Alonzo
05-08-2008, 02:30 AM
Georgia Straight July 24, 2003
by Alex Roslin
On the afternoon of April 26, Crystal Brame was driving to a tanning salon as she spoke on her cellphone with her mother. "Oh, I think I see David," she said, referring to her estranged husband, David Brame, the police chief in Tacoma, Washington.
"I gotta go; I gotta go," Brame said, ending the call.
Crystal’s mother tried to call her daughter back as Crystal and David pulled into the parking lot of a shopping mall in their separate vehicles. Minutes later, according to local newspaper reports, David shot his wife in the head with his police-issue .45-calibre Glock handgun. He then killed himself with the pistol as the couple’s two young kids sat in his car a few metres away. Crystal was taken to hospital but never recovered, dying of her injuries a week later.
That night, Lara Herrmann, a lawyer in Tacoma, saw the story on the TV news. "Oh, my God," she recalled thinking, interviewed by phone from her office. "A police chief doesn’t just kill his wife out of the blue. There must have been signs." Herrmann followed the news over the next few days. City representatives said Brame was a good man and that the killing was totally unexpected. Herrmann had a strong feeling that there was more to the story. She helped start a group called Women for Justice to demand an independent inquiry and action against police officers who are violent with their spouses. Women for Justice is seeking the local, statewide, and national passage of the Crystal Clear Act, legislation that would create an independent body to investigate allegations of domestic abuse by police officers and other public officials.
As it turns out, Herrmann was right. Evidence emerged that senior city officials had covered up for Brame for years and refused to heed warning signs or take action that may have averted the tragedy. As part of the screening process that accompanied Brame’s hiring, two psychologists had deemed him unfit because he was overly "defensive" and "deceptive". Yet he made the cut and rose through the ranks to become chief of police, even after a rape complaint and an allegation that he pointed a gun at a girlfriend.
The day before the shooting, local media reported that Crystal Brame had filed divorce papers alleging that her husband had tried to choke her, threatened to snap her neck, and pointed a gun at her, saying, "Accidents happen." City officials didn’t investigate these claims or follow a recommendation from their human-resources director that Brame’s gun and badge be taken away. In an interview with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Mayor Bill Baarsma dismissed Crystal Brame’s allegations as a "private matter".
The FBI and state authorities have now stepped in to investigate what went wrong. Crystal Brame’s family has filed a US$75-million suit against the city of Tacoma, alleging it is responsible for her death.
Tracy Nolan (not her real name) also followed the news in Tacoma. Whenever she hears of a cop who kills his wife, she says a prayer of thanks that her life didn’t end the same way. In a phone interview, the Canadian woman said she was married to a police officer who subjected her to a barrage of violence during their more than two decades of marriage. Her husband was twice her weight. He knocked out her teeth, gave her black eyes, attacked her while she slept, and once even threw a pitchfork at her. She called her home "hell house".
"To the day I left, I could never believe the level of anger this person could have. It was like watching a wild animal," said Nolan, who asked that her city of residence and other identifying details be left out of this story. "Violence could occur at any time. It could occur over nothing. I lived in fear all the time. I still do."
Nolan thought she would never make it out alive and considered suicide. Although she finally escaped her torturous marriage in the mid-1990s, she is still afraid for her safety and that of her children.
"I am a miracle," she said. "The fact that I’m here today is a total miracle. I will tell you, at the end of that marriage I was very close to death. I knew my days were numbered, and I prayed big-time."
When most people think of domestic violence, they imagine police to be the ones breaking it up, not committing it. In fact, the stories of Crystal Brame and Tracy Nolan are not isolated. Research shows that a staggering amount of domestic violence is hidden behind the walls of police officers’ homes. (While some female cops are violent at home, too, male officers are responsible for the bulk of the abuse, particularly the most severe violence resulting in deaths.) The Brame case is only unusual because it was so extreme and so public. In the vast majority of cases, the abuse remains a secret and the victims are isolated. They rarely make a complaint, criminal charges are rarer still, and an abusive officer’s chances of losing his badge and gun are virtually nil, even if the woman comes forward.
