Chicago area domestic violence victims left vulnerable as protective orders often go unserved

It's been a year since Maria Roque was shot and killed in front of her children, outside of her home on the West Side of Chicago.

Her murder, police allege, was at the hands of her ex-boyfriend Kenneth Brown—who abused and harassed her before her death, according to several police reports. 

Roque sought and obtained an order of protection through a court, requiring her abuser to stay away. The problem, highlighted by a CBS Chicago investigation, was that Brown was never "served" by the Cook County Sheriff's office or any other law-enforcement agency. 

While Roque waited for the protection order to be served, she continued filing Chicago Police reports against Brown—accusing him of various crimes. Each time, officers suspended the cases without an arrest and noted Brown had not been served.

The process is called "service," and it's a vital step for women needing intervention and protection from abusers. It's also a process that's working poorly in Chicago and surrounding Cook County, according to data obtained from the Cook County Sheriff's office.

The data showed that between 2021 and 2023, the Sheriff's Office received about 77,000 orders of protection for both men and women victims, but only served about 19,000 of them – or 25% – according to a CBS Data Team analysis of CCSO data. 

The gap in service could leave thousands of domestic violence victims like Roque vulnerable to further abuse.

Roque's family gathered on the anniversary of her death at her grave, with the words "mother, sister… always caring and loved," carved into stone.

Roque's children, AJ and Arabel, ages 14 and 9, witnessed what no child should see: their mother ambushed, shot and killed on the steps of their home.

AJ, then 13 years old, had rushed to help his mother.

"He's angry at the fact that he couldn't save her, he couldn't do anything, seeing her on the floor and trying to do CPR," said Roque's twin brother, Andres. 

Andres saw his sister's struggle to get any help from police. While Brown sits in a jail cell, charged with murder, Andres also blames law-enforcement failures for her death.

"I think they just didn't do the work," he said.

The sequence of events that led to Roque's murder was long, sad—and documented. 

Five weeks before she was killed, Maria got an emergency protection order against Brown— accusing him of abuse. It didn't help.

The Cook County Sheriff's Office tried, but didn't serve Brown the order of protection, which said he had to stay away or be arrested.

Without that protection, Maria reported the violence continued. 

Maria's brother said he feels like the system failed Maria.

"I know she's not the only one. There's a lot of people," he said.

"Obviously, we feel absolutely horrible. We feel horrible not just for the obvious reasons this poor woman was murdered," said Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart. "The system just failed."

Dart's office is in charge of the process that serves protective orders, and he defended his department's performance when CBS Chicago presented him with data findings that showed only one in four protective orders were served by his deputies.

"Our department is doing as well as it can with what we have to work with," Dart said.

When asked about his department's 25% service rate, Dart said he would need to look at the data.

"Any time that we don't have service, we're obviously quite upset about that," he said.

Dart said his office often does not have correct addresses to find abusers. In Roque's case, an affidavit showed his deputies tried to track down Kenneth Brown twice. 

The first time was Nov. 8 of last year. Later that same day, a tire on Roque's car was slashed, according to a police report she filed.

CCSO deputies tried again two weeks later to serve Brown, but were unsuccessful.

The affidavit cited lack of a unit number and locked doors as the reasons both attempts failed.

"I think we should be given more authority to maybe go into houses… similar to arrest warrants and search warrants and things like that," Dart said. 

Timeline of Maria's case

Ultimately, it was Roque who got Brown served after she got his relative to compel him to show up to court, where he was served the emergency order—three weeks after it was originally issued.

"We don't ask survivors to interact with the abusers ever," Dart said. "We would never do that."

Despite that, accused abusers are often served in court, sometimes at the urging of a survivor.

It's unclear how often a survivor gets their abuser into a courtroom, but abusers are often served in court instead of a sheriff's officer, according to an analysis of court data from the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County.

The CBS Data Team examined cases from 2021-2023, the same period of time and same jurisdiction as the service data from the Sheriff's office.

The data showed nearly 11,000 cases where at least one emergency order was served in open court.

"Ever since my sister passed away, I've been seeing people reaching out and be like, you know, they still haven't served my abuser," Roque said.

While data showed overall service was low across the county, some areas were worse off than others.

