Posted on 04/27/2003 12:54:50 PM PDT by ATCNavyRetiree
Tacoma police chief shoots wife, kills himself
By LEWIS KAMB, PHUONG CAT LE, ANGELA GALLOWAY and RUTH TEICHROEB SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS
GIG HARBOR - Tacoma's police chief shot his wife and then himself in the parking lot of a strip mall Saturday afternoon while the couple's two young children were nearby.
David Brame died at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tacoma about 6 p.m. His wife Crystal was in critical condition at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
On Friday, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that Crystal Brame, 35, had obtained a temporary restraining order in February against her husband. In subsequent court papers, she had accused him of pointing his service revolver at her and trying to choke her during two separate incidents in the past six months.
The couple were going through a divorce.
Brame, a veteran officer who rose through the ranks to become chief in January 2002, denied those allegations in court papers filed in King County Superior Court last month.
Saturday's shooting happened at about 3:10 p.m., said Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer.
"We don't believe other people are involved," Troyer said. "The victims were the chief of the Tacoma Police Department and his wife. We believe he shot her and then shot himself."
Crystal Brame was in a black Toyota Camry with the couple's two children when David Brame approached the vehicle, authorities said. The two had arranged to meet in the shopping mall parking lot. David Brame took the two children - 8-year-old Haley and 5-year-old David - to his burgundy Toyota Camry, which was parked nearby. He then returned to the car Crystal Brame was in. He got in also and a short time later two shots were fired, authorities said.
NOTE: This story has been updated since it was originally posted.
"The kids were screaming," said Kirsten Oakland, who works in a hair salon at the mall. "Who would have thought? Awful. This affected the entire community in a split second."
An off-duty King County paramedic was the first to arrive on the scene and begin treatment.
"It appeared she (Crystal) managed to open the door and fell down to the ground," Troyer said. "And the paramedic pulled up right next to her in the car."
Neither child was hurt. They were with their mother's parents Saturday night, Troyer said.
George Sharp, a supervisor for the Rite Aid store, said almost nobody in the store actually heard the shooting. Many learned of it from customers and employees coming in for their shifts who had learned about the shooting from news reports.
"A lot of people expressed shock that it did happen in Gig Harbor and the customers and the employees wish that it hadn't happened but they didn't really feel any more threatened as they would if it were a drive-by or it were a random act," Sharp said.
"I think that people are saddened it got to that stage and unhappy that it happened here, and unhappy that it happened at all."
Troyer said one of the Brame children got out of the car and went into a nearby Hollywood Video store. Witnesses took the other child to the store too.
Jesse Hentz, assistant manager of the Hollywood Video, said: "I feel really bad. And I want the family to know that people care about them."
In court papers, Crystal Brame portrayed her husband as controlling and jealous, refusing to let her use their credit card without permission and checking her car's odometer to monitor trips to the grocery store.
She also accused him of leaving his loaded service revolver on a bedroom shelf within reach of their two children.
Her fear increased last November when she alleged that the 44-year-old Brame "choked me and threatened that he could snap my neck if he wanted to." It was the fourth time that year he'd tried to choke her, each time sending flowers later to apologize, she said.
And just before they separated in February, she alleged in court documents that Brame pointed his service revolver at her, "telling me 'accidents happen.' "
She did not report either incident to police.
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.
He explained his unusual behavior in court documents by saying he wanted to "protect himself" in case his wife ever tried to malign him with false abuse allegations.
Tacoma City Councilman Mike Lonergan, who sits on the council's public safety committee, said he had a hard time believing the shooting had happened.
"We knew David from his professional side. This is a total shock," Lonergan said Saturday. "He presented himself as a very together person, business-like and very likeable. This entire thing is hard to grasp."
Although Lonergan said the usually outgoing Brame had been withdrawn and seemed depressed lately, he had no idea what was going on at home.
"To know David Brame took the action he did today shows that there was a whole lot beneath the surface we couldn't see," Lonergan said.
