May 13, 2025 • 38 mins
What happens when your abuser carries a badge and a gun? For victims of officer-involved domestic violence, the journey to safety becomes a dangerous maze with few exits.
Bruce Bieber joins us with the heartbreaking story of his daughter Abby – a rising star deputy sheriff who was murdered by her intimate partner, himself a detective in the same sheriff's office. This wasn't a random tragedy but the culmination of systemic failure, as her killer had previously been reported for domestic violence years earlier, only to have the incident swept under the rug.
Through tears and determination, Bruce reveals how his quest for answers uncovered layers of institutional protection that prioritized shielding officers over protecting victims. When he discovered that approximately 40% of police families experience domestic abuse – potentially hundreds of thousands of households – he transformed his grief into purpose.
The parallels between Abby's case and countless others expose a chilling pattern: documentation disappears, investigations vanish, and perpetrators not only remain employed but often advance in their careers. Questions about the failure of fellow officers to intervene when Abby was killed reveal uncomfortable truths about the "blue wall of silence" that protects abusers in uniform.
Bruce is now fighting for legislation requiring Florida's law enforcement agencies to adopt protocols for handling cases when the abuser wears a badge. His urgent message resonates beyond one family's tragedy: if we immediately act when officers commit robbery or deal drugs, why do we still treat domestic violence as a private matter rather than the crime it is?
Share this powerful episode with someone who needs to hear it, and join us in breaking the silence around officer-involved domestic violence.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the podcast on Crimes Against Women.
I'm Maria McMullin.
Officer-involved domesticviolence contains further
complexities than most domesticviolence cases, because when
your abusive partner is a memberof law enforcement, who do you
report the abuse to and willanyone believe you?
Chances are probably not.
Or they will look the other wayif the abuser is one of their
(00:22):
own.
My guest, bruce Bieber, is thefather of Abigail Rose Bieber,
former Hillsborough CountySheriff's Office deputy, who was
killed in a murder-suicide byher intimate partner who, at the
time of the incident, was adetective.
Bruce is here to share hisfamily story of getting justice
for Abby and how deeplyofficer-involved domestic
(00:44):
violence is impacting women inAmerica.
This episode originallyreleased on our sister show,
genesis, the Podcast, and is adiscussion about domestic
violence, homicide and suicide.
Bruce, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Thank you, Maria, for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Yeah, it's good to be with you and I've enjoyed
getting to know you over thepast few months and learning
about your daughter, Abby.
What I'd like to do today islearn more about her and hear
her story and what's happenedand what you and your family are
doing to try to address theissue of officer-involved
domestic violence.
So, to begin, tell us aboutAbby.
(01:29):
What was she like and what wasshe passionate about?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Abby was a remarkable young woman celebrating her
34th birthday coming up in abouta week.
She was killed just before her31st.
We just passed the three-yearmark.
Abby was a scholar, athlete,loyal friend, funny as the day
is long, fearsome warrior thatever lived, dedicated to helping
(01:53):
those less fortunate than shewas, always as a child that
carried through to herprofession.
Terrific curiosity about theworld, about her, actually went
to UT Austin for her firstcollege experience, her first
year.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Meaning she was probably really smart too,
because that's not an easyschool to get into.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
No right, particularly for somebody from
out of state.
Yes, and the fit, didn't, youknow, line up perfectly.
So she came back to Marylandand finished up at the
University of Maryland where shegraduated.
Her older brothers were intolaw enforcement.
She followed in their footsteps.
You couldn't slip the thinnestpaper between the three of them.
They were so close, Incrediblyfamily-oriented and dedicated
(02:36):
young woman.
My wife and I raised them inthe Washington DC area in
Bethesda, Maryland.
Abby was the pioneer who leftthe area first to come down to
Tampa Bay area and put downroots, and our middle son
followed thereafter and then ouroldest boy after that, and then
she started a clock in her headand heart waiting for her mom
(02:57):
and dad to come down and jointhem.
We remain close even thoughthey're all grown, some with
families of their own andintentionally found a home
proximate to their homes,centrally located, so they could
gather on weekends andthoughtful kind giving.
A Fellini movie expert, I meanshe could tell you the 16 layers
of Fellini movies that youdidn't know existed.
(03:20):
A reader, a runner, Like I said, she was an athlete.
She won awards, NationalAthletic Prowess, Loved her job
Loved, sadly, you know, andironically in the end loved
being a deputy sheriff, Was anatural leader, Took women under
her wings, that she didn't haveto, to show them the way, the
(03:42):
newbies, the newer ones whofollowed in their footsteps.
She would take them offline andsay, look, this is how you
should do this.
She wanted women in the fieldto do better and be better.
Look at upon herself.
Nobody asked her to do it, shejust, I think, at every turn
showed natural, innateleadership ability, and I think
they did recognize that Likelywould have very soon this
(04:05):
fateful trip have been promotedoff the street as they call it
Something her mom and I lookforward to.
when you have kids policeofficers you know going to hold
up something you live in fear ofthis.
