Why Domestic Violence is Increasing for Black Women
Nancy Metayer was a trailblazing Vice Mayor in Florida and environmental scientist whose voice commanded city halls, and Dr. Cerina Fairfax was a pillar of the Virginia medical community and devoted mother. But on the mornings of April 1 and April 16 respectively, their titles and triumphs provided no shield.
As the details of Fairfax’s death at the hands of her husband continue to unfold, and Metayer’s husband face first-degree murder charges for what the Coral Springs Police Department called a “premeditated” domestic killing, the case stands as the most visible faces of a skyrocketing femicide rate.
The crisis reached an unspeakable breaking point in Shreveport, Louisiana, with the nation’s deadliest mass shooting in over two years. There, Shamar Elkins’ domestic rampage claimed the lives of eight children—seven of them his own—in a single Sunday morning. The carnage left his wife— who asked for a divorce according to The Telegraph— and a second woman police identified as his ex-wife, wounded in a season of unprecedented domestic violence.
The rise in Black women’s murders at the hands of their intimate partners begs a simple, yet profound question: Why?
The Shreveport gunman’s brother-in-law, Troy Brown, told The Washington Post that Elkins “acted like he was losing his mind” when his wife, Shaneiqua Pugh, filed for divorce. Elkins’ adopted mother said she once witnessed him threatening Pugh, telling her, “I’ll kill you, my kids and myself,” if she ever left him, the New York Times reported.
Police said Nancy Metayer’s husband, Stephen Bowen, told his uncle he just “couldn’t take it anymore” after he allegedly shot Metayer “three times with a shotgun the previous night and then slept downstairs” in early April, Local10.com reported.
In Annandale, Virginia, Dr. Cerina W. Fairfax was embroiled in a contentious divorce from her husband, former Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, before police said the rising Democratic leader killed her and then himself.
The tragedy in Annandale is more than a local news story, it’s a mirror reflecting a haunting picture: domestic violence incidents reported to law enforcement are steadily rising, according to the FBI’s 2026 special report.
While domestic violence affects all demographics, Black women continue to be impacted at significantly higher rates than other groups. According to the Institute of Women’s Policy Research, more than four in ten Black women experience physical violence from an intimate partner during their lifetimes.
Black women also experience significantly higher rates of psychological abuse—including humiliation, insults, and coercive control—than women overall. Black women were two and a half times more likely to be murdered by men than white women, according to a 2015 Violence Policy Center study, and intimate partner violence is a leading cause of death for Black women between the ages of 18 and 34.
Nine in ten Black female victims knew their killers.
For Black women, the surge in intimate partner homicides is partially linked to the saturation of firearms in Black communities, studies show. When a domestic dispute occurs in a household with a gun, the risk of homicide increases by 500 percent, the Department of Justice reported. Yet, in many of the neighborhoods where they live, the presence of a firearm is often framed as a necessity for protection against external threats, ironically becoming the very tool that claims their lives.
Abuse also thrives in instability. According to the CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, a couple’s economic environment is a primary risk factor for violence, especially when household income craters. That reality disproportionately haunts Black communities due to decades of systemic disinvestment and consistently higher unemployment rates.
That economic strain doesn’t cause violence, as wealthy people can be equally abusive. However, it does prevent escape. Poverty can act as gasoline to a fire, denying survivors financial mobility for a hotel, a new lease or legal help that often marks the difference between a successful exit, a violent confrontation or death.
Perhaps the most invisible barrier is the one built from a sense of duty, because from a young age Black women are typically taught to be strong and unbreakable. In an effort to uphold that ingrained standard, mixed with a deep-seated and historically justified distrust of law enforcement, calling the police doesn’t always feel like safety, but a betrayal of a community already decimated by over-incarceration.
So, what’s the solution? There is no single law that can end an epidemic this deeply rooted, but there is a collective choice. We must stop treating the domestic murder of Black women as a private family tragedy and start treating it as the public health emergency it is.
Breaking this cycle requires us to stop asking why she didn’t leave, and start asking why the systems designed to protect her were never built with her in mind.
