Anthony Winchatz’s work was recently honored
by the New Jersey Coalition for Battered Women
By:Roger Alvarado
Hillsborough resident Anthony Winchatz has spent the better part of 18 years at the forefront of the fight against domestic violence.
In 1987, law enforcement throughout the state began focusing more on domestic violence and officers started receiving specialized training on how to handle cases.
That motivated Mr. Winchatz, then a Bridgewater police officer along with Christine M. Heer, Esq., then the coordinator of community education at the Resource Center for Women and Their Families, to help develop the first domestic violence crisis response team in the state.
"The fact that it was a new focus in law enforcement made me see it as a need for law enforcement to truly take a strong stand," Mr. Winchatz said. "I had a sense of commitment almost from the moment I learned about the domestic violence process."
The team, which has continued to thrive in the years since, is made up of trained community volunteers who provide support to victims of domestic violence when police are summoned and also counsel victims about the available services at their disposal.
"Last year we had approximately 250 cases," Mr. Winchatz said.
Volunteers and resource center staff are on call 24-hours a day, 7 days a week, according to Mr. Winchatz.
"What the volunteers do is offer support and afford victims the opportunity to allow some time to go by to reflect on the incident that just occurred," he said. "They’ll talk to victims about the process that they’re about to go through and try to answer their questions.
"They’ll mention restraining orders and protections and talk about what they can expect in court," he said. "The volunteers also provide them with safety planning." One thing the volunteers won’t do is advise victims on what action to take.
"They’re not really there for that," Mr. Winchatz said. "They want to empower the victims to figure things out for themselves."
Mr. Winchatz, now a retired lieutenant and currently the coordinator of the Resource Center for Women and Their Families’ Domestic Violence Response team, was recently honored by the New Jersey Coalition for Battered Women during the organization’s annual dinner held March 17.
In honoring him, Gwendoline M. Walding, president of the resource center’s board of trustees, expressed her gratitude to Mr. Winchatz for his role in making it possible for the center to help so many domestic violence victims through his training of police departments throughout Somerset County.
"It was very fulfilling to realize that the work that we’ve been doing, not just me alone, but a number of people who have worked together, is finally getting some recognition and acknowledgement about the positive impact that this has had on people," Mr. Winchatz said.
Ms. Heer, now a Somerville attorney, lauded Mr. Winchatz’s for his work.
"Without Tony’s leadership and the risks he took during the early stages of the crisis team’s development, the police would not have been persuaded to see how valuable these teams are to the police work and would not have come on board," Ms. Heer said.
Ginger Hendricks, the supervisor of legal service at the resource center, called Mr. Winchatz "an extremely compassionate professional" who is "always available to victims of domestic violence."
Mr. Winchatz, who is also responsible for training police officers in more effective and responsive methods for assisting domestic violence victims in both Hillsborough and Bridgewater townships and the New Jersey State Police, says that one of the reasons he became involved was to ensure that officers are trained well enough to handle cases of domestic violence.
"I thought, ‘this is something that we have to know more about’ and so I teamed up with the resource center and together we developed a training program for police," Mr. Winchatz said.
In the years since, 15 of 19 municipalities in Somerset County have become affiliated with the program and recently the N.J. State Police also became affiliated with it.
"It has been very successful," Mr. Winchatz said.