Ken Bunting, executive editor of the P-I, said "this is a tragic development in lives that, from all accounts, have been troubled for quite some time. These events are not only painful for the family, but for the community and all who have the responsibility to ask the difficult questions about it. Domestic violence is never a comfortable topic."
Paul Pastor, Pierce County sheriff, announced Brame's death from outside St. Joseph's hospital. He said only that Brame had died of a gunshot wound; no other details were given.
"This is terribly sad news for this city and this community," Pastor said.
Carlos Sambrano, a childhood friend of the chief, went to the hospital to support the family. He said he and Brame played baseball at Lincoln High School.
"He never appeared to be a violent person," said Sambrano, who described his friend as a "class act."
Visibly distraught over the news of his friend's death, Sambrano said: "What's this world coming to."
Not in this case ---it seems that she made the mistake of continuing to see a man who abused her, 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 same thing happened here ---there was a restraining order the but woman herself actually called the man up, agreed to meet him in some secluded parking lot with the kids and same thing happened ---he killed her. The fact that she was a Mexican national might mean he thought he'd have a nice submissive, obedient wife and he found out they aren't all as submissive as he hoped.
In this case, it seems she was going back over and over ---as the advice for daughters goes --"he hits you once, it's his fault, if he hits you twice, it's your fault". I see this guy accused her of abusing him also ---and she may have ---but then he should have already divorced her for that right after it happened.
I guess you have to be a cop.
You get to point the gun at your wife, keep the gun, and keep your job as police chief.
The man lost it. No screwed up court system causes this. Good grief.
A police officer shoots himself and the wife who started the process of taking him to a court system that he knows will destroy his life and family.
I don't know if the above is really the case, and it doesn't justify his actions, but desperate people do crazy things.
This guy may have been very wrapped up in his career. It sounds like it, but I don't know. I do know that if you back people into a corner, where they see no way out, and where they see no chance of justice, it is more likely for them to act in crazy ways.
Is it possible that this guy was an abuser? Sure.
Is it possible that he was a guy too wrapped up in his job and marriage who was pushed over the edge by his knowlege of how the current system works? Sure.
Will we ever know? Probably not.
P.S. There is no mention in the article that the children were screaming while he shot himself and his wife. That seems to be a pure additional emotional, gratuitous additon, and it seems highly unlikely, since the kids almost certianly did not know what was going on until it was over.
Absolutely. I've been railing against the psych industry for years. Particularly the state-run psyche industry.
In the case of a divorce made into horror show by greedy lawyers, psychological evaluations are usually called for. Then evaluations of the kids. If they can manufacture a problem, socialist workers become involved. Nasty, evil, greedy lawyers have been known to sic Children' Services onto to whichever parent is not their client. It's an 'easy' way for them to win cases.
Once Children's Services smells the LEAST little chance to worm their way in, they do NOT let go of a case, and they RARELY help the affected children in any way.
Their sole purpose, as far as I have been able to ascertain, is to find families in trouble, hang around the house like the PC gestapo and manufacture problems. So they can maintain their level of government funding, because the entire state psych industry is funded by the number of cases currently open. It's in the best interests of job security for the socialist workers to create and keep as many cases as possible. Sort of like funding for public education, except that it's based on cases rathe than numbers of students.
Taxpaying parents going through divorce and being preyed upon by socialist workers as well as lawyers are funding this.
I wonder if he might have been pushed over the edge by the knowledge that if his wife prevailed in court, his career would be over.
I watched this story unfolding last night. My gut then -- and now -- is that he snapped when it all hit the court papers (she hadn't put it in legal form till the day before he shot her). I also think he put the kids in his car, returned to her car and gave her an ultimatum to recant what she'd put into the court papers and let their lives go back to "normal" < gack >. When she refused, Bam.
There was an awful lot of cover being given by the Tacoma PD last night, portraying Brame as such a good guy. < double gack > No wonder Mrs. Good Guy didn't report this to the police but waited to put it into the court papers.
This case brings me to conclude that when a police chief's wife is able to convince a duly-authorized court to issue a restraining order that is intended to keep her alive, the police chief should be placed on administrative leave pending an investigation by people over his pay grade.
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