The average abused woman goes through nine violent incidents before she calls police, said legal advocate Sheryl Burns, interviewed by phone from her office at Battered Women’s Support Services in Vancouver. But spouses of violent cops face worse barriers to stopping the attacks and getting justice, according to women’s-shelter staff and former police spouses. These women are usually too afraid to call 911 because it might be a coworker of their partner who comes to the door. They have to confront the infamous blue wall of silence: the strict omerta-like code that protects officers from investigation or arrest. When women do complain, said Amy Ramsay, executive director of the International Association of Women Police, police departments often cover up the case. On the line from her Ontario office, Ramsay explained that they opt for a closed-door, internal-affairs disciplinary process rather than an embarrassing public trial.
"These types of batterers know where to hit you where other people can’t see," said Capt. Dottie Davis, director of training at the police academy in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In a phone interview, Davis said she was married for six years to a very violent tactical-squad officer who nearly strangled her to death. These men have guns and often bring them home. And if a cop’s wife runs, where will she hide? Staff at women’s shelters admit they are often powerless to offer protection.
"What stands out is the intensity of their fear," said Laurie Parsons, coordinator of the Mission Transition House in Mission, B.C., who regularly gets calls from abused partners of cops. "Police officers generally know exactly where the shelters are in the community," she explained by phone from her office. "The women don’t feel safe to stay in the local shelter," she continued, adding that "there really is no shelter she [the abused woman] can be entirely safe at."
"Mostly, we don’t see the wives of these officers. Those women are not free to leave [their homes]."
How widespread is police spousal assault? To date, there are no Canadian studies, and police departments are generally loath to discuss the issue or give out numbers. When cases have come to public light, departments have tended to treat them in isolation. So far, the most detailed North American figures come from the U.S. The high stats come as a surprise to many police officers and domestic-violence experts alike.
The first American study was an early-1980s survey of 728 male cops by Leanor Boulin-Johnson, a professor of family studies at Arizona State University. According to Boulin-Johnson’s 1991 testimony about her findings to a U.S. congressional committee, 40 percent admitted they had "gotten out of control" and behaved violently with their spouses or children in the previous six months.
by Alex Roslin
On the afternoon of April 26, Crystal Brame was driving to a tanning salon as she spoke on her cellphone with her mother. "Oh, I think I see David," she said, referring to her estranged husband, David Brame, the police chief in Tacoma, Washington.
"I gotta go; I gotta go," Brame said, ending the call.
Crystal’s mother tried to call her daughter back as Crystal and David pulled into the parking lot of a shopping mall in their separate vehicles. Minutes later, according to local newspaper reports, David shot his wife in the head with his police-issue .45-calibre Glock handgun. He then killed himself with the pistol as the couple’s two young kids sat in his car a few metres away. Crystal was taken to hospital but never recovered, dying of her injuries a week later.
That night, Lara Herrmann, a lawyer in Tacoma, saw the story on the TV news. "Oh, my God," she recalled thinking, interviewed by phone from her office. "A police chief doesn’t just kill his wife out of the blue. There must have been signs." Herrmann followed the news over the next few days. City representatives said Brame was a good man and that the killing was totally unexpected. Herrmann had a strong feeling that there was more to the story. She helped start a group called Women for Justice to demand an independent inquiry and action against police officers who are violent with their spouses. Women for Justice is seeking the local, statewide, and national passage of the Crystal Clear Act, legislation that would create an independent body to investigate allegations of domestic abuse by police officers and other public officials.
As it turns out, Herrmann was right. Evidence emerged that senior city officials had covered up for Brame for years and refused to heed warning signs or take action that may have averted the tragedy. As part of the screening process that accompanied Brame’s hiring, two psychologists had deemed him unfit because he was overly "defensive" and "deceptive". Yet he made the cut and rose through the ranks to become chief of police, even after a rape complaint and an allegation that he pointed a gun at a girlfriend.
The day before the shooting, local media reported that Crystal Brame had filed divorce papers alleging that her husband had tried to choke her, threatened to snap her neck, and pointed a gun at her, saying, "Accidents happen." City officials didn’t investigate these claims or follow a recommendation from their human-resources director that Brame’s gun and badge be taken away. In an interview with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Mayor Bill Baarsma dismissed Crystal Brame’s allegations as a "private matter".