This is a still photograph,taken from a ring camera, of the
deputies coming to our house,2.52 in the morning, to tell us
(04:29):
that our daughter's never cominghome.
And when you have three kids inlaw enforcement and one, by the
way, who also did a combat tourfor his army in.
Afghanistan.
You live on pins and needles.
You know and you hope for thebest and provide every resource
you can to protect them butcan't protect against.
And the worst, absolute worst,happened one night came to our
(04:51):
door right before she would havegotten off the road and
minimized the risk likely.
But I guess we'll get intotalking about OIDV and its
pernicious nature and find that,frankly, it can strike anywhere
, anytime, anyplace, any strata,any demographic, any age right.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, bruce, thank you for giving me, or all of us,
the background about Abby.
She sounds like an amazingwoman who was definitely a
rising star in both her work andthroughout her life, and I'm
really sorry for your loss andyour family's loss.
This should have never happened.
And you did say the term OIDVand that stands for, for our
(05:32):
listeners, officer-involveddomestic violence, and we may
refer to it as that abbreviationthroughout this show.
So you mentioned that all threeof your children, two sons and
a daughter, were in lawenforcement.
So Abby was a sheriff's deputyand both your sons being in law
enforcement.
Any thoughts on why all threeof your kids chose a career in
(05:54):
law enforcement?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Lots of thoughts, no answers.
My wife and I are not, neverwere, never would be.
It was a shock and a surprisethat one did, that two did and
then the third.
It was insane.
We suspect it has something todo with 9-11.
Maybe it's so, maybe it's notat a formative time in their
lives, being public serviceminded likely contributed to it.
(06:17):
My wife's a public schoolteacher.
My oldest boy joined avolunteer ambulance service in
his early teen years and stayedwith it all the way through high
school and joined a firedepartment in college, actually
lived in one at Penn State, andso he had first responder
experience that set the mark, Isuppose, for his younger brother
(06:39):
who then went into the Army andhad left it to Abby.
And I think there was a sort ofa natural progression perhaps
from that sort of stepping offinto public service by the
oldest and then middle,expanding it a little bit and
then following him into lawenforcement, so on.
Abby with her talent andabilities could have gone in any
one of a thousand directions.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Yeah, they definitely sound like a unique group and,
as you mentioned, they were very, very close.
Let's get into the story alittle bit about the
officer-involved domesticviolence that she experienced.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
What happened to Abby ?
Well, the shortest, simplestway to say it is a
then-boyfriend there are quotesthere murdered her and then
himself.
She confronted him with thefact that she was leaving him.
The relationship was over.
As we all know, now is the mostdangerous time.
Abusive relationship and he shother.
I'm going to be frank becausereality, I think, should be
(07:35):
shared.
That's how brutal this can bewhen it ends this most horrible
way.
He shot her three times in thehead and then he shot himself.
They were with other deputies,two other couples, couples in
air quotes on an extendedweekend vacation trip to St
Augustine, about three hoursfrom where I'm sitting, from
where Abby lived, and thoseoddly, it's sort of a side note,
(07:56):
but those deputies, when theshooting happened, hid in a
closet for almost two hours.
They did almost nothing to helpcheck on their friend.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Right, they were there when the shooting happened
and yet they didn't confrontanything or go in and look at
what happened.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
They did not and in fact we asked them there after.
It's not uncommon for lawenforcement officers to carry
weapons off duty and we asked ifany of them had had their
weapons with them when thishappened and they said that two
of the men had brought guns butthey were downstairs packed up
because they were going to comehome the next day.
(08:33):
They were inaccessible.
The shooting happened upstairsin this rental home and then I
got the public record.
I did a public record requestto the county that did the
investigation and got the 911transcript and the actual audio
recording.
And of course, the local policewanted to know is anybody armed?
We understand you're cops.
Somebody's been shot, we don'tknow who.
(08:54):
Somebody's, you're all cops.
You may or may not have guns.
Who has a gun?
Who doesn't have a gun?
Sure, and it turned out theywere lying to us.
One of them did have a gun onhim hiding in the closet, still
didn't act.
So when I think of Uvalde, Ithink of the.
Parkland thing.
And I wonder, my wife wonders,and my sons and, frankly, every
law enforcement officer we know,who we present this to wonders
(09:14):
why did they do that?
Why didn't they act?
And again, that's a side thing,that's not why we're here.
More madness that I uncovered,which is, I think, germane to
why we're here, the morequestions I started asking about
what happened to my daughter,the more malfeasance, the more
obfuscation, the more sort ofjust absolute corruption I know
(09:38):
this is a I use this termadvisedly criminality and other
just very poor behavior thatjust does not promote a sense of
integrity and faith in the lawenforcement organization.
That all arose because of thishorrible, tragic murder.
And I'm just a dad who wantedanswers.
I just wanted to know why is mydaughter dead?
(09:59):
What could be done differently,what should have been done
differently?
And as I start, and the sheriff, a very charismatic, very
powerful man in this area healmost literally wrapped his
arms around me and my wholefamily and said we're here for
you.
