Victims Of Domestic

In what is being described as the state's first partnership between a private and public agency to curb domestic violence, Harford County law officials and an abuse resource center yesterday formally unveiled a domestic violence intervention team.The team, made up of two officers from the Harford County Sheriff's Office and a legal advocate from the Sexual Assault/Spouse Abuse Resource Center Inc. (SARC), provides investigative, counseling and legal assistance to victims of domestic abuse.

Patricia McGlauflin Mullen Beauchamp, a retired Baltimore police colonel, died of leukemia Friday at her Abingdon home. She was 55. Mrs. Beauchamp was the first woman appointed to the Baltimore Police Department's command staff. She was instrumental in developing policies that made the agency more sensitive to adults and children who were victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse. Mrs. Beauchamp joined the department as a civilian employee in 1963. After seven years as chief of the community services bureau, she retired as a colonel in 1994.

For 10 years, Judith Clancy has helped counsel victims of domestic violence and worked to educate Howard County's residents about the need to provide treatment for a social ill that crosses economic, class and racial lines.Now, Clancy, 49, of west Columbia's Wilde Lake village, has moved into the forefront of the struggle against domestic violence as the new executive director of the Domestic Violence Center of Howard County Inc."When women in crisis call and you hear their stories, it just makes you want to do whatever you can to eliminate domestic violence," Clancy said.

Victims of domestic violence could seek legal protection from their abusers at night and on weekends - not just during 9-to-5 weekday courtroom hours - under legislation that appears likely to win approval from the General Assembly. "Domestic violence is not limited to business hours," said Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend during a hearing on the proposal yesterday. "We should be there for victims of domestic violence 24 hours a day, seven days a week." The proposal being considered by lawmakers would expand the powers of District Court commissioners when courts aren't open, letting them issue interim orders forbidding those accused of abuse from contact with those seeking protection.

The Oscar-winning film "Defending Our Lives," a documentary about several women imprisoned for killing their abusers, will be made available free to community groups through the Domestic Violence Center of Howard County.The 41-minute film, which won this year's award for Best Documentary Short Subject, recounts the real-life stories of a group of women who were sentenced to a Massachusetts prison for killing the men who abused them.Workers at the Columbia-based Domestic Violence Center said they believe the film is important to the community because it uses the personal testimonies of the women to expose the "magnitude and severity of domestic violence in this country."

An umbrella group of 19 community organizations and county agencies is pooling resources in hopes of helping victims of domestic violence.The Domestic Violence Coordinating Council, which has printed posters, published two brochures and set up a new hot line, is planning a breakfast meeting today at the Anne Arundel Medical Center Community Health Pavilion on Jennifer Road to announce its formation.The group is intended to encourage victims of domestic violence to seek help and to educate emergency personnel at the medical center, volunteers at the YWCA, police, county health and social service workers, and others to spot signs of domestic violence and encourage victims to report it.State's Attorney Frank R. Weathersbee said he began organizing the council several months ago when he asked permission to put a brochure on domestic violence in the hospital emergency room and hospital officials asked for more information.

The acoustic duo Commonbond will perform a lunchtime concert from noon to 2 p.m. Friday on Office Street in Bel Air, adjacent to the County Courthouse on Main Street.The performance will be part of "June 9 Is Domestic Violence Awareness Day," organized by Sexual Assault/Spouse Abuse Resource Center Inc. (SARC) to increase community awareness of domestic violence.Names of people who died in 1994 from domestic violence will be read and a moment of silence observed.Commonbond's original song, "Restless State," will be the theme for the lunchtime activities.

As part of what he said would be a strengthened effort to protect victims of domestic violence, Gov. Martin O'Malley announced yesterday that $1.8 million in federal funds have been allocated for 63 agencies and organizations in Maryland that help such victims. The governor, speaking at a news conference in Towson, also announced the expansion of the 21-member Family Violence Council to include Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, Talbot County State's Attorney Scott Patterson and Vicki Sadehvandi, executive director of Citizens Assisting and Sheltering the Abused, in Hagerstown.

With attention focused on the issue of domestic violence since the killing last week of Patricia A. Titus of Hampstead, Carroll County State's Attorney Jerry F. Barnes says he will propose state legislation next year to allow prosecutors to request the death penalty in murder cases that result from the violation of a protective court order.Titus, 40, the mother of two small boys, was found June 2 by police in a bedroom closet of her home. She had been strangled, according to a state medical examiner's report.

Lt. Gov. Melvin A. Steinberg, in a paid television ad airing this week, falsely claims that his front-running rival for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, Parris N. Glendening, eliminated funds to aid victims of domestic violence as Prince George's County executive.The Steinberg TV spot, which went on the air Wednesday in the Baltimore and Washington areas, says: "Glendening cut funds for domestic violence against women and children to zero."That is incorrect. The domestic violence account was merely shifted two years ago from one county department, Human Services, to another, Family Services, as part of a bureaucratic reorganization, according to budget documents and a senior county budget official.