Breaking Rank Page 3

  And it erased any excuse I may have had for my behavior: I was responsible, not Mommy, not Daddy, not God, not Twinkies, and certainly not my partner, for how I acted.

  I wish for Crystal that she’d had a chance to know you as an equal, David. I wish that same thing for all partners in their relationships. Especially the wives of cops.

  Your crimes triggered a feeding frenzy among the local media. Reporters started sniffing and snooping even before you and Crystal were in the ground (your wife lay in the hospital until they lowered you into your grave, and at that moment she died). The press was eager to learn how many other cops were abusing their partners. Yeah, I know, reporters are bottom feeders, but you can hardly blame them in this case. I mean, you were the top cop in town; if you were guilty of domestic violence, what did that say about other men in blue?

  The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran a week-long series “exposing” the fact that cops are at least as likely as other men to commit domestic violence. (Next, they’ll be telling us there are racists in policing.) In fact, more recent research reveals that cops are far more likely than non-cops to be domestic abusers. Yet, police officers are far less likely to get busted for DV. Why? Because they’re trained to fight, to take charge, to manipulate. They know how to inflict excruciating pain that leaves no marks. And they have guns. Their wives aren’t stupid.

  A police wife also understands that if her husband is convicted of domestic violence he’ll lose his gun. In police work, if you lose your gun you lose your job. And since a “cop” is not merely what he is but who he is (tragic, but true), the implications are ominous. A DV conviction would take away his identity, his reason for living. Talk about your ultra-dangerous situation.

  Look at how long it took Crystal to file for divorce. Her family and friends think it was because of your role as a cop, especially a high-profile cop. I think so, too.

  But her reticence could also have been for any of the “conventional” reasons many abused women don’t “just up and leave.” If there are “fifty ways to leave a lover” there must be an equal number of reasons for staying with an abuser. Anna Quindlen cites several in her best-selling novel Black and Blue. And Michael Paymar weighs in with more:

  •She’s afraid she’ll lose her kids

  •She’s accepted his apologies and promises, and figures he won’t do it again

  •She feels pressured by her religion or her family to stick it out

  •He’s made threats, and she believes he’ll act on them

  •She still loves him

  •She hasn’t the money to leave

  •She feels she’s to blame

  •She believes he’ll commit suicide

  •She doesn’t think she’ll find another partner

  •She believes the negative things he has said about her, and hasn’t the self-confidence to take control of her life

  •She has no support system, no place to go, no one to talk to

  •She doesn’t trust the police or the courts to help

  •She thinks abuse goes with the territory

  •She doesn’t want to be a failure, in her eyes or in the eyes of others

  These realities have prompted Paymar and others to redefine the question: Why doesn’t she just leave? becomes, In what ways is a woman trapped in an abusive relationship?

  You know, there’s an irony here, David. More than any of your predecessors you seemed to take DV seriously. Most police chiefs don’t. They talk a good game but it’s a rare chief who puts the needed time, energy, money, and imagination into DV prevention and enforcement. Do you remember what I inherited in the department thirty-two miles north of yours?

  When I got to Seattle in 1994, robbery detectives were handling DV follow-up investigations. Robbery dicks! As a collateral duty. No wonder DV ranked at the bottom of the food chain within the department. The very structure of the organization proclaimed domestic violence the lowest of the low-priority assignments. One detective, unburdened by sensitivity, told me, “You spend your days handing Kleenexes to some sobbing broad whose old man gave her what she deserved.”

  Them was fightin’ words to my ears. I went back to my office that very afternoon and wrote out the skeleton of a plan to put an end to family violence in Seattle.

  My colleagues said it was foolish to set a goal of ending domestic violence. Why? Because it couldn’t be attained. Goals need to be reachable, they said, otherwise your cops and the community and the politicians get frustrated. I chose to think differently: I wanted people to get “frustrated” when we fell short. Every time a wife is battered, a date is raped, a child is scalded, an elder is abused, we should be “frustrated.” Hell, we should be goddamn outraged!

  In 1985 the U.S. surgeon general declared family violence a national epidemic. The American Medical Association and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took a similar stand. Violence and the Family: Report of the APA [American Psychological Association], Presidential Task Force on Violence and the Family (1996) supports the notion that DV is indeed a national epidemic (see sidebar below).