The FBI and state authorities have now stepped in to investigate what went wrong. Crystal Brame’s family has filed a US$75-million suit against the city of Tacoma, alleging it is responsible for her death.
Tracy Nolan (not her real name) also followed the news in Tacoma. Whenever she hears of a cop who kills his wife, she says a prayer of thanks that her life didn’t end the same way. In a phone interview, the Canadian woman said she was married to a police officer who subjected her to a barrage of violence during their more than two decades of marriage. Her husband was twice her weight. He knocked out her teeth, gave her black eyes, attacked her while she slept, and once even threw a pitchfork at her. She called her home "hell house".
"To the day I left, I could never believe the level of anger this person could have. It was like watching a wild animal," said Nolan, who asked that her city of residence and other identifying details be left out of this story. "Violence could occur at any time. It could occur over nothing. I lived in fear all the time. I still do."
Nolan thought she would never make it out alive and considered suicide. Although she finally escaped her torturous marriage in the mid-1990s, she is still afraid for her safety and that of her children.
"I am a miracle," she said. "The fact that I’m here today is a total miracle. I will tell you, at the end of that marriage I was very close to death. I knew my days were numbered, and I prayed big-time."
When most people think of domestic violence, they imagine police to be the ones breaking it up, not committing it. In fact, the stories of Crystal Brame and Tracy Nolan are not isolated. Research shows that a staggering amount of domestic violence is hidden behind the walls of police officers’ homes. (While some female cops are violent at home, too, male officers are responsible for the bulk of the abuse, particularly the most severe violence resulting in deaths.) The Brame case is only unusual because it was so extreme and so public. In the vast majority of cases, the abuse remains a secret and the victims are isolated. They rarely make a complaint, criminal charges are rarer still, and an abusive officer’s chances of losing his badge and gun are virtually nil, even if the woman comes forward.
The average abused woman goes through nine violent incidents before she calls police, said legal advocate Sheryl Burns, interviewed by phone from her office at Battered Women’s Support Services in Vancouver. But spouses of violent cops face worse barriers to stopping the attacks and getting justice, according to women’s-shelter staff and former police spouses. These women are usually too afraid to call 911 because it might be a coworker of their partner who comes to the door. They have to confront the infamous blue wall of silence: the strict omerta-like code that protects officers from investigation or arrest. When women do complain, said Amy Ramsay, executive director of the International Association of Women Police, police departments often cover up the case. On the line from her Ontario office, Ramsay explained that they opt for a closed-door, internal-affairs disciplinary process rather than an embarrassing public trial.
"These types of batterers know where to hit you where other people can’t see," said Capt. Dottie Davis, director of training at the police academy in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In a phone interview, Davis said she was married for six years to a very violent tactical-squad officer who nearly strangled her to death. These men have guns and often bring them home. And if a cop’s wife runs, where will she hide? Staff at women’s shelters admit they are often powerless to offer protection.
"What stands out is the intensity of their fear," said Laurie Parsons, coordinator of the Mission Transition House in Mission, B.C., who regularly gets calls from abused partners of cops. "Police officers generally know exactly where the shelters are in the community," she explained by phone from her office. "The women don’t feel safe to stay in the local shelter," she continued, adding that "there really is no shelter she [the abused woman] can be entirely safe at."
"Mostly, we don’t see the wives of these officers. Those women are not free to leave [their homes]."
How widespread is police spousal assault? To date, there are no Canadian studies, and police departments are generally loath to discuss the issue or give out numbers. When cases have come to public light, departments have tended to treat them in isolation. So far, the most detailed North American figures come from the U.S. The high stats come as a surprise to many police officers and domestic-violence experts alike.
The first American study was an early-1980s survey of 728 male cops by Leanor Boulin-Johnson, a professor of family studies at Arizona State University. According to Boulin-Johnson’s 1991 testimony about her findings to a U.S. congressional committee, 40 percent admitted they had "gotten out of control" and behaved violently with their spouses or children in the previous six months.