Anything you need, we'll openinvestigations, we'll arrest
people, we'll do this, we'll dothat.
There's no limits.
But then, as I put meat on thebones, I did start asking
(10:22):
questions.
I did ask for help.
That door closed a little andthen more and more and more
until it was shut.
So and I think that that isemblematic, frankly, of almost
an institutional imperative, analmost reflexive move on the
part of some law enforcement tonot own up to their
transgressions, their failuresto stare, you know, frankly,
(10:44):
into the face of opportunitiesto do better and, I think,
fulfill their mission to protectand serve, and they don't take
it seriously.
And I think it implicatespatriarchy, it implicates
certainly hundreds, if notthousands, of years of men just
thinking they can treadwilly-nilly on women as if they
were mere chattels, Any andeveryone that gets in the way of
(11:05):
maintaining that hegemony, andit's just wrong and it's got to
stop.
And, by the way, you know, Isay this as somebody who
respects law enforcement, withnot one, two, but all three of
our kids in law.
I understand the importance ofthe field profession.
We need it, we need it, we wantit.
As a civilized society, weauthorize it and demand it, but
(11:27):
I think that we should.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
And it's absolutely fair to expect them to police
themselves.
That's where they've fallendown.
Yeah, for sure that's fair.
Your comments are very wellstated and very well taken.
For sure that's fair and very.
Your comments are very wellstated and very well taken.
I understand you have beenthrough tremendous amount of
trauma and challenge related tonot just the loss of your
daughter but the entire falloutof the investigation and
deterioration of relationshipwith the sheriff's office.
(11:55):
I want to go back for a minutebecause there's a little bit
more to the story that you and Ihave talked about before and
then I also did some readingabout, because Abby, your
daughter, was not laid in herformer boyfriend's first victim.
He had been accused of intimatepartner violence by a woman he
previously dated.
(12:16):
He reported the violence andyet law enforcement at that time
did not arrest him or even takethe event seriously.
A fact cited in the Crime Linespodcast that covered this story,
where host Charlie Worrellcalled the behavior willful
ignorance.
That's a quote, In other words,a quote.
You're not going to find whatyou don't look for.
(12:38):
And she goes on to say it is aharsh reality that domestic
violence is seen as a lessercrime.
And these quotes are fromepisode 45, published in
December 16th 2024.
And this is just the beginningof how law enforcement failed a
DV victim in that case.
Let's talk about that.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Well, when I made mention of the fact that I
started a progression of askingquestions and unpeeling layers
of obfuscation, it all arosefrom that catalyst.
That was the origin point, whena guy a deputy I didn't know
told me Dan Layden had been thesubject of a DV call six years
earlier, July 3rd 2016,.
That's when I and that was two,three days after Abby was
(13:20):
killed and this guy told me thisand my head exploded.
I was like, oh my God.
I immediately knew, with aclarity that I've never had in
my life, that this didn't haveto happen.
I didn't know the facts and thecircumstances of what he was
referring to, but it was clearto me that Dan Layden, the
murderer, had come to officialpolice notice his own agency, no
(13:40):
less and that told me somebodydropped something, somewhere,
somehow, and it was my job tofigure out what and where.
I set out right from that momentto contact everybody who was on
that call, Every other deputywho works for that agency who
responded that night I wanted totalk to and I got to some, but
not all of them who respondedthat night I wanted to talk to
(14:02):
and I got to some, but not allof them, and I very quickly was
able to triangulate a sense that, oh, absolutely, Mr Bieber, he
should have been fired.
Absolutely, Mr Bieber, that manwas out of control and they felt
that it was disturbing that hewasn't fired.
And they didn't know, theywouldn't have had the
information that he wasn't eveninvestigated in even the barest
administrative internal sense.
But Charlie's absolutely right.
(14:22):
You know, and I've made thepoint myself, you don't see what
you don't look for and lawenforcement doesn't want to see
this.
They know it's there and theydon't admit it except in, you
know, the confines of their owninner sanctums.
So very definitely, yes, thisguy had other and, by the way,
her name is Chyna Ratner thatother victim, and I think I can
say it because she put up anInstagram video out very
(14:45):
publicly.
And she became a subject ofinterest to the investigators
who were investigating Abby'sdeath.
They came down from StAugustine to meet her and told
her or told them there wereeight other women who had
essentially come out of thewoodwork and confided in her
(15:06):
that they too had beenvictimized to one unknown extent
or another by the same guy.
Incredible Not only was itChina Ratner.
There are other women.
I don't know how legitimatethose accounts are.
It's sort of hearsay from.
China to a homicide investigator.
I don't know who they are.
I don't know how legitimatethose accounts are.
It's sort of hearsay from Chinato a homicide investigator.
I don't know who they are.
I don't know what he did, but Ihave no doubt that he did do
something to other, that therewere other victims.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Right, I mean domestic violence is.
It's a pattern and it's usuallynot an isolated incident, and
it also escalates, typicallyuntil a murder or murder suicide
.
Those are facts.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
And I.
