Man in Fatal Domestic Violence Case Receives 16 Years to Life
December 17, 2008
Tempongko case highlights failed city response to domestic violence in Asian American communities
SAN FRANCISCO - A superior court judge last week handed down a 16-years-to-life sentence for the October 2000 stabbing murder of Filipina immigrant Claire Joyce Tempongko, bringing to close an eight-year case that galvanized local community and Filipino advocates and inflamed public criticism of The City’s lack of systematic accountability in domestic violence incidents.
In a judgment that denounced Tari Ramirez’s claim that his history of domestic violence was part of the “ups and downs” of a relationship, Judge Robert Dondero gave Ramirez the maximum sentence for his second-degree murder conviction before a courtroom of the victim’s family and allies.
“Your behavior lowered yourself to the level of an animal,” Dondero said.
The hearing wraps the high-profile pursuit to bring Tempongko’s killer to justice after domestic violence agencies decried the system had failed her.
Prosecutor Liz Aguilar-Tarchi recounted how Ramirez’s “stalking, calling, repeated attempts to reunite, controlling behavior, jealousy and constant physical abuse” in his three-year relationships with Tempongko escalated to Ramirez’s brutal stabbing of the young mother in her Richmond District apartment in front of her 5- and 10-year-old children.
Domestic violence agencies point to The City’s failure to work together to protect Tempongko, who filed numerous reports, a “stay away order” and six frantic 911 phone calls from 1999 to 2000, from which Ramirez only received one charge of domestic violence.
A 2002 investigation by the Department of the Status of Women exposed the failures of the police department, district attorney’s office and probation department to adequately communicate and keep track of Ramirez’s probation and abuse charges.
With 41 to 60 percent of Asian American women experiencing domestic violence during their lifetime, as reported by the Asian and Pacific Islander Institute of Domestic Violence, the case was a wake-up call for advocates of domestic violence victims and women within the Filipino community.
The City has since taken steps to overhaul the social service and criminal justice system to better respond to incidents of domestic violence.
Tempongko’s “senseless murder” has pushed the district attorney’s office, government officials and community members to commit to assisting victims of domestic violence in “breaking free from the brutal cycle of abuse,” Aguilar-Tarchi said at the sentencing.
In 2001, Tempongko’s family sued The City for mishandling numerous attempts to secure safety for Tempongko and her children against domestic violence. The City settled for $500,000 in 2004.
Statements from Claire Joyce’s family brought emotion and some tears into the courtroom. Tempongko’s now-18-year-old son, who witnessed his mother’s killing, described Ramirez as “a ruthless murder who couldn’t control himself.” Claire Tempongko, the victim’s mother, addressed the court as she wept and “pleads to the court and God” to allow Ramirez never to be released from jail.
District Attorney Kamala Harris told media and press after the sentencing that she hopes the case inspires other victims of abuse to speak out, and that The City will maintain a “no tolerance perspective” on domestic violence.
Ramirez fled to Mexico shortly after the murder and was arrested and extradited in 2006. Prior to Dondero’s sentencing, Ramirez, who testified this September that he killed his former girlfriend out of anger after hearing that she had aborted his child, told the court he would “stand up as a man and be accountable for [his] actions.”
“The San Francisco DA office and community of domestic violence agencies,” Aguilar-Tarchi added, “can breathe a long sigh of relief now.”
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