Success story ends in question

Innovative treatment just redirected rage, abuser's wife says

Lou Kilzer, Rocky Mountain News

Published February 9, 2005 at midnight

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New treatment: Zeke Pigue, left, receives counseling from Resmaa Menakem of Minneapolis' Tubman Family Alliance. Pigue, 45, said Tubman helped him in ways that counseling in traditional court-ordered programs didn't. But his wife says he still can't control his anger.

Zeke Pigue seemed to have his demons whipped.

A five-time loser on domestic violence charges, Pigue had finally enrolled in a program in Minneapolis that got under his skin and into his head.

The Tubman Family Alliance, a Minnesota-based pioneer in domestic violence research and treatment, has one mantra for treating abusers: Do what works.

Pigue was one of Tubman's success stories. After a 13-week intensive course, he had learned to stop blaming others for his violence, Pigue told the Rocky Mountain News in an interview several months ago. Violence was his problem, he said. And ending it was his responsibility.

So great was the transformation that Pigue was featured on a segment of Oprah Winfrey's TV talk show on domestic violence.

But he hadn't been transformed, said Zeke's wife, Debra Pigue.

"He's gotten worse," she told the News recently.

Learning that he was responsible for his own rage accomplished just one thing, she said: It made him angrier.

It also made him a classic example of the difficulties facing the criminal justice system as it tries to break the cycle of domestic violence.

Traditional treatment programs didn't work for Pigue. And an innovative approach used by Tubman opened his eyes to his problem for the first time — but hasn't solved it.

Not so far.

'What do you mean I'm not a nice person?'

Zeke Pigue, 45, was the product of the angry streets of the South Side of Chicago.

There, he said, "I learned that violence kept me alive."

In Minneapolis, violence was not an obligation. He thought he could start over.

But Minneapolis did not change his anger, he said.

He would get violent. He would see the judge. He would get treatment.

Then it would all begin again.

"I kept coming back and wondering why I couldn't get everyone to understand just how nice I really was," he recalled. "I'm taking care of my wife and kids. I'm lending people money. What do you mean I'm not a nice person?"

He thought people provoked him. He thought his violent reactions were simple and understandable reflexes.

That's where Tubman stepped in.

Resmaa Menakem, the program director, listened, smiled and was unconvinced.

You think you're a nice guy as long as no one is messing with you, Menakem told him, but you're skewed on how you define "messing with you."

"What started to happen," Pigue said, "was that I came to realize that 90 percent of what I am dealing with is about me. My wife is less significant than I thought.

"If she decides she is going to be the Wicked (expletive) of the West today, I can't stop that."

But he can control whether he resorts to violence, Pigue said.

To Menakem, Pigue's words spell the success of a new approach.

Menakem said he once used the traditional model of treatment, aimed at educating offenders about their role in oppressing and controlling women in a male-dominated society.

In that model, the assumption is that every perpetrator is the same, but that's not so, he said. Tubman's treatment approach tries to analyze where each person is and go from there.

The early model Menakem left behind has a simple geometry: Men are at the top of a power pyramid. Women are often crushed underneath.

That reasoning doesn't always fly, he said.

"When you have a black guy living in north Minneapolis who has had difficulty with the police and is married to a white woman and doesn't see all the benefits of being a man, it kind of falls on deaf ears.

"And it's not just black men. It's poor white men, or poor Latino men, or people who don't see themselves as having a close alignment with the benefits of society."

Research studies show that these men in lower-income or less stable situations benefit least from treatment.

Preaching to them, Menakem said, "is why they wash out so quickly in those types of programs — because there's no human connection involved."

Redirected anger turns straight to rage, wife says

Debra Pigue does not disagree with the theory. And she said Tubman did bring her husband a great epiphany.

"Tubman gave him insight into what his problems were," she said.

In their own words

The Tubman Family Alliance's philosophy and approach:

"We believe that violence is a learned behavior and that violence can be unlearned. Tubman seeks to offer the widest range of choices to the men and women we serve and to use creative strategies to help people build violence-free lives. Domestic violence is a complex issue, and there is no single approach that works for every relationship and every situation. Tubman Family Alliance helps men and women understand and access their full range of options, and we support their choices — even when victims choose to work on a relationship that has been abusive, and seek to stay together as a family. We know that the men and women we serve have the strengths — assets, visions, values, hopes — and that they are the experts on what is best for themselves and their families."

But that epiphany came at a cost, she said: Zeke grew worse. He redirected his anger at himself, but it still spilled out to those around him. And it goes straight to rage, she said.

He yells. He breaks things in the house. He causes commotions in the neighborhood, she said.

Sometimes, he pushes or shoves her, though she said he has never injured her.

The Pigues have been married seven years but have known each other far longer. They go to church together, and members there have tried to help.

"One brother particularly would go have coffee with him," she said. "And he would tell him, 'Think long term.' "

Pigue, his wife said, is an intelligent man who understands the advice from Tubman and others — abstractly.

But his emotions are still out of control.

Recently, his anger at a boss cost him his job, his wife said, helping to send the couple into a financial crisis. Records confirm that Zeke Pigue recently filed for bankruptcy.

And it was during that money crisis that he left.

He was not home for Christmas, and the family doesn't know how to contact him.

Menakem, who is in contact with Zeke, still says he is a success story. Going through Tubman's counseling "doesn't mean that all of a sudden you are going to have a guy who never ever gets angry about anything," Menakem said.

The self-awarness will pay off in the long run, said Menakem. For now, he said, Zeke is reassessing everything.

Today, Debra Pigue sits at home in Minneapolis, waiting for the phone to ring.

"I still love Zeke dearly," she said.

If he calls, she said, he will get yet another chance to change, to face the South Side demons.

But her worst fear is this: "People like him can die struggling."

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