If anybody doubts it, you cangive them my number.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Right, I mean, and the fact that you had to have
that call and hear that newsthree days after your daughter
was murdered is that's reallydevastating.
I mean I just it's crushing.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I was you know.
The sheriff's office has sent asergeant over.
We live in Pinellas County,next door to Hillsborough County
.
We're having work there youknow adjacent, but you know law
enforcement.
You probably know you've seenwhen a deputy or an officer is
killed in the line of duty.
There's a very big productionyou know about.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
There is.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yeah, you know the bagpipes and all the formal
stuff they do and trust me whenI tell you it's in a strange way
comforting, you know, to have awhole lot of people expressing
some sort of dignified gratitudein a public way.
Yeah, you know, we're up, we'reupside down and sideways, we
(16:35):
don't know what.
What the heck is going on.
You're in a strange world.
Yes, yes, but I learned that inthe middle of that.
So this sergeant had picked usup at our home in Pinellas
County to drive us toHillsborough County where a
procession was going to goacross state it was well filmed
and televised to St Augustine toretrieve Abby's body and bring
her back home to Pinellas County.
My wife and I saw a fit to seethe procession off at O Dark 30.
(16:56):
So they said they'd pick us up.
So a very kind sergeant pickedus up we didn't know this guy
and it was after the processionand our sons, our two boys, were
in the procession.
They wanted to participate togo get their sister.
My one son, having been afirefighter and an EMS operator
for many years and a cop,frankly in his mind's eye, knew
(17:17):
that her body was lying in amorgue in St Augustine, far more
likely than not, right next tothe body of the guy that killed
her.
Yes, and he was consumed by theneed to get her away from him
as quickly as he could.
So they jumped at theopportunity to go with that
procession.
So this whole thing was sofraught with emotion.
Yeah, and then, to your point,this guy lays this just
(17:40):
mind-blowing news on it.
I mean, it was bad enough.
You know, our daughter was juststricken dead and you know we
had to plan a funeral.
And then this, and I was, Iremember, being in the
sergeant's car, kind of shakingin the back.
My wife was texting thedeputy's name badge, or you know
his name, on his shirt tomyself, because I'd forget, and
(18:00):
the barest outline of what hetold me, because I knew it was
going to again be the catalyst,the impetus for something.
I was going to have to find outwhat happened and it was going
to start with him.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
I really value you sharing this level of detail
with us, because this is asubject that's very hard to
document and research.
You know, if you're in thefield of domestic violence or
even law enforcement trying toget more information about
officer-involved domesticviolence or what you've informed
me is also calledpolice-perpetrated domestic
(18:32):
violence.
Let's talk about some of thesubstance to that.
What are some of the statisticsor background information you
can give us on that topic?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Well, I'd recommend everybody interested in the
topic, everybody read PoliceWife Alex Roslin's book 10 years
old now but he does, I think, avery good and broad summation
of the field from a data andacademic set, not only academic.
It's not a dry academic book byany means, right, he's a well,
(19:01):
it's called Police Wife.
He's a well-known writer, he'sstill around a Canadian and he
recites the case of EleanorBoulin Johnson who in the mid to
late 80s was doing a study on adifferent topic, but I think it
was related, but it wasn't.
Oidv Women came in prospectivesubjects and the first subject
(19:21):
said I don't care what you wantto talk about, I want to tell
you about the abuse I'msuffering at the hands of my
husband, a cop, and it wasstaggering, devastating news.
And she and her researchassistant made a mental note
that wow, that was weird becausewe were asking about apples and
she told us about oranges.
Then the next one comes in,same thing and another woman
(19:42):
married to another cop, and samekind of story of abuse.
And it started dawning on themthat wait a minute, maybe we
should be studying oranges, notapples.
And so it's odd, but it was anaccident.
She didn't even intend to studyit.
But she kicked off and she'scredited with the origin story
of how the study of OIDV and thecollection of data started.
(20:04):
Testified on the Hill in 91, putout stats.
She studied, I think, 720 copsand tried to extrapolate from
their experiences in their studywhat the ratio, the prevalence
of abuse in those policefamilies was.
She's the one who first put anumber on the order of 40%,
saying 40% of law enforcementfamilies indicated the presence
(20:26):
of abuse in their families.
Now, from that, alex Roslin andmany others since have said if
you make a call for service asan abuse victim, you know.
Consequently, there's a two infive chance, you know, 40
percent chance that one of thosecops showing up is an abuser to
your house.
Yes, and if you let that gel alittle, you understand perhaps,
(20:48):
maybe better why Gabby Petitoended up the way she ended up,
because one of those cops inMoab supposedly also had a
record abuse.
Not a shock then.
And is the 40% correct?
I don't know.
There's 720,000 cops more orless in the US of all manner
university cops, railroad cops,state, local, federal.
(21:08):
40% of that's what?
280,000?
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Well, I can't do that math in my head, but I would
have to say that with domesticviolence going underreported,
40% may represent just the tipof the iceberg.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Well, that's a very fair point.
It's a very it's known to beunderreported in the civilian
context, right, yes, forgetpolice.
