[Seattle-editorial] FEATURE PROPOSAL: Tacoma Remembers Crystal Brame

[Brandon Faloona]

This needs to be shortened, and needs more info about local events. anyone
interested in helping me with the final touches?

brandon
+++

preview and edit at:
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/SeaEdBrandfCurrent

title: David Brame: Police Chief, Domestic Terrorist, and "a great guy"<br>
alt title: Tacoma remembers Crystal Brame<br>
subtitle: The Fragile Façade of Male Violence

Tacoma will <a
href="http://www.tribnet.com/news/story/3077599p-3101077c.html">remember
and honor Crystal Brame</a> on Friday and Saturday, but America will
likely forget the 10, 20 or perhaps 40 other victims of deadly-force
domestic violence <a
href="http://www.now.org/issues/violence/050203timeline.html">that
occurred the same week</a>. The celebrity of Crystal Brame's
killer/husband, the Tacoma Chief of Police, and the comical denials of
Tacoma's political elites has grabbed the attention of the local press.
However, the corporate media predictably ignores the underlying stories,
for example, the impact of the violent and hurtful gender stereotypes
permeating the advertiesments that they sell.

Unimpressed with the idea of an investigation headed by the Washington
Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, the Tacoma branch of the
National Organization for Women wants the Attorney General's office to ask
for a <a
href="http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/120847_tacoma07.html">federal
investigation</a>.

Protected by a police code of silence, his enormous power in the
community, his "<a
href="http://www.tribnet.com/news/story/3061905p-3085382c.html">sensitive
guy</a>" demeanor, and 21st century American patriarchy, Brame apparently
battered and terrorized his wife over the years, and even admitted to
raping a co-worker, all without loosing his high standing in the
community.

America's police and military institutions are the bastion of
"traditional" values: secrecy, authority and patriarchy. David Brame rose
quickly through the ranks of Tacoma's police department, continuing a
history of police work in his family. The evidence is clear that <a
href="http://inlet.org/clippings03/cops_batterers.htm">many good cops are
also batterers</a>.

The day Crystal Brame died, from a wound her estranged husband inflicted a
week with his service revolver, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran an
opinion piece titled "Brame case offers lessons for helping battered
women".  The article's presentation of domestic violence "abusers" as
gender-neutral, combined with it's failure to mention that 90% of abusers
are men, left an otherwise useful article, toothless. Unaddresed were
issues of systemic complicity to male violence our society.

The habitually avoided questions, however, are:
   * Why are men so violent in our 21st century ‘civilized’ society?
   * In what ways does our society encourage male violence?
   * Why does our society quietly tolerate male violence?

Ex-police chief Ray Fjetland determined a rape victim’s complaint was “not
sustained”, even though he had received a sworn statement from Officer
Reggie Roberts that Brame had admitted to raping her.

Ray Corpuz, who promoted David Brame to police chief and is Tacoma’s City
Manager in-hiding, when pressed for exactly what he knew and when he knew
it, uttered a damming statement. Hiding behind the words, "The word 'rape'
was never used," Corpuz invokes the thin façade of patriarchy by claiming
he only knew of “an incident with a woman”.

   * According to Stacey Kabat, as of June 1991 there were 2,000 battered
women in America serving prison time for defending their lives against
their batterers.
   * According to the UN, in 1994 battering was the <a
href="http://www.whrnet.org/docs/issue-VAW.html">single greatest cause
of injury</a> among women in the US, accounting for more emergency room
visits than auto accidents, muggings, and rapes combined.