Who You Gonna Call When the Abuser Wears a Badge?

In court papers, the trio of wife-beating L.A. sheriff’s deputies are anonymous.

Doe 1 was convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence in 1991. Doe 2 was convicted of misdemeanor spousal abuse in 1992. Doe 3 was convicted of beating his common-law wife in 1993. All three were fined, ordered to pay court costs and received unsupervised probation. All three returned to active duty in the Sheriff’s Department.

And then, late last year, the past returned to haunt them.

After a new federal law prohibiting convicted wife-beaters from carrying guns went into effect, all three were stripped of their weapons by order of Sheriff Sherman Block and notified that they could either accept demotions or resign.

Instead, they sued the sheriff. In a federal lawsuit that echoes the complaints of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of law enforcement officers across the land, they claim the federal law is discriminatory, since it only takes away the guns and ammo of those convicted of domestic violence, not other kinds of violent misdemeanors. Furthermore, they say, the retroactive nature of the law (it applies to anyone ever convicted of misdemeanor family violence) unconstitutionally denies them their livelihood.

Because the deputies are anonymous, I can’t know this for sure. But I imagine the outrage they feel is very much like that felt by your basic pizza thief looking at a third strike and life in prison.

When it comes to being a convicted criminal, retroactivity can really suck.

People with rap sheets often seem to forget about how the world works. They labor under a delusion that if they are charged with a crime, get convicted, do the time or pay the price, somehow the slate is wiped clean, that they can carry on as if nothing ever happened.

Paying your debt to society, as the cliche goes, does not mean society develops amnesia about your crime. People remember.

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So when Congress passes a law saying you can’t carry a gun if you’ve been convicted of beating your wife (or husband), it should come as no surprise that all convicted criminals are included, whether they wear a badge or not.

At least three lawsuits have been filed challenging the law, but, as it turns out, it’s not just cops and deputies who believe they should be above this particular law, the Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban. The National Rifle Assn. has, pardon the expression, trained its considerable sights on it. And several bills have been introduced in Congress by sympathetic pols. One would exempt law enforcement officers and the military from the ban. Others would eliminate retroactivity for all domestic violent misdemeanor convictions. All are pending.

A small part of me wondered whether it was really fair to take away the gun of someone who may have been convicted of a misdemeanor 10 or 15 years ago. My doubts were extinguished after a conversation with Margo Frasier, the first female sheriff of Travis County, Texas, which includes Austin.

“I guess in my mind,” said Frasier, “I go, whew, it’s hard to get worked up about it, since for a law enforcement officer five or six years ago, or longer, to actually get him- or herself arrested for domestic violence. . . . I would imagine those crimes were particularly egregious.”

She raises an important issue: Law enforcement, with its well-known code of silence, often has trouble policing its own. Nor is it unusual for borderline felony domestic violence crimes to be plea-bargained down to misdemeanors.

Debate continues over the incidence of violence in police families--one roundly criticized informal survey put the figure as high as 40%, compared to about 16% in the general population--but some prosecutors and police chiefs say that the true rate is probably the same or only slightly higher than the general average. The domestic violence division of the Los Angeles city attorney’s office, for instance, doesn’t keep statistics by profession. But in the last 18 months, only a handful of cops and deputies have been prosecuted.

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I wouldn’t be surprised if the violence rate in police homes is far higher than what is reported. After all, when your police officer husband is brandishing a gun in your direction, telling you not to bother reporting it, because “I am the police,” you can imagine why a woman might be reluctant to make that call for help.

In an essay in the Thin Blue Line, a publication of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, Cliff Ruff reminds officers that “there is no excuse for violence.” Should officers be tempted to resort to violence at home, however, he notes that “the average police officer makes $4,500 a month. Domestic violence is not worth losing that or your pension.”

Yes, well, if it isn’t enough to remind them not to break the law, perhaps a reminder about the impact on their wallets might help. This is what those three anonymous L.A. sheriff’s deputies think they should have been allowed to consider before resorting to violence at home.

If Congress or the courts agree, they’ll only be confirming what victims have feared--that abuse is somehow less criminal when the wife-beater is wearing a badge.