Roque lived in the 60644 ZIP code of the Austin neighborhood. There were nearly 2,200 protective orders that were issued to defendants in the ZIP Code between 2021 and 2023, according to an analysis of service data from the Sheriff's office. 

Only 420 orders were served there by Sheriff's deputies during that time period, or 19%.

Her alleged abuser, Brown, lived in nearby 60612 on the Near West Side, according to his arrest warrant. Only 230 out of about 1,130 protective orders were served by Sheriff deputies – or roughly 20%. 

Rates of service were lower on Chicago's South and West sides than other parts of the city or suburbs. That is in part because those areas have significantly more orders of protection than other parts of the county. 

"This isn't something where we're running around saying, 'We have all the answers, we don't need anyone's help.' On the contrary, we need other law enforcement agencies to help us," Dart said.

Local police agencies can assist county sheriffs with the service process. When a protection order is granted, the information goes into a statewide police database called the Law Enforcement Assistance Development System, or LEADS.

Any officer from any department who comes across an offender, such as during a traffic stop, can serve them, much in the same way a warrant is carried out. That process is known as "short form." 

"Once the order of protection is entered, it goes into the LEADS system, and every law enforcement agency has access to that," Dart said. 

From the time sheriff deputies made their first service attempt to the time Brown was served in open court, Roque had made about a half dozen reports in two weeks to the Chicago Police Department. 

After her tire was slashed, she made three additional reports, documenting harassing texts and voicemails.  At one point, a rock was thrown through the window of her home, and then on her last birthday, her car was set on fire. 

It's unclear why Chicago Police did not pursue these cases, attempt an arrest, or attempt to serve Brown via short form.

"If there's an order protection and an abuser slashes someone's tires, breaks someone's window, last I checked that's a crime," Dart said.

The Chicago Police Department suspended those cases, and one case was classified as unfounded.

Andes said the Chicago Police Department and Cook County Sheriff's office should collaborate more on getting an accused abuser served.

"I just feel like they should be more connected," he said.

"They just treat it like a paper, just like it doesn't matter. And I feel like it should matter," he said.

He said there were many missed opportunities for police to serve Brown or even arrest him. There were missed opportunities where Maria reported to police that Brown continued to harass her through text and voicemails, at one point trying to call her "some 32 times throughout the day." 

One of those incidents took place right after Brown was served. He was not arrested for any of those incidents. Shortly after, Roque convinced prosecutors at the Cook County State Attorneys to get an arrest warrant for Brown on Dec. 12 of last year. 

She was murdered the following day.

Police never arrested him until Brown turned himself in on Dec. 29.

Room for improvement

Representatives from Dart's office contend that service has improved, and that the 25% service rate isn't reflective of the department's current level of service.

Dart's office provided service data for 2024, which only showed service for two, three-month periods. That data included service by other means, including short forms from other police agencies.

The data showed service by the department from March to May of this year was closer to 51% and service from August through October was closer to 53.5%. Subtracting service from other agencies, the sheriff's service was closer to 33% in the spring and 41% in the fall. This figure is still higher than previous years, but the data was incomplete for the rest of 2024.

Dart himself said he wants things to work differently.

"I used to be a prosecutor. I can tell you, this system hasn't changed a heck of a lot since the '80s and '90s," Dart said. "We all have basically computers in our pockets. We have the ability to track, it seems, virtually anything, but yet somehow we can't find these people. And so it is wildly frustrating."

Dart contends that his office has increased the number of attempts after receiving a protective order, mandating at least two attempts within 48 hours.

When asked if there was a solution at hand, Dart was blunt.

"No, there isn't," he said. "I mean, to be honest with you, I wish there was."

Meanwhile, Roque's children are grappling with new lives, living with family members and attending new schools. 

Her brother Andes filed a complaint with the Chicago Police Department on how officers handled his sister's many reports. That case is ongoing, according to the police department, which declined to answer specific questions about how those cases were handled. 

"I just hope this makes the system better," Andres said. 

"If we have another chance to save someone else, then I know she will want that."

If you are in a domestic violence situation or know someone who is, the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County has guidance on getting a protection order. The Network, an advocacy group for domestic violence victims, put together a toolkit on how to create a safety plan.

Illinois Domestic Violence Hotline: 877-863-6338

National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-799-7233