A mother of five was shot dead by her ex-boyfriend outside an abandoned Illinois Legion hall after the courts dismissed her protection order and police failed to act on an estimated 50 domestic violence calls — leaving Danielle Rivera to sacrifice herself so her children might live.

Rivera, 40, was the sole provider for her five kids and her mother, working 12-hour shifts to keep the household afloat. Then early Sunday, Xavier Harrison, 30, shot her in front of her 16-year-old daughter before turning the gun on himself, according to the New York Post. Rivera's family says she went to meet Harrison that night to draw him away from her home, where her children and mother slept. "She basically put her life out there to save ours," Rivera's mother, Karen Rivera, said.

The system had every warning. Rivera obtained an order of protection against Harrison in March. A judge dismissed it in April. Court records show two other women had also obtained protection orders against Harrison — one just last month, another in 2019. Rivera's sisters estimate that over the past few years, there were roughly 50 domestic violence calls against Harrison at two of her Belleville homes. Fifty calls. Three protection orders. No consequences that stopped him.

Rivera's family insists the two were not in a relationship, despite police characterizing them that way. They say Harrison had been harassing her for years and had previously threatened to kill her and her family at her home. The 16-year-old daughter who witnessed the shooting "ran for her life" and called 911, according to Rivera's niece, Aubrey Rivera.

"The only way I can best describe it is if she didn't go and pick him up, then he would've probably gone to her residence, and there would've been a lot more harm and tragedy," Teresa Fiudo told KSDK. "We lost her. But she died protecting her kids. She did what any mother would do."

Now Karen Rivera will raise her daughter's five children. A grandmother stepping in because every institution charged with protecting this family — the courts that dismissed the order, the police who answered call after call, the system that let a documented predator walk free — failed them.

New York Magazine, for its part, spent the same news cycle daydreaming about French task lamps and where to put a wet sponge. The contrast writes itself.

The open question: How many protection orders get dismissed before a woman ends up dead? Rivera's case suggests the number is somewhere around three — and still nobody in authority thought to act. Fifty calls. Three women seeking court protection. One mother buried. The paperwork was filed. The system worked exactly as it was designed — which is the problem.