Photo credit: Tom Jenz
"Karin Tyler: The Violence of Experience"
Karin Tyler is the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Prevention Manager for the City of Milwaukee’s Office of Violence Prevention. She helps victims.
The daughter of civil rights activists, Karin grew up at N. 12th St. and W. Keefe Ave. in zip code 53206. “That’s a dangerous neighborhood now,” she told me, “but it was different back then, much safer in the 1980s. What’s helped me in my job is I’ve experienced what our domestic abuse victims go through.”
What experience? She is now 49, but in her 20s, Karin was living with her boyfriend in Milwaukee. He had been frequently physically abusive. She explained, “One night, after a couple hours of abuse and sexual assault, he put a gun to my head, said he’d kill me, then kill himself. Worse, I had young children in the house. Luckily, a neighbor called the police, and I was saved. That was very traumatic.” Not long after, she had a mild breakdown, not realizing she could go somewhere for help. Finally, she started doing community service and then joined the City of Milwaukee Health Department in 2009 and its Office of Violence Prevention in 2018.
If that near-tragedy wasn’t enough heartbreak for one person’s lifetime, Karin lost her son to homicide in 2011, and in 2018, her father, who was a crossing guard, was killed in a hit and run accident. She said, “I feel I can personally help abuse victims because of my own background experiencing the world of violence.”
Central City Stories is a collection of visual narratives from Milwaukee's central city by writer and fine arts photographer Tom Jenz. You can see more of his work at TomJenzAmerica.com.
