Exactly, but the result of the original Florida law was the same. Legislators were trying to prevent violence, but once the subject was actually arrested under the mandatory arrest requirement, they were furious with the partner and worse violence ensued.
Very true. Most of us can dissect anything after the fact, but we're not always aware of the legalities. And legalities are critical -- not only for effective prosecution, but more importantly to protect some of our most important rights.
And eyewitness statements, which are usually inaccurate.
Ah, gotcha. Back to your earlier comment about arrest vs. detention, the Utah officers in the video said the circumstances (living together, marks on both of them*) met the criteria of domestic assault and as such they were required to charge Gabby and place her under a no-contact order unless/until Brian went in person the following day to request the charge be dropped. They said they didn’t have to take her to jail if they could figure out a way to keep them separated that night, but if they couldn’t then they would have to take her to jail. So, she wasn’t under arrest, but they could detain her until the next day — am I understanding that right?
Yeah, I know when my department first tested them there was some very amusing footage!
To me where they came to the decision was through the talks with both of them but that an IMO moment. I realize there's various opinions here but I figured the officers took into consideration the call that got them out there, then discussed with the parties there (Gabby and Brian) and came to a decision there. I don't know if the outcome of this investigation will reflect anything regarding how the police handled it.
Storage isn't really an issue these days with cloud storage or massive storage devices. However, there might be technical requirements (including automatic backups and security) that can't be met by just buying off the shelf storage drives that might make it more expensive than just buying commercial storage devices.
My own thought is that there were reports of aggression from both of them. But in his interview he focused on what she did to him. And in her interview she also focused on blaming herself. Which unfortunately could have just been her trying to deescalate the situation to avoid making him angry. Seems like something that would be fairly typical of abuse victims (blaming themselves to try and deescalate things). I'd like to think police would be on the lookout for that, but they seemed to take everything here at face value. In their defense, I'm sure it's hard to read between the lines standing on the side of the road. And I'm not sure what they would have done with the situation anyway. She was an adult and was across the country from family and friends.
I agree with everything you said. I also agree that part of the problem is, even if the police had correctly identified her as a victim of domestic abuse… then what? Say one of them had pulled her aside and said, “Hey Gabby, we know he’s abusing you and we can take you out of here right now,” where would that leave her? She would be thinking okay, can I afford a flight home? Well, it’s my van, so unless I’m going to abandon it, he’s the one who needs to get the flight home. But then I’m stuck driving across the country by myself. All my things are in his parents’ house because that’s where I live and he’ll be waiting for me when I get there. He knows where I work so I’ll have to quit my job. I probably can’t afford to live on my own anyway so I’ll have to move back with my parents in NY. Of course, he knows exactly where to find me there and then I’m bringing that drama to their door where my five younger siblings will witness it and if he does show up there in one of his rages, will someone in my family try to get involved and then get hurt?
Yes, and I think all of that is bundled up in the desperation we see on her face in that bodycam footage.
We really don't know much about their relationship for certain. But we do know that only one of them died in a homicide, the other of which likely had something to do with it.
It was the first I’d heard of the dispatch audio being released, and I knew people had been questioning what info the officers had when they arrived on the scene, so I posted it because it clears up that question.
Who’s in a better position to evaluate the people involved? One could argue that the person who witnessed him hitting her had a clearer understanding of what happened over the officers who showed up after the fact, saw nothing firsthand, and were trying to piece together the story based on what the involved parties were willing, or not willing, to say based on their own motivations. Especially when one half of the involved parties, Gabby, couldn’t even really give a coherent description of what transpired. Most of her answers boiled down to “I don’t know what happened, I just know it’s my fault.” Oddly, some of the very few things she could say confidently, that Brian corroborated himself, were, 1) he was withholding her keys to her van, 2) he got in the driver’s seat and locked her out of her van, and 3) he grabbed her face. With these facts, it’s easy to imagine a scenario where he was threatening to drive off without her, whipping her anxiety into a frenzy as was probably his goal. The witness reporting that he was slapping/hitting her should’ve further put the spotlight on Brian as the agitator. But, because the police saw a calm, friendly guy joking and laughing and a crying girl who was willing to take 100% of the blame, they gave him travel tips and a ride to a free hotel for the night and wrote her off as mentally unstable.
We know the police got it wrong, but I’m not blaming them for not recognizing her as a victim of abuse at the time. I doubt their training gives them enough expertise to properly access mental health and/or domestic abuse cases in an hour while standing on the side of the road. A domestic violence counselor, however, would’ve seen right through this and would’ve been in a better position to talk to Gabby and set her up with resources. Instead of expecting police to sort out these types of complex situations, determine who is at fault, and issue citations/make arrests on the spot, perhaps it’d be better to shuttle the involved parties off to professionals who are better trained to understand these things and go from there.
I do think the police dropped the ball a few times. First, with the fact that they had been told the man was hitting the woman, yet they seemed to completely overlook that part by the time they were on the scene. Second, they called one of the witnesses, Christopher, while on the scene to hear his account directly. Christopher said he saw them physically engaged but couldn’t tell who was the aggressor, which the officers later used as evidence that Brian’s retelling of the incident checked out. But why didn’t the police call the other witness, the one who reported the man was hitting the woman? Would it have changed how the police handled this if the witness had insisted Brian was the aggressor? And third, they straight up missed Brian lying to them about not having a cell phone, which was his reason for why the argument escalated like it did. He literally pulled his phone out of his pocket in front of them and gave the officers his cell number after telling them he didn’t have one.
I hear you but in truth none of that means they weren't both awful to each other as in that being a possibility. That's a completely separate issue and one the poster you were quoting was attempting to address. As far as we really don't know much about their relationship well this thread has some people very convinced what their relationship was..well at least some people are.
I don’t either. I think a lot of people are looking at this and and saying "if only". But I’m not sure what they could’ve done even if they had more information.
