Blue Badge of Murder; Police Officers Killing their WIVES on the RISE; “Missing and Murdered Cop’s Wives is Anybody Paying Attention?”

BLUE BADGE of MURDER:

Disturbing American Trend; Police Officers Killing their WIVES on the RISE; “Missing and Murdered Cop’s Wives is Anybody Paying Attention?”
Comment By Marc Chamot

It’s now becoming an American nightmare, American wives, married to these dubious and seedy characters, that should have never been allowed to carry a badge let alone a gun. Their spouses are disappearing and being murdered at an alarming rate. A great story by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer “Cops who abuse their wives rarely pay the price” is posted below.

Police Sergeant's Wife Goes Missing
WMAQ-TV
updated 7:13 p.m. CT, Tues., Oct. 30, 2007

BOLINGBROOK, Ill. - State Police are searching for the wife of a southwest suburban Bolingbrook police sergeant.

"Because he's one of our officers, we thought it would be better to have an independent agency investigating," Bolingbrook Mayor Roger Claar said of the state's involvement in the disappearance of Stacey Peterson.

It was not clear how long Peterson, the 23-year-old wife of Bolingbrook police Sgt. Drew Peterson, has been missing. Illinois State Police Trooper Mark Dorencz at first declined to comment on the matter, but later said the state is handling the case as a missing persons investigation.

The Bolingbrook police department said Drew Peterson was not scheduled to work Monday. A message left for him at the department went unreturned.

According to an Illinois State Police news release -- which spelled her name Stacy Ann Peterson -- she was last heard from at 10 a.m. Sunday. She was supposed to help a friend do some painting, but never showed up.

Full Story:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21545421/

Body Found in Ohio; Missing Woman's Boyfriend Charged With Murder
Saturday , June 23, 2007
CANTON, Ohio —

Authorities on Saturday arrested the boyfriend of a missing nine-month pregnant woman on murder charges and said they recovered a body believed to be hers.

Jessie Davis has been missing for a week from her home, where her 2-year-old son was found alone, his diaper dirty, bedroom furniture toppled and bleach spilled on the floor.

The Stark County Sheriff's Department said a body was recovered in neighboring Summit County at 3:30 p.m. Saturday. The sheriff's office did not give a location but said they believed it to be Davis.

Television news footage taken from helicopters above Cuyahoga Valley National Park showed authorities carrying a body bag on a stretcher and loading it into a white van.

The aerial views also showed investigators riding off-road vehicles to reach an area of the park that is heavily covered with trees and brush.

Roger Riggins, an investigator with the Summit County medical examiner's office, confirmed a body was found at the southeast edge of the park.

Davis' boyfriend, Bobby Cutts Jr., 30, is to be arraigned Monday in Canton Municipal Court on two counts of murder, including the unborn child, the sheriff's department said. Davis was due to deliver a baby girl on July 3.

Full Story:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,286404,00.html


Officer to Stand Trial for Wife's Death
Jeffrey Dennis, seen here in the yellow, will stand trial for killing his wife.
Thursday, April 20, UPDATED: 4:56 p.m.
By Ryan Leckey

A district judge ruled Thursday there is enough evidence to send the case against a Luzerne County police officer to trial.

Jeffrey Dennis, a Dallas Township police officer, is charged with homicide in the shooting death of his wife, Carli, in Luzerne County last February.

Dennis walked into his preliminary hearing in West Pittson in silence Thursday morning.

"This is a cop. A person who protects and serve himself and that's his job. He lost a wife. He lost a love and he's devastated. To him this is a nightmare," said defense attorney Ferris Webby.

Dennis claims his wife shot herself in their home in Wyoming.

The Luzerne County district attorney's office said it was Dennis who killed her.

Full Story:
http://www.wnep.com/global/story.asp?s=4795681

January 16, 1987
2 OFFICERS WITH MISSING WIVES TRAINED AT SAME STATION HOUSE
LEAD:

Two New York City police officers whose wives disappeared under mysterious circumstances worked in the same station house on the Upper West Side for more than a year while they were trainees in the late 60's, police officials said yesterday.

Two New York City police officers whose wives disappeared under mysterious circumstances worked in the same station house on the Upper West Side for more than a year while they were trainees in the late 60's, police officials said yesterday.

The officials said it was unclear whether the two officers, Mark Stahl and Robert Fioretti, knew each other. But, the officials said, the information shed new light on a possible link between the disappearance of the wives, Dianne Stahl and Rita Fioretti.

Full Story:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEED9113AF935A25752C0A961948260

More On Cops Killing their Wives!
http://movingoutmovingon.bloghi.com/2007/09/21/disturbing-twist-further-complicates-murder-of-amy-duh.html

Cops who abuse their wives rarely pay the price
By RUTH TEICHROEB AND JULIE DAVIDOW
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS

Their wedding cake shimmered with pearls, symbolizing marital bliss. Armfuls of roses, in shades of lavender and cream, scented the hall.

