Truth is a powerful antidote to abuse

Jareb Dauplaise came to the A La Carte Pavilion Thursday morning believing he could keep his composure.

After all, the actor had a recurring role in The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and appearances in such movies as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Meet The Spartans and Epic Movie.

Of course, publicly sharing your story of domestic abuse for the first time is a far cry from acting.

Still, Dauplaise thought he could steel his emotions and deliver a poignant real-life account of an abusive father to the 800 people attending the The Spring of Tampa Bay's Gift of Peace Breakfast.

Then he saw the chairs.

On the stage sat 16 chairs draped in black and adorned with a single flower. They represented the 16 people who have died from domestic violence in Hillsborough County since October 2008.

"I thought I was going to lose it when I saw the chairs," Dauplaise said.

He soldiered on, telling the audience how his father would come home and abuse him, his mother and his two younger brothers.

"He had to have fear in his kingdom," Dauplaise said.

His father was particularly cruel when he wanted to punish Dauplaise's mother, he said. He used Dauplaise and his brothers. Once, when he thought she spent too much time at the store, he grabbed Dauplaise as he slept and pounded him.

On another occasion, a neighbor heard fighting and called the police. Dauplaise said his dad made all three kids strip in front of the cops so they could see there were no bruises, then took them to the neighbor's house and made them strip again.

The climactic night came when Dauplaise heard screaming and fighting in his parents' bedroom. He kicked in the door with a mix of anger and trepidation.

"I see this monster sitting on top of my mom with his hands around her throat. He was leaning down with her arms trapped under his legs, and I just screamed, 'You get off of her!' And he did. Thank God.

"That was finally the straw that taught my mom we didn't need to live like that. The second she left him, everything was better."

When it comes to domestic violence, Dauplaise's happy ending is the exception, not the rule. Of the 16 domestic violence killings in Hillsborough, a stunning nine have occurred since July.

Four of the nine murders in Pinellas County this year were domestic and it had nine such deaths in 2008. Pasco County had three in 2008.

Ted Bunch, co-founder of the national organization A Call To Men, said not to blame the economy for the increase.

"It's a man making a choice to be abusive," Bunch said Thursday as the breakfast's keynote speaker. "He didn't beat up the boss who fired him. His violence is selective and exclusive to her."

As part of domestic violence awareness month, The Spring, a shelter for abuse victims, will launch Men In The Movement on Oct. 20 to engage males in the effort. To learn more about other events in The Spring's Peace It Together campaign, go to www.dvpeace.org.

But I'm glad Dauplaise took his story to local schools Thursday and today. To change a culture, we have to start with kids being socialized with hip-hop's false machismo and misogyny.

Reach them today, and we may save lives tomorrow.

As Dauplaise noted, "There are just too many chairs."

That's all I'm saying.