A protective order can provide legal recourse, but it cannot guarantee that abuse or stalking will stop. That distinction is part of Tameka Brown’s story: the Dundalk resident says she had an order after leaving an abusive relationship, yet her former partner continued to stalk her. Brown has written I’m Not Your Punching Bag about what she and her children experienced, hoping the book will encourage other survivors to seek help, according to the Dundalk Eagle.
Brown told the newspaper that her former partner once took her child from daycare and that she was then led on a high-speed chase in Dundalk. The report says a judge later ordered him to stay away after Brown explained that she already had a protective order. The account does not establish the precise circumstances or outcome of each incident; the details here are Brown’s as reported by the Eagle.
What an order can—and cannot—do
Maryland Courts says violating certain protective-order conditions, including bans on contact, harassment or abuse, is a crime. A person can file criminal charges at a commissioner’s office or call police, who may arrest someone for violating an order. Those enforcement options do not mean an order can prevent every violation.
Maryland Courts also says people filing a protective- or peace-order case who fear that revealing their address could put them at risk may submit a Request to Withhold Address form with their petition. Its Safe at Home program offers eligible victims of domestic violence and human trafficking a substitute address for interactions with Maryland agencies. These are distinct privacy measures; the court says the address-withholding request is filed with the petition.
Access to a safe place can be another constraint. The Family Crisis Center of Baltimore County says its emergency shelter offers short-term, anonymous shelter to adult domestic-violence victims and their dependent children, but has limited space. The availability of a shelter does not establish that a bed is open for any particular person.
A wider service gap
The resource pressures extend beyond one household. In its national count for Sept. 4, 2024, the National Network to End Domestic Violence reported that 1,741 of 2,015 identified domestic-violence programs participated. Those programs served 79,088 victims in that 24-hour period and reported 14,095 requests for services they could not provide because of insufficient resources, funding or staffing. The figures cover participating programs on one day; they do not measure the availability of services in Baltimore County specifically.
Research offers a qualified reason to consider advocacy alongside enforcement. The National Institute of Justice describes an evaluation in which women who spoke with advocates during a law-enforcement encounter reported using more protective strategies and experiencing less victimization over the following six months than a comparison group. The institute cautions that more rigorous research is needed to determine how effective such interventions are.
The book and Brown’s message
Brown’s book describes verbal abuse, the impact on her children and the retaliation she says followed her departure. She told the Dundalk Eagle she began writing around 2016 or 2017, paused because she feared her former partner might read it, and later resumed. The book was published Oct. 25 and is available through Amazon, the newspaper reported.
Brown also told the newspaper she had experienced another abusive relationship, which ended when that abuser was killed in a murder. She said she wants her account to help others speak about what they have lived through, while emphasizing that experiences differ and that verbal abuse can be deeply harmful. Her advice, as reported by the Eagle, is not to pressure someone to leave, but to make a plan suited to their circumstances before taking that step. Brown said she attends weekly counseling and hopes to adapt her story into a short film.
