Tacoma police chief shoots wife, kills himself

Seattle Post-Intelligencer ^

[Walnut]

I don't believe you said what you did. NO ONE IS TO BLAME WHEN THEY ARE MURDERED
This guys wacko. there are a lot of provacation going on by men and woman and they don't kill thier spouse or significant other because they are good at pushing Buttons.

[FirstTomato]

Yes, the psychological industry is a disaster for the American family, and I think one which takes advantage of both men and women. Instead of enouraging people to look for solutions in faith, this society looks to the DSM as a God.

And unfortunately many women are the ones who fall for this psychological garbage, which often has a large component of radical feminism injected into it.

Some people get upset with me for my harsh criticism of women in today's world, but women have swallowed too much of the NOW feminista type of man-hatred, and too often see their husbands as competitors.

[FITZ]

There is always a dynamic that can't be explained in simplistic terms, and weapons (in the broadest sense) are used by both people.

I don't think he's a victim at all --not in any way but I agree there is usually a dynamic that isn't simple to explain. She was a victim ---but not one that got out immediately ---he was the persecuter and the flower-giver. What makes some women put up with abuse for years, anyone who works with these women victims will tell of how even when they are in domestic abuse centers, many leave and go back for more abuse. Maybe it's self-esteem? --they feel they deserve to be punished? Maybe the need to "have a husband" to provide a living? Or the social status of having a husband?

[cake_crumb]

"So much for the concept of personal responsibility. (Can you buy a t-shirt that says "The Gavel Made Me Do It"?)"

I'm not blaming the court system. The fact that he's a police cheif does not make him immune to the weaknesses of the rest of humanity. He shot his wife in FRONT OF HIS CHILDREN. I can't believe any normal human being, no matter how far they were pushed by their spouse or the court, would subject his children to such horror. Didn't he think of the effect on his kids? Apparently not. That tye of behavior has to make you wonder just how much he cared about his family.

However, the entire system is corrupt. That was why I brought up the restraining order against the chief of police. Who's gonna enforce it?

My nasty divorce was stretched out to five agonizing years by my ex's attorney. I had a restraining order against him, because he was following me around, threatening to shoot me. He used to sit across the road from my house, watching it. Not just him. He, his parents and his best friend took the seige in shifts. Know what the police told me when I finally got tired of avoiding windows? They said there was nothing they could do, because we didn't own the property across the road. What good is a restraining order? They can arrest the violator, but you'll be no less dead for that.

Now imagine such a nightmare of a divorce, but the spouse doing the stalking is the police chief. As I said, who's gonna enforce it?

[HairOfTheDog]

There was no pause between shooting her and then shooting himself. The shots were in rapid succession, from the reports of those on the scene. I might have expected if it were unplanned, that he would shoot her, and in the "what have I done?" moment, killed himself as he realized he now had no future. But there was no pause for thought. His plan from the start was to kill himself too. Incomprehendable mindset.

[GretchenEE]

A man shoots the mother of his children and then himself, ... in front of his screaming children ... and a few people here are blaming divorce courts.

I don't know the particulars of that poster's life, but I have often found on such topics that the poster has an old, personal axe to grind.

[headsonpikes]

"Corrupt greedy lawyers" give the other 1% a bad name.

In the present political environment, Police Chiefs have a similar status to the 'nomenclatura' of the old Soviet Union.

All the important tests for suitability for the job are political, both within the praetorian police unions, and within the interest-juggling petty bureaucracies of city government and state departments.

Our ambitious Chief Brame was no doubt in psychic agony over the possible rejection of himself by the Tacoma Establishment.

Socialist systems of hierarchy and reward tend to pervert people in this particular way. Milovan Djilas wrote a number of interesting books outlining the destruction of human values by such a system in his Tito-era Yugoslavia.

Things aren't that different in the Soviet of Washington, apparently.

[HairOfTheDog]

Yes, he was probably a victim, just as much a victim as the woman.

