Breaking Rank (6 page)

One test of a police department's sophistication in handling DV calls? The number of “mutual combat” arrests, where both parties are showing injuries and the cops can't figure out which one is the
primary
aggressor (who may or may not be the person who “started” the fight—an irrelevancy, in law). When that happens, both parties get carted off. If the number is high (say, 20 or 15 or even 5 percent), you're looking at a very badly trained department. I don't know what Tacoma's average was; I heard you were working to reduce it, David. In Seattle, we averaged a fraction of 1 percent, the result of having effectively trained our entire patrol force.

We developed new investigative procedures and purchased new equipment (including cameras used in “time-lapse” fashion to get pictures of injuries both in the moment and in the days ahead—when bruises and other injuries often turn even more gruesome-looking).

We hired DV advocates, handpicked, specially-trained civilians who cleaned up blood, arranged for medical appointments, found shelters or other lodging and child care, secured transportation and cell phones,
comforted and educated and guided women through the legal and other entanglements they faced. Our advocates worked with battered women's programs and survivors of DV incidents to fashion a specific
safety plan
for an endangered woman and/or her children (the ingredients of which I'll also keep secret).

The Seattle Police Department (SPD) reached out to the rest of the criminal justice system, as well, and to the broader “DV community.” This is where I think chiefs need to set the example, David. We've been there, we've seen the effects of domestic violence. Our physical presence, our active participation in systemwide efforts is vital. There's no kind way to say this: You were a no-show on that DV council you'd agreed to join. The effects of your absenteeism? You contributed
squat
to the cause. You didn't help your own department improve its performance in combating DV. You lost personal credibility. Apart from all that, I can't shake the thought that you might have
learned
something. Something that, who knows, might have stopped you before it was too late.

To toot my own horn, I served as cochair of our local DV coordinating council and as a Clinton appointee to the National Advisory Council on the Violence Against Women Act—and
nothing
in my Palm Pilot was more important than making those meetings, even though it meant thrice-yearly trips to the other Washington. I'm glad I attended the sessions: I learned something new at every single one. That happens when you rub elbows with the experts.

We constantly swapped research data, anecdotes, and expertise. And we struggled together in common pursuit of answers to such thorny questions as: What do you do with clergymen who, invoking a fundamentalist interpretation of scripture, blame and shame victims of wife battering, who urge these women to do a better job of looking pretty for and obeying their husbands? And how do you penetrate the thick skulls of high school, collegiate, and professional male athletes in order to teach them that it is not their God-given right to fondle, rape, or batter the women in their lives?

One member of our national group, the National Football League's chief psychologist, a former tackle, started off like the sport's chief apologist. Several of us wanted to choke him, but, given the nature of the forum (and the
man's size), we thought better of it. Soon enough, however, he came around, and in the end scored a big TD for us: NFL sponsorship of a powerful anti-DV ad.

Not that that solved the problem—read today's paper. If it's not there, it was in yesterday's or it'll be in tomorrow's: Some boneheaded jock slaps his wife and tears her dress off at a party, or rapes a groupie, or smashes up his girlfriend and her apartment. That tearjerker NFL TV spot notwithstanding, we still see countless owners, coaches, athletic directors, teammates, and alumni boosters make excuses for criminals who happen to be athletes.
That ain't the Bubba Bob I know; the Bubba Bob I know is a role model, a pillar of decency and decorum . . . Chainsaw didn't
mean
to do it, he was drinkin' that whiskey and snortin' that nose candy . . . It's Merle's first time away from home, the boy just got carried away . . . Boys
will
be boys.

Something else, David. After killing your wife, and damaging your kids for the rest of their lives, you took the coward's way out. Maybe you think you held yourself “accountable” by taking your own life. But all you did was spare yourself the humiliation and degradation of public knowledge of your abuse of women, especially the wife you purported to love. It was a dishonorable thing to do, your suicide. At least O. J. stuck around—a living, respirating reminder of his dead wife. Every time we see that smug mug on the golf course we can use the image as inspiration to redouble our efforts to make women safe. And to hold men like us accountable.

I know you said you were religious, David. I'm not. I don't belong to any church but I'm a spiritual creature, and I believe in a higher power I'm happy to call “God.” I believe all God's creatures have souls. I believe in redemption, the opportunity for those of us who've done wrong to try to make ourselves right with the universe—and with our partners, if they'll have us. But that seems possible only if we do the work. You didn't do the work, David.

Sincerely,

Norm

I'm at a meeting on Capitol Hill, in Seattle. I get beeped. There's been a shooting. An address shows up on my pager. I know right where it is. It's across the street from “Common Ground,” a social services agency that oversees the safe transfer of children in joint custody cases—you know, mom drops the kid off at 8:00
A.M
., dad picks her up fifteen minutes later. Dad returns the child at 5:00
P.M
., mom picks her up at 5:15. That way mom and dad never have to see each other.

