrested very soon. I told her
that I wanted to go home because my seriously disabled grown daughter needs my care,
and I was also afraid that my husband would be very angry if I was not at home on
time.”

While police told her not to return home until he was taken into custody, Ruso said
she called police several times to find out if he’d been arrested and “was
told the officer would call me back, but she never did.”

Her voice trembling, Ruso, who had to undergo emergency surgery, said she feels
fortunate to be alive and thanked paramedics and hospital staff who cared for her,
as well as her parents, brother and co-workers. The mother of three also said she
hopes “some good comes out of this incident. I hope the police officers and
others learn that quick action is required when a woman indicates her life has been
threatened.”

After the news conference, Smith told reporters she and Ruso arrived at the station
at 11: 40 a.m. and met with Constable Patricia Guest, who works in the domestic
violence section. Ruso gave a videotaped statement and the pair left around 2: 20
p.m., Smith said, after being told “they were going to take him into custody
any minute.” At 4 p.m., Smith said Ruso called Guest, who again reassured her
an arrest was imminent. Ruso left work and drove to a doughnut shop close to her
home, “waiting for the call.” She went home anyway around 5 p.m. and found
her husband “very angry.” She alleges she was attacked at about 6: 30
p.m.

The next day, Smith said Guest called her at home. She said the constable told her
that she was upset that no arrest had been made and that she had sent the radio
call out to have him arrested at 2: 21 p.m. When Smith pressed what happened, she
said Guest told her, “it’s Scarborough, we’re busy.”

Chief Julian Fantino has blamed a “lapse” and “human failing”
for police not preventing the attack. Rosenthal said yesterday, “We haven’t
gotten any other explanation beyond that.” (A spokeswoman said an internal
investigation is underway.)

Rosenthal said he would be looking for something “in the millions of dollars”
for “this kind negligence on the one hand and the trauma on the other hand.”

Marilyn Churley, the NDP women’s issues critics, said Ruso’s case raises questions
about how police are responding to domestic violence “and whether its policies
that reside on paper are actually being enacted.”

She called on Toronto police to report on how the service is complying with domestic
assault procedures in its annual report and urged the province to introduce a more
accountable system of reporting on how police handle domestic issues.