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OKLAHOMA CITY —

Domestic violence continues to be a crisis in Oklahoma.

According to a report from the Oklahoma Attorney General, domestic violence homicides have spiked since 2019. In 2023, which is the most recent data, the number was at its highest ever at 122 victims.

About 40 percent of women experience intimate partner violence, rape or stalking in their lifetime. Some of those women even lose their lives at the hands of the people they love.

On Feb. 11, 19-year-old Promise Cooper was shot and killed by her boyfriend.

“The system failed my daughter in many different avenues, and that shouldn’t have happened, and it can’t keep happening,” Tia Cooper, Promise’s mother, said.

Promise called 911 less than an hour before she was pronounced deceased, telling the dispatcher that her boyfriend was threatening her while driving around outside her apartment complex.

“I have somebody threatening me and going around my apartment looking for me,” Promise said in the 911 call. “He was just riding around with a ski mask on.”

“What’s his name?” this dispatcher asked.

“His name is Tristan Stoner,” Promise responded.

The man accused of killing her, Tristan Stoner, is behind bars for her murder. But it isn’t his first time in jail or through the court system.

Court documents show Stoner had multiple charges filed against him from 2020 to 2025, including gang offenses, two counts of domestic assault and battery by strangulation, domestic assault and battery, domestic assault and battery in the presence of a minor, and pointing a firearm.

Every single one of those charges was dismissed. The Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office said that is something that happens every day.

“More often than not, the victim does not want to cooperate,” Maddie Coffey with the district attorney’s office said. “Of course, we would like them to work with the prosecution in the case. A lot of the times they don’t want to. They think that it will get better. But what we tell victims all the time is, ‘Well, I bet he’s being very nice to you right now because the criminal case is pending. What do you think is going to happen when we have to dismiss these charges? It’s going to go right back to how it was before.'”

For many victims of domestic violence, fear keeps them from filing or following through with charges.

“The only reason that they’re going to get the police involved is because they are scared. Then they’re in a position where we’re asking them to come and testify. They don’t want to. They are still scared,” Coffey said.

For those who do come forward, there is no guarantee that their abuser will stay behind bars.

“For whatever reason, a lot of times domestic abusers are able to bond out. So, these victims are dealing with an abuser who is out of custody that they are scared of, and really, the only assurance that we can give them is hopefully, if you cooperate, we can get a conviction,” Coffey said.

Tara Currin, a domestic violence survivor, was shot eight times by an ex-boyfriend in 2021. She said she knows the battle many women face when deciding how to move forward from an abuser.

“You understand that women being afraid. Even when you testify, and you’re sitting in court, and your abuser’s looking at you, it’s different. When you file a VPO, they get a copy of it, so they are seeing everything that you’re writing down in there, and so, I understand completely that they’re afraid,” Currin said.

Case after case, women with protective orders filed against their abusers have become the victims of tragedy.

In Bethany, 30-year-old Jonni Salazar was killed by the father of her children this summer, just one week after a victim protective order was filed. That same month, 45-year-old Kellie Slaughter was killed in Oklahoma City, just days after filing a victim protective order.

“Of the 50 homicides that were intimate partner homicides, more than half of those, the perpetrator had committed an act of abuse on the victim prior to the homicide,” Coffey said.

For Currin, her abuser had a previous charge that was dismissed before they met.

“I didn’t know everything until the sentencing,” Currin said. “He explained what happened in that moment. So, just giving him that opportunity like, ‘It happened so long ago.’”

Stoner’s previous domestic charges were also dropped prior to Promise’s death.

The day she was killed, Promise called 911 just 44 minutes before her time of death. She told police she was being threatened.

“He was driving. He was texting me, and I have video proof of him calling me saying he was going to harm me and my family,” Promise said to the dispatcher.

Her mother also told police that Stoner “wanted her to get an abortion” after learning Promise was pregnant.

The police report from the incident said that the dispatcher got Promise’s name wrong in the call notes, stalling the response and keeping officers from making contact with her.

“What’s your name?” the dispatcher asked.

“Promise Cooper,” Promise responded.

“I’m sorry, your first name one more time?” the dispatcher said.

“Promise with a P,” Promise responded.

