There’s a new sheriff in town. Or soon, there will be. Soon is – perhaps – none-too-soon for Bucks County’s victims of domestic violence.
Since January 1, 2025, in Bucks County, two domestic violence victims have been killed. Both women were shot to death. Earlier this month, their names were read aloud during a vigil held to memorialize those who die by gun violence.
The way Pennsylvania law enforcement is structured, the first line of defense when protecting persons who are unsafe with their domestic partners lies with the sheriff and his deputies. According to Sheriff-elect Danny Ceisler, when a person swears out a protection from abuse order, it’s the sheriff’s office that kicks into action.
“The sheriff is responsible for serving protection from abuse orders. That’s Pennsylvania’s version of a restraining order,” said Ceisler. “As soon as one of those orders is granted, it is the sheriff’s responsibility to ensure that the abusive partner is served with that document and removed from a home if they are living with the abused partner.”
And, he added, sheriffs and their deputies are charged with one of the most dangerous tasks confronting law enforcement. “They confiscate the weapons of someone with a protection from abuse order. They are responsible for ensuring that people with active protection from abuse orders against them are not permitted to carry firearms.”
And too often, that’s when law enforcement can get deadly. As a point of reference, Ceisler cited the recent murders of three Northern York County Regional detectives. This past September, Cody Becker, Mark Baker and Isaiah Emenheiser opened the door of a woman’s home and a gunman who had been stalking her, opened fire. Two other officers were wounded in the fray.
Consequently, Ceisler states that the danger posed by domestic violence, to residents and deputies alike, is one of the largest issues that any sheriff faces.
Before November’s Bucks County elections, an argument could be made – and was successfully made by Ceisler – that outgoing Sheriff Fred Harran had moved his department away from their regular duties and into line with Trump’s “war on immigrants” after signing a 287(g) “task force model”agreement in order to have more than a dozen of his deputies trained so that they can act as de facto ICE agents.
Ceisler believes that time would have been better served if county law enforcement “stayed in their lane” and protected their constituents.
As a result, Bucks County voters chose a new leader for the county’s law enforcement agency, shifting their support to Ceisler.
Ceisler’s a veteran of the U.S. Army who worked in both counterterrorism and crisis management. A graduate of Temple law school, Ceisler worked defending domestic violence victims as well as child victims of sexual abuse. “As an attorney, I represented, victims of sexual assault and abuse, and took on corporations that were cutting corners and hurting people.”
For the last few years, as a senior public safety official in Governor Shapiro’s administration,. And now, as an elected official? “My main focus in running for sheriff was refocusing on the core duties and responsibilities of the office and executing them to the very best of our ability rather than going well outside of our lane.”
And by staying inside their lane, the sheriff-elect means protecting individuals in Bucks County from violence – violence in their homes or on the streets. And that means abandoning the prior administration’s support of ICE.
“We know that members of immigrant communities were terrified to call 911 in Bucks County because they were afraid that local law enforcement would cooperate with ICE and have them deported.” – Sheriff-elect Danny Ceisler
Ceisler says that supporting ICE wasn’t just a waste of Sheriff’s office time and person-power, but the outgoing Sheriff’s willingness to participate in ICE raids discouraged people in danger from seeking help.
“It had a chilling effect, with it even being announced. We know that members of immigrant communities were terrified to call 911 in Bucks County because they were afraid that local law enforcement would cooperate with ICE and have them deported.”
Ceisler continued, “I’ve long argued my opposition to 287(g) was based in public safety reasons. I should say public safety reasoning. It makes our entire community less safe when some of the most vulnerable members of our society are afraid to report crime and come to court and testify.”
So now, even before he’s sworn in, Ceisler is working to change the way the “most vulnerable” regard the Sheriff’s office.
Earlier this month, Ceisler along with State Rep. Brian Munroe joined with partners from Bucks County’s only domestic violence shelter, A Woman’s Place, to participate in a vigil hosted by CeaseFirePa at Buckingham Friends’ Meeting House for this year’s gun violence victims.
During the vigil and in a subsequent press conference, CeaseFirePA Executive Director Adam Garber stated some chilling truths. Most notably, “When a gun is present a woman is five times more likely to be killed.” A statistic that proved fatally accurate this year as both domestic violence murders in Bucks County resulted from gunfire. Additionally, “66 percent of all domestic violence deaths in Pennsylvania involve a firearm.”
Ceisler sees that his job sets squarely at the intersection of those statistics. “Protection from abuse orders places domestic violence squarely within our jurisdiction. Domestic violence prevention is going to be our number one priority. When a protection from abuse order is granted, serving that is going to supersede any other task that the office has.”
Jessica Nager, Community Educator, Policy & Prevention at A Woman’s Place explained how real the threat to women has grown. “Basically, what we have seen over the past few years is that homicides using a gun in domestic violence cases have actually increased by about 36 percent. We just know in general that the presence of a gun in a household that has abuse does increase the fatality risk for an abuse victim significantly.”
The guns aren’t just dangerous for the perpetrators. Guns in a home with domestic violence increases the risk of suicide as well. Nager explained, “Yeah, the rates between, suicidality and suicidal thoughts and survivors, it is a huge problem. Obviously, and often, abuse survivors feel isolated, they feel alone, they feel trapped.”
Nager feels fortunate that A Woman’s Place stresses the mental as well as physical wellbeing of the people they serve. “Our organization, one of our biggest focuses, is absolutely on mental health care.”
Suicide in general is a problem for Bucks County, explained Kate Lyden, Bucks County organizer for CeaseFirePA. “Out of the 41 gun deaths reported by the coroner. Only six of them were either homicides or undetermined causes of death.” Leaving the rest classified as self-inflicted – and an undetermined number of them, prior victims of domestic violence.
In conclusion, Ceisler reiterated that his job going forward is clear. “Every day a woman is in a home with an abusive spouse, her life is in danger. That is only amplified when the abuser has access to a firearm, which is where my office comes in. It’s something we take extraordinarily seriously and will be the absolute number one priority of the office.”
