WICHITA, Kansas -- Just a few months ago, one Wichita woman’s husband shot and killed her in the street in front of three of her children."There was a verbal argument between the suspect and the victim that started in the house and continued into the front yard," said Wichita Police Department Lieutenant Todd Ojile.
Antonia Cratic-Woods was one of 10 Wichitans that fell victim to a domestic violence homicide last year.
"The last time we had that many, ten or more homicides that were related to domestic violence was in 2004," said Wichita Police Department Chief Norman Williams.
The Wichita Police Department released crime statistics for the city Friday and the numbers show a 50 percent increase in homicides last year.
10 of the 27 homicides in 2011 were related to domestic violence.
"Sadly, I'm not surprised by it," said Stacey Mann.
Authorities say domestic violence is a problem that’s driving the crime numbers in Wichita up.
"When you look at the increase in aggravated assaults, there again, domestic violence aggravated assault drove the numbers," said Williams.
"We have seen an increase, we've seen an increase in calls to our hotline number,” said Executive Director of YWCA Wichita, Stacey Mann.
Mann says YWCA, alone, served nearly 12,000 people facing domestic violence issues last year.
Authorities say the problem is growing across the entire state.
Domestic violence service programs in Wichita say they believe the numbers are up because of the economy.
They say families are struggling and if there is already violence in the home, economic issues make it worse.
The local programs plan to work with law enforcement to strategize a way to get the numbers down.