Yeah, and it doesn't reallyokay.
It's 20%, it's 40, it's 50,some say 50% higher in law
enforcement.
All the more the case.
You could well then have, youknow, 300 plus thousand families
(21:45):
putting their heads on pillowsevery night with an abuser, and
I get out of bed and go.
Why doesn't anybody care?
You know, that's a big number.
I look at the US census datamajor causes of death.
That's like half the number ofthe leading, you know, heart
disease.
I think it's like 700, 800,000.
You're approaching half of that, and that doesn't get countries
attention, you know.
(22:05):
And 800,000.
You're approaching half of that, and that doesn't get countries
attention, right, you know.
And no, that's not deaths, mindyou, that's just people
suffering abuse, and it's notnecessarily physical abuse, but
still it's a staggering number,I think.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
I won't argue with it .
I mean, I completely agree thatit is staggering, that this is
an epidemic and we haven't eventalked about and I don't know if
we'll have time to talk aboutthe issue of gun violence in
this and related situations,because law enforcement carry
firearms.
And if you have 50%, 40, 50% ofthe people who are legally
(22:38):
armed, protecting civilians.
What is that telling you?
It's a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
It is and the lethality assessment protocols
that are, in fact, the Petitofamily and the Schmitz have
pushed for the adoption oflegislation compelling law
enforcement when we'reresponding to a domestic
violence call to administer aLAP, a lethality assessment
protocol.
It's a list of questions thatassess the relative danger that
(23:07):
this person may be in and thepresence of a firearm is one of
them.
That's a gimme on police,you're right, so automatically
you're starting from a period ofenhanced risk, and that's nuts.
And I know you had Mark Wynn ononce, who I consider a dean, a
god, a guru, a mentor, and hehas a terrific way of breaking
(23:29):
this down the OIDV thing.
But he said how muchcriminality do you want in your
local law enforcement?
Which is to say, a cop on ashift who robs a bank and I use
this example to illustrate thepoint a nightly shift with let's
just assume, for simplicity,it's all guys.
So you have three guys, threemen on the shift.
(23:50):
One has to rob a bank once amonth, one has to deal meth once
a month and one beats his wifeonce a month.
Nobody has any problemconceiving or accepting the
proposition that of course youhave to go to your sergeant,
your corporal, your whatever,your higher up and report the
bank robber and the meth dealerbecause they're criminals,
(24:12):
behaving criminally, committingcrimes that should be prosecuted
.
We can't have that, becausewe're cops, we can't be bank
robbers and meth dealers.
But the guy who beats his wife?
We look the other way.
They tolerate that, they excusethat, they sanction it.
They wife.
We look the other way.
They tolerate that, they excusethat, they sanction it.
They implicitly, I think,become complicit.
It's not even implicitly,they're explicitly doing it by
not saying hey, that's a crimetoo.
(24:34):
It is a crime.
So why do you accept it?
Bank robbery no.
Beating your wife yes.
Why?
What possible explanation isthere?
Except I think and if I'm wrong,I'm obviously not here to argue
and debate, but it strikes methat the only answer can only be
like a patriarchal notion, thatmen get to do whatever the hell
(24:55):
they want.
And if they want to beat theirkid, their dog or their wife,
that's not my business.
I'm not going to the sergeantwith that, that's his private
business.
Well, no, it isn't.
And when, as Mark points out,something on the order of half
the calls for service aredomestic related, a third, a
third you ask for statisticssomething like a third of all
(25:17):
line of duty deaths in lawenforcement come from domestic
calls.
It is in their own personalinterest, the interest of the
bank robber on the shift and themeth dealer, their own brothers
in blue and sisters, of course,to figure out a better way to
respond to domestic violencecalls For that reason alone, if
a third of their deaths and alot of the others are car
(25:39):
crashes, not wearing seatbelts,covid obviously killed a ton of
them, but if you look at themajor causes of death of law
enforcement, that's huge.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yeah, it definitely tops the list and you're
absolutely right and very, verypointed, well said stats and I
appreciate you having thatinformation to share with us.
I want to talk again for aminute about the sheriff's
office to understand how theyresponded to this incident and
if there was an internalinvestigation of Daniel Layden
(26:11):
before or after the fatalshooting.
And, if you can, how did lawenforcement fail your daughter?
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I'll do the last part first.
How did they fail?
You had Kimberly Orts from BlueOpal on yes, did they fail?
You had Kimberly Orts from BlueOpal on yes.
She trains law enforcement andothers on how to respond in a
more trauma-informed way todomestic violence she and many
others like Russ Strand whodeveloped this FETI approach.
There are different approachesthat are trauma-informed, that
are just enlightened bestpractices, ways of hey, here's
(26:42):
an idea, learn from the past,figure out a better way.
Well, law enforcement in someplaces cases has done that there
is a better model.
The IACP, the InternationalAssociation of Chiefs of Police,
developed a model rule for OIDV, originally in 99, reissued and
updated in 2003.
What are we looking at?
22 years ago, if everyjurisdiction had the model rules
(27:04):
or some form thereof in placeand the protocols that they
include, it would save lives.
