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Last updated on Thursday, April 19, 2012
(INDIANAPOLIS) - Indianapolis domestic violence activists worked to raise safety awareness on Wednesday after the fatal shooting of a young mother in front of her two children.
Late Tuesday night, police were called to the 3700 block of North Layman Avenue on reports of shots fired and a woman screaming.
When officers arrived, they found Sharon Toran, 23, who had been fatally shot in the stomach and the chest, and her brother, Jonathan Perry, 21, who had been shot in the leg, in a car.
Indianapolis Metro Police arrested her estranged husband, Miles Toran, 23, in connection with the shooting.
Metro Police said Toran was meeting her estranged husband to exchange their young children, RTV6's Jenna Kooi reported.
Investigators said Toran had taken out a protective order against her estranged husband, but he disobeyed it.
Julia Kathary, executive director at Coburn Place, a safe haven for victims of domestic violence, said protective orders are designed to protect women against their abusers, but sometimes the situation has a different outcome.
"When you have somebody who perhaps doesn't care about that kind of message and doesn't respond the way, a lot of times they don't work," Kathary said.
Kathary also said women in danger should talk with a professional counselor about developing a safety plan, especially when children and visitation meetings are involved.
"When an abuser knows the location of a victim, it can really put her and her children in danger," Kathary explained.
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