The Orlando Police respond to about 3,000 domestic violence calls each year, and after assessing a situation, if officers believe one of the parties involved is in danger, and they find probable cause to arrest one or both parties, then they will. Even though many partners who called the police claim they do not want the accused to go to jail, police can make the arrest without a partner’s cooperation.
Probable cause is the key. This means officers assess the situation and decide whether domestic violence is occurring and by whom. If police arrive and you are engaged in name-calling from another room or have bruised knuckles and your spouse a broken nose, these and other factors contribute to probable cause. Domestic violence arrests in Orlando are crimes with far-reaching consequences if you are convicted, so contact an experienced DV lawyer if it happens to you.
Domestic violence is an umbrella term for physical or sexual violence, emotional and psychological abuse, and sometimes financial abuse between people in current or past romantic or familial relationships living together, or who share a child. Emotional, psychological, and financial abuse are not on their own offenses that are the basis of a domestic violence arrest, but are part of a pattern that usually accompanies crimes for which a perpetrator can be arrested. Under Florida Statutes § 741.28(2), domestic violence is charged as:
If you are arrested for a first-time battery with minor physical injuries, upon conviction you will spend a maximum of a year in jail. But if you are arrested and convicted of a first-time domestic violence battery, the judge can sentence you to additional jail time with a mandatory minimum of five days, up to a year of probation, attendance and mandatory completion of a batterer’s intervention program that lasts 26 weeks, community service, and subject you to a restraining or no contact order.
Although a battery conviction can be sealed in time, domestic abuse battery arrests in Orlando can never be sealed or expunged if you are convicted. At this chaotic time in your life, a compassionate and experienced defense attorney offers stability as you fight for the best outcome possible.
Orlando Police will dispatch officers who are part of its Domestic Violence Response Team (DVRT). They are trained to assess a scene to determine probable cause by interviewing both parties separately, listening for excited utterances that could be considered admissions of guilt, securing witness statements, including from children in the household, looking for weapons, observing the demeanor of the parties, and photographing the parties involved and the room in disarray.
Photographs can be used as evidence to show disheveled appearances, injuries, bruises, and defensive wounds. Officers particularly look for signs of strangulation, such as marks around the accuser’s neck, pinprick red marks in the eyes, and bouts of coughing. If you find yourself a police target for domestic abuse arrests in Orlando, our defense lawyers are ready to take your call for help.
Any arrest is traumatic, and when tempers are flaring because the police are responding to aggression between intimate partners or a family member, the situation can prompt you to say and do things you would not ordinarily do. However, the officers have a duty to determine who is at risk and who is the aggressor to protect one and arrest the other after establishing probable cause.
The attorneys at The Umansky Law Firm are well-versed in handling these situations and dedicate our practice to helping clients who, under the Constitution, are entitled to competent representation when their freedoms can be taken away. Do not think that your circumstances are only a misdemeanor, and it is no big deal. The stigma of an abuse arrest will follow you, stain your representation, limit your job and housing opportunities, and could keep you from any contact with the accuser. Call The Umansky Law Firm after domestic violence arrests in Orlando.
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