Simple statement period, theend okay, right, adopt model
rules.
How did they fail?
They didn't do atrauma-informed investigation at
all afterwards, neithercriminally or administratively.
Most of the model rules have atwo-track system.
(27:25):
If a law enforcement officer isa perpetrator of domestic
violence, they will start bothtracks, criminal and
administrative.
After China Ratner's video cameout, the sheriff's office had
egg all over its face and had toact.
If they do anything right, theyare very big on social media
and public information stuff, sothe PIO puts out a statement.
They are very big on socialmedia and public information
(27:46):
stuff, so the PIO puts out astatement we are aware of the
very serious allegations raisedby Channa Ratner.
We've opened an investigation.
If you or anyone you know knowsanything about it, don't
hesitate to contact us.
And, by the way, if you'refeeling suicidal, call this
number.
Side note in murder, suicidesinvolving cops, the press, law
enforcement, almost everybodyinvolved there's a reflexive
(28:08):
move.
I say murder, suicide.
They only hear suicide.
Yeah, oh, my God, this poorperson saw so much terrible
stuff as a cop.
He killed somebody else andthen himself.
Too bad, he didn't call thesuicide hotline and get help.
They completely forget.
Wait a minute, there was amurder here too.
Right, you know it.
Call the suicide hotline andget help.
They completely forget.
Wait a minute, there was amurder here too.
(28:28):
It's like after the fact,incidental side bit.
But we have to stop that andthink before we do that next
time.
So they say they opened aninvestigation.
I'm half a genius.
So I say well, I'm sidewayswith the sheriff's office.
Now I'm going to do a publicrecords request and ask for a
copy of that investigation I getback.
You could have had a secondgrader who hadn't learned how to
(28:49):
write at all to respond to thatand that would have been more
meaningful than the response Igot back from them.
It was gobbledygook, garbage.
What are you talking about?
There's no investigation.
What do you mean?
There's no investigation?
This thing happened.
Somebody's dead, two people aredead.
There's a whole bunch of copsinvolved.
You yourself said you opened aninvestigation.
(29:10):
You're a law enforcementorganization.
I've actually got a law degree,believe it or not.
I can do the math and say well,even if there's a negative
finding, even if you did aninvestigation and found out
nothing meaningful, you say thatwho did you talk to?
When did you talk to them?
What went around?
Why?
And we reached no conclusionsSorry, unfounded.
(29:32):
I didn't even get that.
They acted as if none of itever happened.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Like none of the events ever happened, or the
investigation, the China Ratnerthing Okay.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
And I did a public record request for the incident.
You know I can find the report.
You know there's an officialpolice incident report of the
China Ratner thing.
I read.
You know every scrap of thatstarted asking questions.
They told me they'd get every.
I wanted everybody who wasthere in the room with the
sheriff.
I said I want my sons, who arejust absolutely natural gifted
(30:04):
investigators, just withouttraining.
They're just empaths andperceptive and intuitive and
smart and my wife.
I wanted us all there to beable to ask these people who
were their questions, because Ibelieve Abby's death warrant was
signed on July 3rd 2016, whenthey did nothing, when they did
nothing at all.
You had a hard-charging, youngbuck, up-and-coming officer
(30:26):
who's part of the tribe, andthey bring him in.
We sat in a room with the thendeputy chief, the number two in
that organization Again the top,I think 11 biggest sheriff's
office in the nation, almost ahalf a billion dollar budget
annually, not a small triflingMayberry RFD kind of a police
agency, a sophisticated group.
(30:47):
And that deputy chief and mysons and my wife, we all sat
there and we listened to.
They got very few.
I told you I wanted all thepeople that were there.
We got like two and actuallyone really.
And in summing up what all thegarbage we heard from them, all
the non-answers, all theobfuscation, I said it sounds to
me like the major, you know, afairly high-ranking command
(31:09):
staff person who handled thearea where the incident happened
with China Ratner.
It's his same.
The Hillsborough CountySheriff's Office responded he
was a Hillsborough CountySheriff's Deputy at the time.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Right.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
But he worked in a different district than where it
happened.
Okay, so there'd be a majorfrom his district who's got the
day-to-day command of whathappens in Dan Layden's world,
and then there's a major whohandles what happens in the
district where the eventhappened with China.
So you have two majors, twohigh-ranking people I was
surmising got together anddecided, well, she's not really
(31:43):
hurt, he's not really hurt,let's just let it go.
And that deputy chief affirmedthat, said, yeah, that's
probably the way it went.
Now I'm here to tell you.
You ask well, what could theyhave done differently or where
did it go wrong?
That's where we're wrong.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
That's not how you do it.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
You do the investigation the way
investigations are supposed tobe done, irrespective, without
any fear or favor, and, by theway, it would be, in a perfect
world, done by another agencytoo, not by your own fox
guarding the hen house, kind ofthing.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Exactly, and also from what I've read about Layden
.
That was six years prior towhen he murdered Abby and then
for those six years I don't knowabout any other DV incidents
with him.