Bizarro.

[cake_crumb]

"I thought restraining orders jinxed any type of firearm possesion?"

They do. They're supposed to anyway. My ex was supposed to get rid of his pistols, but never did and wasn't forced to. Corruption.

[wimpycat]

The point I am making is not that this guy is innocent, but there is a reason behind what he did, and it is very likely that the woman contributed to it.

I'm racking my brain trying to come up with something a woman can do that would justify shooting her to death in a parking lot with her children nearby.

Nope. You can stretch and contort all you like, but blaming the victim here isn't going to cut it. It doesn't matter what she did, she didn't deserve to be murdered in front of her children, and we can't ask the husband what she did, now can we, because the wussy killed himself and orphaned his children.

[friendly]

post #47 eloquent and sharp-witted.

[FITZ]

I know that women often incite these problems by their own actions.

Only by staying after the first abuse incident. A co-worker was telling me about the sad case of an emotionally abused woman in her family ---the husband criticizes her constantly and in front of others ---usually by insulting her on her weight, calling her fat, stupid, and lazy ---but he doesn't leave her. She cries but eats to comfort herself, she gets fatter and lazier --maybe to punish him back ---but she doesn't leave either. There seems to be no love whatsoever between them ---and when they ask her why she doesn't just leave him, she says she's afraid at her weight, she'd never find another husband.

[HairOfTheDog]

it's difficult to understand the motives of a woman who fears a man, gets a restraining order, and then breaks the restraining order herself by agreeing to meet him in a parking lot.

The reason for the meeting was to exchange kids from a visitation, in a very busy parking lot, not a secluded one, just FYI.

[GretchenEE]

The existing divorce system needs a radical overhaul. It is bringing too many families to this end of events.

The existing divorce system didn't cause the police chief to abuse, long-term, and then shoot his wife in front of their children. The existing divorce system didn't create the long-standing imbalance in the chief's mind and life that resulted in this horrendous train of events.

It was when she took action to get free from his oppression and threats to her life that he shot her.

Nicole Simpson comes to mind.

[firewalk]

David Brame had maintained he was the real victim of domestic violence during his 11-year marriage. He said he reported the assaults to police -- first to his boss, then-interim Chief Ken Monner and to an officer who photographed his bruises; then to police in Gig Harbor, where he was living at the time.

Both times David Brame insisted that police not arrest his wife or even investigate his allegations - even though a state law requires officers to arrest anyone accused of domestic violence if the complaint is credible.

[FirstTomato]

You say no one is to blame when they are murdered?

Some people are very much to blame. That doesn't mean that the murderer is blameless, but not every "victim" is blameless.

If two drug dealers have a gun battle and one is murdered are you saying that the one still standing is the evil one and the other is the victim?

And if two people who hate each other, who have caused undue misery for each other, confront each other and one is killed or near killed and the other still stands, do you automatically condem one and not the other?

[FITZ]

The case that happened here was a secluded parking lot ---but with a restraining order on the husband, I would doubt that exchanging the kids face to face would be the way the law required it done. A restraining order should mean the woman (or man) has real reason to fear physical harm ---and it should not be broken by either party ---certainly not the victim.

[HairOfTheDog]

Some would have you believe that people never were driven to murder when love went bad, until divorce courts.

There are some personalities who cannot tolerate loss of control. Those kinds of people will go mad when anyone fails to respect them, it doesn't take a court system to do that.

[FITZ]

And if two people who hate each other, who have caused undue misery for each other, confront each other and one is killed or near killed and the other still stands, do you automatically condem one and not the other?

Yes because the murder did not need to happen, it certainly did not need to happen in front of those poor kids.

[cake_crumb]

"All the important tests for suitability for the job are political, both within the praetorian police unions, and within the interest-juggling petty bureaucracies of city government and state departments."

Well said. Not all chiefs of police are like that, but there are far too many of them out there.