Woman Allegedly Assaults Spouse After He Didn’t Call Her Pretty

Police tape in a stock photo. (Carl Ballou/Shutterstock)

A woman in Laredo, Texas, is accused of striking her husband after he didn’t call her pretty.

Police in Laredo said Lizeth Guadalupe Ramirez, 20, assaulted him after her common-law husband didn’t respond when she asked him if she looked pretty while they were at a movie theater, reported LMTOnline.

The couple then decided to go home, but Ramirez was still agitated, police said. The husband then said she hit him several times as he drove home, and the assault persisted when they got back, according to the report.

The angry wife then struck and pushed the male before a relative attempted to separate them, said officials.

The relative was then assaulted by Ramirez, officials added.

She was arrested and charged with two counts of assault.

Ramirez, however, claimed that her husband assaulted her and tried to strangle her, the report added.

A common-law marriage is one in which a “couple lives together for a period of time and holds themselves out to friends, family and the community as ‘being married,’” says FindLaw. However, they haven’t ever gone through a formal ceremony or received a marriage license.

“In the United States, common law marriage has been in existence since the horse and buggy days of 1877. While it might sound like an archaic form of marriage, it’s still technically around today in one form or another in 10 states and the District of Columbia. Additionally, five states recognize common law marriage with some restrictions,” says the website. Texas calls it an informal marriage.

To be married under common law, the couple has to take the same name, refer to each other as “wife” and “husband,” and hold joint bank accounts or credit cards.

Other details about the case are not clear. It’s also not clear if Ramirez has an attorney.

Laredo police officers were sent to the 6400 block of Casa Del Sol Boulevard in Laredo.

Violent Crime Up in Texas in 2017

In Texas, according to the FBI, the violent crime rate rose in 2017, reported the Texas Tribune.

The agency noted that there were only 1.5 officers for every 1,000 Texas residents last year, which is down from two Texas officers for every 1,000 residents in 2016.

In September 2018, the FBI said Americans committed fewer violent and property crimes across the United States in 2017, according to statistics. The violent crime rate—including offenses such as murder, robbery, and aggravated assault—dropped by almost 1 percent and is still about 4 percent above the 2014 rate. The murder rate dropped by 0.7 percent.

“There were more than 1.2 million violent crimes reported to [the FBI] nationwide in 2017. There was a 0.7 percent decrease in murders and a 4 percent decrease in robberies from 2016 to 2017. Aggravated assaults increased 1 percent in 2017. The FBI began collecting data solely on an updated rape definition last year, and 135,755 rapes were reported to law enforcement in 2017,” the agency said.

Of the estimated 17,284 murders in 2017, more than half occurred in larger cities—with populations of more than 100,000.

There are fewer than 300 such cities in the United States, and while they account for less than 30 percent of the country’s population, many of them contribute far beyond their share to national crime rates and have done so for years, even decades.

While the national murder rate inched down to 5.3 per 100,000 residents, it spiked by 15 percent in Philadelphia, to a rate of more than 20 per 100,000 residents. Columbus, Ohio, saw a massive 54 percent murder rate increase, reaching nearly 16.3 per 100,000 residents.

The murder rate in St. Louis rose by more than 10 percent and reached 66 per 100,000 residents—the highest among larger cities.

Baltimore’s murder rate rose by nearly 8.5 percent, reaching some 56 per 100,000 residents.