Dr. Lauren Semanchik, a young veterinarian shot dead at her home after months of harassment by an ex-boyfriend, had sought help from the police as she tried to protect herself.
She reported the threatening behavior to the police in her small town in western New Jersey and to a police department near where she worked, records show. According to her relatives, she installed security cameras at her house and in her car, increasingly fearful that she would be harmed by the man — a lieutenant with the New Jersey State Police who worked in the department’s elite dignitary protection unit.
On Thursday, her family announced a lawsuit against several policing agencies.
“She was failed by every single law enforcement agency that she went to for help,” Jennine Semanchik, the slain woman’s mother, said during a news conference announcing the legal action.
After the trooper, Ricardo J. Santos, mentioned wanting to kill himself, months after they split up, Dr. Semanchik reported her concerns to one of his colleagues at the State Police, her relatives said.
Then, they said, she waited for help that never came.
Dr. Semanchik, 33, and a man she was dating, Tyler Webb, 29, were killed Aug. 1, outside her house in Franklin Township in Hunterdon County. Lieutenant Santos was found dead in a white 2008 Mercedes hours later from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, county prosecutors have said.
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The post Police ‘Failed’ Slain Woman Who Reported Ex’s Harassment, Family Says appeared first on New York Times.
