COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) – Nearly 4,700 people in the United States become victims of rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in the span of an average Broncos game, according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
For Doris Rivera-Black, that statistic is personal.
“Looking back, I can see that now. I can see, I, I really. You know, I was being warned. I was being shown this, this man was not safe, but I didn’t, I didn’t listen to my own instinct,” Rivera-Black said.
Twenty years ago, Rivera-Black was a young mom of two girls, divorced, and living with a friend when she met someone who would change her life.
“He would bring meals that he would cook and prepare for me and I thought, ‘Wow, he’s, he cooks, wow.’ He would bring me gifts for my daughters,” Rivera-Black said.
She said they dated less than a year and got married. It was shortly after that, Rivera-Black says things started to change.
“He was a little more bold about his controlling behaviors, but he was subtle at first,” Rivera-Black said. “Then it got really strange. He would be jealous when I would spend time with my daughters.”
Rivera-Bblack started the Academy with the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, achieving a life long dream of being in law enforcement. Something he didn’t approve of. He started showing up at her work and his surveillance escalated from there.
“He started hacking into my work emails. Trying to get me fired, awful things, pretending he was me,” Rivera-Black said.
She thought she was keeping it between them until her 10-year-old at the time said she could hear their arguing.
“I said, ‘I can’t, I can’t not allow my girls to think this is ok. I cannot continue in this and allow them to think this is healthy.’ And, so I promised her that I would get us out of that situation,” Rivera-Black said. “That was such a heroic thing for her to do. She saved her mama’s life. She really did.”
Not long after that, Rivera-Black made the decision to leave and contacted TESSA. They helped her set up a safety plan and waited for the time to enact it. When that moment came, she changed her locks, her bank account, and the way she took home from work every night.
She also filed a restraining order, something that was denied the first time she tried. But this time, it was approved.
“I heard nothing from him for like a week and I thought, ‘Hallelujah, this is great. Finally he’s out of our lives.’ Well, what I didn’t realize is that he was planning,” Rivera-Black said.
She called her mom who lived with her at the time to let her know she was on her way home from work, which was also part of her safety plan. But, when she pulled up to her house, and got out of the car, her estranged husband came toward her dressed in all black, held her at gunpoint, and ushered her to his waiting car.
“It was the worst night of my life. He was yelling at me, screaming at me,” Rivera-Black recalled.
He drove her from Security-Widefield to Boone, east of Pueblo.
“I thought, ‘This is it. This is it. I’m done. I’m done. He’s going to kill me. And he’s probably going to kill himself.’ And, so, he raped me that night and all that training I had and I could not defend myself. I was paralyzed. I was paralyzed,” Rivera-Black said.
They stopped at a convenience store on the way back home. Rivera-Black asked to use the restroom. She turned the water on, cried, and prayed.
“This peace came over me. Unexplainable. I can’t explain it with words. It’s just like instant peace washed over me. And I felt like, ‘I’m gonna be ok. I don’t know how I’m going to get out of this, but I’m gonna be ok,’” Rivera-Black said.
She got back in the car and took a sip of a drink he bought for her. When she said she needed something to eat, he grabbed his phone, her phone, and his wallet and went into the store.
“But, he forgot to do one little thing. He forgot to take the keys with him. I hopped over to the driver’s side. I didn’t even fix nothing and he’s tall. So, I’m here with the steering wheels like here to me. So, I reverse it and he saw the lights move. As soon as he saw the lights move, he looked. And the look… I’ll never forget the look that he gave me,” Rivera-Black remembered.
She said she drove north on I-25 as fast as she could. She was hoping she’d be pulled over on the way home.
“As soon as I got to my neighborhood, I saw all the, the lights, you know, I saw the lights, so I’m like, ‘Ok, they’re they’re waiting for me,’” Rivera-Black said. “The next morning they caught him, Pueblo PD, hiding in the cupboards of his dad’s apartment cause his dad lived in Pueblo. And, he’s been in prison ever since,” she said.
Now, she’s helping to teach women to be prepared. She owns Renzo Gracie Colorado East Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and teaches a free women’s Jiu Jitsu class every Thursday night.
“You can be in headlocks, you can be in choking positions against the wall, you can be in choking positions on the floor, and you can escape that effectively. I have full confidence. That me or my daughter or any one of us can effectively defend ourselves now,” Rivera-Black said.
She said while escaping those situations is physical, a lot of it is mental.
“Too many women don’t even believe that they’re worth defending. Too many women have this sense of um. You know, maybe I deserved what was happening. Maybe I deserve what’s happening, and that is a lie. That is a lie from hell,” she said.
Her estranged husband was convicted of kidnapping, sexual assault, among other charges. He’s serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
TESSA is available to help you. It all starts with just one phone call to their 24/7 safeline.
That number is 719-633-3819.
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