During the June 2000 ceremony, Phil Rees vowed to "love and cherish" his bride.
Less than two months later, the Seattle police officer found himself under investigation for domestic violence.

That night at their Burien home, Jenifer Rees watched in disbelief as King County sheriff's deputies handed her intoxicated husband back his gun and let him drive away -- so he wouldn't miss work in the morning.

"It was like, 'You're one of us, so you can leave,' " Jenifer Rees, 34, recalled. "He could have come back and blown my head off."

He'd flown into a rage and slammed her into a wall, she told deputies, according to the police report. She showed them a scrape on the side of her head and said he had hurled a dresser drawer at her. But rather than further incite his wrath, she refused to cooperate in the investigation.

Phil Rees denied the allegations. No charges were filed. The Seattle Police Department didn't discipline the veteran officer, who had been accused of domestic violence before, in 1998 and 1999.

Today, it could be Officer Rees who arrives at the door when a battered woman calls 911 in the city's Southwest Precinct.

It's a scenario being repeated every day in Western Washington.

Over the past five years, 41 officers in King and Pierce counties alone have been accused of assaulting, stalking, threatening or harassing their wives, girlfriends or children, a five-month investigation by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has found.

The officers, employed at 12 police agencies running the gamut from metropolitan to rural, were identified through searches of civil and criminal records, and public disclosure requests for internal investigations.

Most have paid little, if any, professional price. Only half faced charges.
The reasons for that sometimes have little to do with guilt or innocence.

Victims may refuse to pursue charges, fearing further violence or financial ruin if an abuser loses his job. Some police departments don't bother to take abuse allegations seriously.

The most horrifying reminder of that came on April 26 when Tacoma police Chief David Brame shot his wife, Crystal, in a Gig Harbor parking lot, then killed himself moments later. The murder-suicide has exposed serious concerns about how city officials minimized signs of Brame's violent nature.

Top city officials promoted the veteran officer up through the ranks, handing him the top job in January 2002 -- even though they knew he'd been accused of raping a woman in 1988.

They defended Brame and refused to take action after his wife filed for divorce in February and accused him of pointing a gun at her and choking her four times in the previous year.

A domestic violence-related conviction is a career-ender for police because federal law bans gun use for anyone who commits such a crime.

That means the stakes are high for everyone involved -- from the victim whose safety and family income could be jeopardized by reporting abuse, to the officer whose livelihood is on the line to the police agency entrusted with protecting the public.
'Unprotected by the police'

To Jenifer Rees, her husband was the law.

It's not surprising that domestic violence afflicts police as it does everybody else.

At least 10 to 15 percent of families are torn by abuse. Victims typically don't seek help until the fifth or sixth incident.

Police officers may be more prone to mistreating their families than others, partly because some attracted to such work are more authoritarian and liable to misuse their training, experts say.

One of the sustained complaints involved an officer whose name was withheld. He was charged with assaulting his wife in 1999, then quit. In the other case, Sgt. Peter Pieper was docked two vacation days for using the police computer to track down a girlfriend. An allegation that he'd also restrained and sexually assaulted the woman, which he denied, was not sustained.

Sheriff's officials fired the other two deputies only after they were forced to do so because alleged victims obtained protection orders banning the men from carrying weapons. An internal investigation found one of those complaints "not sustained;" the other investigation is pending.

Different standards
Some police agencies seem to be more concerned with retaining officers accused of domestic violence than getting rid of them.

During an interview last month, Montgomery said the Elliott investigation was the only domestic violence case he could recall since taking charge of the 180-officer department in 1997. One other domestic violence complaint against an officer in 2000 was not sustained.

"It happens on a very rare occasion," Montgomery said.

Two weeks ago, though, another Bellevue officer, Jamie Collins, was charged with fourth-degree assault after he was accused of straddling his wife and threatening to kill her in January, according to court papers. He has denied the allegations and is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.

'Walking time bombs'
As the former spouse of a cop, Jenifer Rees believes there are many silent victims.
Law enforcement agencies have closed their eyes to the problems facing police families, from alcoholism to abuse, she said.

In an effort to save her crumbling marriage, she sought help from the police chaplain, her husband's captain and other officers.

He was drinking heavily and had gotten "mean," she said she told them. He "acted like a cop" at home, too. She didn't want to get her husband in trouble. She wanted his bosses to take it seriously.

"You have some walking time bombs out there," Jenifer Rees warned. "And that's exactly what Phil was."

Full Story:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/131879_cops23.html