Hitting is wrong, mike.An estimated 3 million American women are physically abused by their husbands or boyfriends every year. On average, between three and four women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends every day.
We don’t see anything funny in those numbers. But apparently Mike Daly does. During a recent discussion about whether to add another probation officer to handle domestic violence offenders, Commissioner Daly delivered some philosophical musings on the general subject. Drawing on his experience as a state police officer many years ago, he speculated that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to arrest the battering spouse or boyfriend on the first offense, as the law now requires.
“I know there’s probably some very minor cases of domestic violence,” he added, “but if there’s a mandatory arrest on every occasion, I question that.”
Then, having stuck one foot in his mouth up to the ankle, Daly performed the astonishing acrobatic feat of inserting the other one up to the knee. “Did anybody ever think that he or she might have had it coming?” he asked.
Daly’s fellow commissioner, Tammy Melton, was flabbergasted. “I think just the sheer fact that we’re talking about the beating of spouses as okay really makes my stomach turn,” she said.
Daly assured Melton he didn’t really think beating up your wife or girlfriend was okay (even, presumably, if she “had it coming.”) But when he was confronted about his amazing statements the following week, he made it clear that he still didn’t get it: “I don’t know why anybody would be offended. We were just joking around. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
We don’t know what Daly was thinking either. We suspect he wasn’t thinking at all; that has been known to happen before. But whatever he was thinking or not thinking, his remarks demonstrate that his attitudes on this subject got stuck somewhere around 1955.
(Although he later claimed he was “shocked” by Daly’s comments, Commissioner Dennis Luke didn’t come off much better. During the original exchange he remarked that “I like the old days better, where the father and brother just goes over and beats the hell out of the guy that beat up their daughter or sister.”)
Deschutes County may not be America’s most sophisticated metropolis, but it isn’t Gap Tooth, Mississippi either, and it’s astonishing that in the year 2008 an elected public official could sit in a public meeting here and make statements like Daly’s – and then try to brush them off as humorous. Almost equally astonishing is the fact that the voters of Deschutes County continue to keep this living relic of the Mesozoic Era in office.
Daly says he now understands the need to arrest perpetrators of domestic violence on the first offense. But he still hasn’t given the people of Deschutes County – especially the women – the apology he owes them for his appalling statements. To get his attention, here’s THE BOOT – and along with it, another BOOT for everybody who voted for him in last month’s primary.
This article appears in Jun 5-11, 2008.
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Mr. Daly is a person who cannot be relied on for any major decision. He has no clue about how much of this goes on in our community. Ask any peace officer and you will find out that this is their number one call.
for him to actually make the comment that beating your wife is ok….especially when she had it coming…makes me want to vomit.
He is bought and paid for by some developers who have broken the law now for years and yet kisses their butts and is a weak link in our government.
Mr. Daly…I hope you get a taste of what you are minimizing…..you are a real sicko and I am sure you expect women to be barefoot in the kitchen cooking for you as you sit back and are lazy…
Daly’s comments are so ghastly that its hard to believe. You can’t even chalk this up to “he just wasn’t thinking”. One would have to know exactly what the outcome would be as a result of such comments.
I wonder, does the Source have information on where this took place and/or what the event was?
Mike Daly is one of the good ol boys who truly believes in the “rule of thumb” which is an old english saying based on that the courts would only prosecute a man for beating his wife with a stick thicker than his own thumb. Mike Daly believes that women should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen and only speak when spoken to.
Mike Daly has some white stuff all over his chin from smoking some kind of pole and that pole is attatched to developers who do not have to abide by the laws and rules of our county….assuring he keeps his free golf membership for taking good care of his people, the developers as he no longer takes care of his own people as they only give him grief..
I think that Daly is apparently stuck in the prior century; however, the writer of this article owes the people of Mississippi an apology. Why not reference “Gap Tooth” Oregon or California or New York? Why the South? Where I come from, any prejudice is wrong and to me the total impact of the article was lost when the write insulted innocent people.