I glide my vehicle under the outer perimeter tape held high by two of my officers and pull up to the inner perimeter. A car is parked facing south in the northbound lane, its driver's door open, the dome light on. Lt. Harry Bailey says, “I thought you'd want to roll on this one, boss.” He's right, he's wrong. Behind the wheel of the car is the sprawled body of a woman, dressed in business attire. She's dead. In back, buckled snugly into her car seat, a little girl about two. White tights, patent leather shoes, plaid skirt, puffy nylon jacket. Dark curly hair, long eyelashes, the face of an angel. Her eyes are wide open, her two little fists clenched. She's also dead, shot through the chest.

It was a little after five, a dark, moonless evening when Melanie Edwards had picked up Carli from this “safe house.” Her estranged husband, Carl Edwards, had dropped the child off fifteen minutes earlier. Then he stuck around, lying in wait. When the mother and daughter got to the car he shot them both, most likely Carli first so that mom would be forced to watch. Then he sped off.

A week or so later, as a California Highway Patrol officer approached him in Marin County, Edwards shot and killed himself.

Melanie Edwards did everything right. She got a protection order. She moved out of the house. She connected with and got help from a battered women's shelter. She kept her new location secret from Carl. She even seized his gun and turned it over to Seattle police. She arranged for the hassle-free transfer of Carli at the beginning and end of her workday—something she was forced into doing because a clueless judge ruled that Carli's daddy had a right to see his daughter, even in the face of an amply justified protection order. To learn more about why this happens, read Professor Sarah Buel, founder and codirector of the University of Texas's Domestic Violence Clinic (see especially
“Access to Meaningful Remedy: Overcoming Doctrinal Obstacles in Tort Litigation Against Domestic Violence Offenders,”
Oregon Law Review
, No. 83, 2005.) Buel has spent twenty-six years in the courts as an advocate and prosecutor. Her examples of the “acculturated non-empathy” of lawyers and judges are as jolting as they are revolting. To repeat: Melanie Edwards did everything right.

What is it with these fathers? David Brame names his son, “David, Jr.,” and five years later kills the boy's mother in front of the kid. Carl Edwards names his
daughter
after himself, then shoots her. What else can we conclude: To men such as David Brame and Carl Edwards and God knows how many others, families are disposable property.

Let me guess, if you're a certain kind of man you've already blown a gasket. Yes, you say, it's horrible what
some
men do to their wives and children. But, not
all
men are like Brame or Edwards. Men are also beaten and battered, knifed or shot by their women partners. If you're a certain kind of male cop you're especially impatient for me to acknowledge this, to say
something
about these women, the female DV offenders you encounter on the job—the ones who scream and rant and spit and hit.

They're out there, believe me. Misogynist cops call them
nags, cunts, bitches, ball-busters.
Even before “primary aggressor” became part of our lexicon I encountered several such women. In fact, I choked one out one night. Her name was Kathryn Knox. She was beating the crap out of my partner after she'd beaten the crap out of
her
partner, a good-sized male.

My heart goes out to any man who's been falsely arrested, maliciously prosecuted, wrongly convicted. An injustice is an injustice.

But hear this, guys: domestic violence is overwhelmingly a
male
problem. Look at the numbers. In about 15 percent of DV cases the woman goes to jail. Many men say that that number underestimates the incidence of women who batter men. I say bullshit.

Often, women are arrested because they've committed the “crime” of self-defense. Or, they've simply had enough and decided to retaliate. Sorry, man, but if your partner comes at you as you sleep off a drunk, after having
sliced her with a box-cutter, thrown hot coffee in her face, or blackened her eye—and she puts a 12-gauge shotgun under your chin and pulls the trigger . . . let's just say you don't want me on your jury.

And how many men are
actually
afraid of their female partners? Some, to be sure (I'd rather not have to face Kathryn Knox again). But, most? I doubt it. Men are simply bigger, meaner, scarier, better acculturated to violence.

Look, the time has come for us boys to grow up, to take responsibility for our actions. A big step in that direction, if you're a batterer, is to get help. Now. Today. It won't be easy, even if you're highly motivated. But you
can
do it. (And, for God's sake, avoid batterers' treatment programs that try to “pathologize” you or “anger management” you out of your abusive ways. True, you may be nuts, and you may have a hell of a temper. But DV, like rape, is a crime of power and control. If I'm a controlling, self-centered abuser driven by an ingrained sense of entitlement, the last thing my partner needs is a calmer, “less angry” me. Something tells me David Brame was devoid of all anger when he put that .45 slug into his wife's head.)

Another suggestion? Look for a treatment program led by a
male-female
team, for reasons you'll understand when you get there. This bit of wisdom brought to you by my friends Don Drozd, a California attorney, and Anita Castle, executive director of the San Juan County, Washington, Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault program—who've teamed up to provide excellent batterers' treatment.

There's so much that needs to be done to make the American home a safe place for every member of the family. Research tells us that violence is learned behavior. As a society we do a depressingly superb job of teaching violence to our children, particularly our little boys. We need to
instruct
our kids in nonviolence, and gender equality, starting in grade school. Men in positions of power and/or celebrity—athletes and actors, pastors and principals, police officers and politicians—need to speak out. I'd love to see these guys use their positions to convey the message that real men don't hit women or kids.