  At least 25 percent of all American homes play host to domestic abuse; one of every four men has used or will use violence against a partner during the life of their relationship; 30 percent of all female homicide victims are slain by their partner or former partner. And, children witness 80 percent of the DV assaults against their mothers.

  DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN AMERICA

  Nearly one in every three adult women experiences at least one domestic violence assault as an adult.

  Four million American women are victims of a serious assault by an intimate partner during an average 12-month period.

  Every year about 600,000 men are arrested for violence against women.

  Women are six times less likely to report violence by an intimate partner than by a stranger.

  At least 1,300 women are killed each year by an intimate partner (mostly by handguns); spotty reporting leads some experts to put the number at between 1,500-4,000.

  Every year approximately 3 million cases of child abuse are reported to official agencies such as child protective services.

  Approximately 1,300 children die of child abuse or neglect every year.

  Fifty-seven percent of children under 12 who are murdered are killed by a parent.

  In a given year, 3.3 million kids are exposed to violence by male family members against their mothers or female caretakers.

  Sixteen to 34 percent of girls and 10 to 20 percent of boys are sexually abused, most by a family member or trusted family friend.

  A family member is involved in nearly one-third of the murders of people aged 60 or older.

  What comes up for me, David, when I think about why I did not become a physical batterer of my children (including a son who’s kind enough not to recall the one firm swat to his butt I gave him when he was four) or of my intimate partners was that my old man didn’t start his “lickings” until I was four or five. I read somewhere that if a parent starts beating a kid at, say, one or two or three that child’s likely to be one seriously mucked-up adult. The Boys Club of National City also helped, a lot: If I wasn’t hunkered down in the front row of the Bay Theater (or out terrorizing the neighborhood with my slingshot), I was at the Boys Club playing basketball, building balsa wood CO2 land-rockets, and absorbing important life lessons from Coach Frank Leinsteiner and Director Jay Sutcliffe—two men who, unknown to them (and to me, at the time), were my own personal models of male decency and nonviolent communication.

  Plus, I never saw my father beat my mother. I don’t believe he ever did.

  I know this is “personal stuff,” David, me jabbering on about our moms and dads, our upbringing. Most cops like opening up about their private lives as much as they enjoy a lecture from the Rev. Al Sharpton. But violence in the home is not private. Who you voted for, what you read, what you watch on the tube, what you do when you get naked (kept within, ahem, prudent boundaries)—that’s private.
Domestic violence is as much a public crime as auto theft or a drive-by shooting.

  In the early 1970s, clueless that I myself fit the profile of a DV offender, I began to speak out against domestic violence, including child and elder abuse. I was motivated by memorable moments on the beat: a husband who stabbed his wife to death because his dinner was late; a man who allowed his elderly father and his father’s twin brother to rot away in a converted garage full of human and dog feces; a buffed-out hod-carrier who whipped welts onto the faces and backs of his six children (all under the age of ten) before binding his diminutive wife at the wrists and ankles, then beating her face into an unrecognizable mush; a mother who shook her baby so hard she produced “boxer’s” or “shaken baby” syndrome—which causes a slow degeneration of nerves and other neuropsychological defects in children as they grow.

  I spoke out everywhere, David, sharing my personal story (the sanitized Norm-as-kid-victim version at that time), rallying others in support of additional resources for prevention, shelters, child and adult protection services, vigorous enforcement and prosecution.

  A huge leap forward in my comprehension of the scope, nature, and consequences of domestic violence—and in my commitment to doing something about it—came in 1980 when in Duluth, Minnesota, a small group of daring and dedicated women formed the “Domestic Abuse Intervention Project.” Remember that time, David? Every police chief in the country seemed to have heard about DAIP. Not that they were all that happy with the implications: the identification by the police of a “primary” aggressor, screening for serious threats and/or injuries, mandatory arrests of primary aggressors—it all meant more work for us. But it gave us a clearer, and far more comprehensive picture of the crime of domestic violence—and what to do about it.