That isn't the point, so muchas he received commendations.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
That's right, not uncommon.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
As an officer.
He went on to advance in hiswork and people truly forgot or
just completely dismissed theincident that had happened with
China.
And here we are.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
They quieted it up, they covered it up, they I can't
say quashed it in a legal sense, but they certainly didn't draw
attention to it.
Somebody else I know did apublic records request, knowing
the China incident happened, andasked for his jacket, his files
, after he was dead and theydidn't send it.
That was not included.
That whole incident you justspoke of, on July 3rd 2016,
(33:12):
wasn't even included in his file.
Now, there were no charges,there were allegations and, by
the way, that's something Ithink Kimberly Orts also points
out, you see what you look forand if you don't look for it,
you ain't going to see it.
And there were certainlystatutory elements of crimes
stalking, false imprisonment,probably a charge of domestic
(33:33):
abuse, assault.
He was beating on her car.
Should look up that episode ofCrime Lines to hear kind of an
outline of the whole storyaround Abby's case.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
But before I let you go, because offline you and I
discussed some other things, wediscussed similar cases that led
to at least some steps, somesignificant steps in this
country in addressingofficer-involved domestic
violence, and while I canresearch and find many cases of
similar nature, there is verylittle reliable data related to
(34:09):
OIDV and you're working tochange that.
Tell us about the work you aredoing to address the problem of
officer-involved domesticviolence or police-perpetrated
domestic violence.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Well, I am trying to get Tallahassee, the state
capital in Florida, pass astatute that would compel the
Florida Department of LawEnforcement, fdle, likely to
administer a program wherebyeach one of the 273 law
enforcement agencies in thestate of Florida adopt a model
rule for OIDV, which is to say,police perpetrated domestic
(34:42):
violence episode.
Every cop, almost withoutexception, in the United States
of America, is exposed intraining to how to handlerated
domestic violence episode.
Every cop, almost withoutexception, in the United States
of America, is exposed intraining to how to handle a
domestic violence call RightBecause, as we all agreed, it's
a predominant call nature type.
It strikes me as a very smallask to say and to add on to that
training that all cops get.
Oh, by the way, ladies andgentlemen, when you arrive at
(35:05):
that domestic violence callscene, it may very well be that
the perpetrator is a cop, maybeone you work with, maybe another
agency, who knows, but a cop.
And if it is a cop, well thenthis you know if that different
rules, different protocols,different buttons have to get
pushed, it should implicate anentire regimen of responses that
vary from those of the purelycivilian call.
(35:29):
I would like to see the state ofFlorida make every single
agency adopt a model rule, notthe model rule because one won't
fit all.
I get that.
Small agencies, large agencies,not the same rule.
They don't have the sameresources, same abilities, the
same skills, but they should atleast be socializing anybody who
carries a badge and a gun withthe idea that very different
(35:51):
dynamics.
Diane Wettendorf wroteprolifically on this topic.
Diane Wettendorf is aencyclopedia of police
perpetrated domestic violence,her preferred term.
That's one thing I'm trying todo.
The second thing, having amodel rule, is separate from the
training right.
I do want the training.
Fsu, florida State Universityalmost the same track timeline
(36:13):
that IACP did developed a modeltraining policy and implemented
it.
Verizon suffered the loss in aterrible.
I think it's called Amy's story.
I might get the name wrong.
You may know better than I, butI've seen it.
It's very compelling.
Poor woman, a subject ofhorrific abuse.
A Verizon retail store employeewas killed at a Verizon retail
(36:34):
store.
They funded the implementationof the OIDV training toolkit
developed by FSU.
It worked.
They tested it, a rigorousacademic study and proved it
worked.
How we let that lie on a shelfto this day, you know, 22 years
later, is beyond me and I don'tthink I'm asking much to say.
Can we not find a milliondollars somewhere to get this
(36:55):
program off the shelf, updatedand back in service?
Speaker 1 (36:59):
I don't think you're asking too much.
I think that's one of thesmartest things that I've heard
about.
I really value that you havetaken up this cause and I think
that's one of the smartestthings that I've heard about.
I really value that you havetaken up this cause and I'm
sorry for the way that it cameabout, but we need your voice in
this conversation.
I appreciate you and yourfamily, and I thank you, bruce,
for talking with me today.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Grateful for the opportunity.
Maria, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Thanks so much for listening.
Until next time, stay safe youso much.
Thanks so much for listening.
Until next time, stay safe.
The 2025 Conference on CrimesAgainst Women will take place in
Dallas, Texas, May 19th throughthe 22nd at the Sheraton Dallas
.
Learn more and register atconferencecaworg and follow us
on social media at National CCAW.
Welcome to the podcast on Crimes Against Women.
I'm Maria McMullin.
Officer-involved domesticviolence contains further
complexities than most domesticviolence cases, because when
your abusive partner is a memberof law enforcement, who do you
report the abuse to and willanyone believe you?
Chances are probably not.
Or they will look the other wayif the abuser is one of their
(00:22):
own.