“Tanya?” the dispatcher asked.

“Promise with a P,” Promise said.

The police report said officers went to Promise’s house, but they gave Tia the wrong name.

“While you’re sitting at my house asking about Tanya, my daughter is only six blocks away in a parking lot, getting… whatever happened to her. Well, we all know what happened to her in that parking lot in that car,” Tia said.

It was too late. Forty-four minutes after Promise called for help, she was shot and killed. Reports said Stoner took her to the hospital, where he told detectives it was an accident.

The medical examiner said Promise was shot in the chest. She was four weeks pregnant with an ectopic pregnancy, according to the medical examiner’s report.

Her manner of death was ruled a homicide.

“She said go back home. I was taking her back home,” Stoner is heard saying in the background of a call between Midwest City police and dispatch.

Back at home, her mother got another knock on the door, one that changed her life forever.

“They came back around 8 o’clock-ish that night, and that’s when they asked me if I knew Promise Cooper,” Tia said.

The knock is one all too common for families in Oklahoma.

Currin said she isn’t the only domestic violence victim in her family. Her cousin died from domestic violence in 2009.

That loss pushed her to advocate for others, something she does through Palomar, an organization in Oklahoma City that helps domestic violence survivors.

“I couldn’t see what that did to my family again,” Currin said.

From Oct. 2024 to March 2025, there were 298 domestic violence charges filed in Oklahoma County. Of those, 50 charges were dismissed. Thirty of those dismissed were due to victims not cooperating with the prosecutor’s office. The rest of the dismissed charges were because suspects took plea deals or were charged with other crimes instead.

“What do you think is going to happen when we have to dismiss these charges? It’s going to go right back to how it was before. So, just to be vigilant that to watch their behavior. Someone cannot change overnight. Your safety is the most important thing, and you’re not going to be safe if you stay with an abuser who has not gone forward and gotten some kind of treatment,” Coffey said.

But what options are there for abusers?

“One of the things we always talk about is children that grow up in a home where domestic violence is prevalent. Do they think that’s a normal relationship between a man and a woman or a partner and a partner, and so, therefore, when they become adults, they begin to abuse and to batter, because they think that’s normal,” Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna said. “So, we’re trying to figure out if there is a method, if there’s a program, a process, maybe to better intervene younger, so children and kids that live in domestic violence homes understand that that is not normal. That is not how you resolve disputes with an intimate partner or any partner.”

There are some programs offered for adults, including Batterers Intervention Programs. But Currin said many men never complete them.

“Because the perpetrator, or abuser, has to pay for it, they don’t always go through the entire program,” Currin said. “I know a couple of ladies in particular have said that their spouses have gone through the program, and both times they didn’t complete them.”

Year after year, families are left wondering if abusers’ cases weren’t dropped or treatment was completed, if their stories would be different.

“Why was he out?” Tia said, referring to Stoner. “He was let down, because he should have still been in jail, getting counseling, getting anger management, been on probation or something like that. There should have been no reason why he was let out with the charges he had previously.”

Court documents from his past charges accuse Stoner of choking a different woman unconscious, threatening her and her children, striking her and pointing a gun “at her head.”

“What needs to be done to help women more than what’s already being done, you know, what resources are already here?” KOCO 5’s Alyse Jones asked Currin.

“Do we look at other states? What are they doing? How do they combat it? What statistics do they have? And just seeing what we can do going forward, also letting them know about resources,” Currin responded.

While Currin works to change the lives of domestic violence survivors, she is also working to change the law. She has been in talks with state legislators to create a 72-hour hold for abusers taken to jail.

“If they’re bonded out, that’s not a time for the women or men to get any kind of help and get to somewhere safe, where they know if there’s a 72-hour hold, there’s enough time to get resources, file VPO, get moved,” Currin said.

She said she hopes the plans for a bill will come to fruition this coming legislative session.

No matter how change comes, survivors and local leaders said that it is time that it does.

“It’s not just about Promise anymore. It’s about everyone who comes after her,” Tia said. “I am her voice now. Her DNA still lives within me.”

Stoner was charged with first-degree murder or second-degree murder in the alternative for Promise’s death. He is currently awaiting trial.