  Some DAIP theories have been challenged, in most instances by their own ongoing research and analysis, but also by such observers as the late Susan Sontag, the ACLU, and former San Diego police sergeant Anne O’Dell, now an internationally recognized DV expert. They’ve all raised questions about the most fundamental of DAIP’s positions, namely that the primary aggressor in a DV incident be hooked up and taken to jail in all cases that result in serious threats and/or physical injury. It’s smart theory, predicated on the safety of the victim/survivor and on holding the batterer accountable. All states now have either mandatory or “warrantless” arrest laws. These statutes have saved countless lives. But they can backfire. Busted in front of their partners, some men whose sense of “centrality, superiority, and deservedness” will sit fuming in their jail cells. Plotting deliberate, lethal revenge.

  Another problem with mandatory arrests: Cops often make mistakes trying to figure out who the primary aggressor is (this is one of Sontag’s concerns; see “Fierce Entanglements” in the November 17, 2002, issue of The New York Times). Scratches on a man’s face may have been put there by an unprovoked partner. But they could also be the product of a woman defending herself—against being choked to death, for example. I know of a case where a con-wise DV suspect plunged a knife into his own gut just as the cops walked up to the house. Guess who went to jail that night? Clue: It wasn’t the husband.

  And the ACLU, of which I am a card-carrying, dues-paying member, argues that requiring the police to arrest someone too often leads to false arrests. It’s the only law on the books that denies cops the discretion to sort out the facts and circumstances of a given case, and to make a case-by-case judgment about what to do. That’s bad law, says the ACLU. I agree, in principle. The discretion to arrest, or not, allows professional cops to make prudent, case-by-case decisions that further the causes of victim safety, offender accountability, and justice.

  Yet, as a society we’re so far behind the curve in protecting women and children that physical-custody arrests must be imposed on police, at least for now. It’s kind of like affirmative action. You work hard to remedy the problem, even if it requires crude measures; once you’ve achieved success you can (and should) drop the program. We’re not there yet in the battle against racism, or domestic violence.

  That being the case, I shook up my department in Seattle. I took DV away from the robbery dicks (and put them back to work on their first love), ripped off detectives from various units within the Investigations Bureau, set up a formal domestic violence unit, recruited a smart, aggressive lieutenant to run it, gave her a virtual blank check to develop the unit—and to staff it with the very best people. I made the DV unit part of a newly formed “Family and Youth Protection Bureau,” headed by an assistant chief.

  Within a year, twenty-five investigators were working DV cases exclusively, with almost as many additional detectives specializing in stranger-on-stranger sexual assaults—far more than any other centralized investigative function. Each investigator received intensive training, some in specialties that helped establish them as national experts in such areas as stalking, elder abuse prevention and enforcement, computer-based “lethality testing” (to help us predict which of the 10,000 or so annual DV calls in Seattle were most likely to result in death or serious injury), protection orders, even a “DV fugitive” strike team that went out in full uniform, ballistic helmets, and high-powered rifles to take down DV suspects who’d failed to show up in court or who had violated restraining or protection orders.

  That last one was partly for show, I admit. It symbolized my priorities, and sent a clear signal to the cop culture that DV enforcement is not social work, it’s genuine crime-fighting police work. But it also bowed to the reality that the most risky moment in the life of a DV case is when the guy finally faces facts: when it dawns on him that she really doesn’t want him, that she’s leaving him—for good. Isn’t that right, David? That’s also the moment when cops who attempt to intervene are most likely to get blown away. You and I both know a “family beef” is one of the most dangerous 911 calls that are broadcast over the police radio.

  Speaking of which: we trained our radio dispatchers, too. Remember those tapes you listened to in your office, David? The type that get played on 60 Minutes or the local newscast? A woman or a kid is on the line begging us to get there, now! Before Daddy strangles Mommy. Those tapes always give me the willies. They drive home the absolute need for our phone operators and dispatchers to know exactly what to say and do, and what not to say or do. (Lessons I’ll not repeat here, or anywhere else outside of a training classroom, for fear that some batterer will pick up on our tricks.) Employees who take these calls are forced to make rapid, life-and-death decisions. They need intensive, ongoing training to help them make the right call.

  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 t
he 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?