My guest, bruce Bieber, is thefather of Abigail Rose Bieber,
former Hillsborough CountySheriff's Office deputy, who was
killed in a murder-suicide byher intimate partner who, at the
time of the incident, was adetective.
Bruce is here to share hisfamily story of getting justice
for Abby and how deeplyofficer-involved domestic
(00:44):
violence is impacting women inAmerica.
This episode originallyreleased on our sister show,
genesis, the Podcast, and is adiscussion about domestic
violence, homicide and suicide.
Bruce, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Thank you, Maria, for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Yeah, it's good to be with you and I've enjoyed
getting to know you over thepast few months and learning
about your daughter, Abby.
What I'd like to do today islearn more about her and hear
her story and what's happenedand what you and your family are
doing to try to address theissue of officer-involved
domestic violence.
So, to begin, tell us aboutAbby.
(01:29):
What was she like and what wasshe passionate about?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Abby was a remarkable young woman celebrating her
34th birthday coming up in abouta week.
She was killed just before her31st.
We just passed the three-yearmark.
Abby was a scholar, athlete,loyal friend, funny as the day
is long, fearsome warrior thatever lived, dedicated to helping
(01:53):
those less fortunate than shewas, always as a child that
carried through to herprofession.
Terrific curiosity about theworld, about her, actually went
to UT Austin for her firstcollege experience, her first
year.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Meaning she was probably really smart too,
because that's not an easyschool to get into.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
No right, particularly for somebody from
out of state.
Yes, and the fit, didn't, youknow, line up perfectly.
So she came back to Marylandand finished up at the
University of Maryland where shegraduated.
Her older brothers were intolaw enforcement.
She followed in their footsteps.
You couldn't slip the thinnestpaper between the three of them.
They were so close, Incrediblyfamily-oriented and dedicated
(02:36):
young woman.
My wife and I raised them inthe Washington DC area in
Bethesda, Maryland.
Abby was the pioneer who leftthe area first to come down to
Tampa Bay area and put downroots, and our middle son
followed thereafter and then ouroldest boy after that, and then
she started a clock in her headand heart waiting for her mom
(02:57):
and dad to come down and jointhem.
We remain close even thoughthey're all grown, some with
families of their own andintentionally found a home
proximate to their homes,centrally located, so they could
gather on weekends andthoughtful kind giving.
A Fellini movie expert, I meanshe could tell you the 16 layers
of Fellini movies that youdidn't know existed.
(03:20):
A reader, a runner, Like I said, she was an athlete.
She won awards, NationalAthletic Prowess, Loved her job
Loved, sadly, you know, andironically in the end loved
being a deputy sheriff, Was anatural leader, Took women under
her wings, that she didn't haveto, to show them the way, the
(03:42):
newbies, the newer ones whofollowed in their footsteps.
She would take them offline andsay, look, this is how you
should do this.
She wanted women in the fieldto do better and be better.
Look at upon herself.
Nobody asked her to do it, shejust, I think, at every turn
showed natural, innateleadership ability, and I think
they did recognize that Likelywould have very soon this
(04:05):
fateful trip have been promotedoff the street as they call it
Something her mom and I lookforward to.
when you have kids policeofficers you know going to hold
up something you live in fear ofthis.
This is a still photograph,taken from a ring camera, of the
deputies coming to our house,2.52 in the morning, to tell us
(04:29):
that our daughter's never cominghome.
And when you have three kids inlaw enforcement and one, by the
way, who also did a combat tourfor his army in.
Afghanistan.
You live on pins and needles.
You know and you hope for thebest and provide every resource
you can to protect them butcan't protect against.
And the worst, absolute worst,happened one night came to our
(04:51):
door right before she would havegotten off the road and
minimized the risk likely.
But I guess we'll get intotalking about OIDV and its
pernicious nature and find that,frankly, it can strike anywhere
, anytime, anyplace, any strata,any demographic, any age right.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, bruce, thank you for giving me, or all of us,
the background about Abby.
She sounds like an amazingwoman who was definitely a
rising star in both her work andthroughout her life, and I'm
really sorry for your loss andyour family's loss.
This should have never happened.
And you did say the term OIDVand that stands for, for our
(05:32):
listeners, officer-involveddomestic violence, and we may
refer to it as that abbreviationthroughout this show.
So you mentioned that all threeof your children, two sons and
a daughter, were in lawenforcement.
So Abby was a sheriff's deputyand both your sons being in law
enforcement.
Any thoughts on why all threeof your kids chose a career in
(05:54):
law enforcement?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Lots of thoughts, no answers.
My wife and I are not, neverwere, never would be.
It was a shock and a surprisethat one did, that two did and
then the third.
It was insane.
We suspect it has something todo with 9-11.
Maybe it's so, maybe it's notat a formative time in their
lives, being public serviceminded likely contributed to it.
(06:17):
My wife's a public schoolteacher.
My oldest boy joined avolunteer ambulance service in
his early teen years and stayedwith it all the way through high
school and joined a firedepartment in college, actually
lived in one at Penn State, andso he had first responder
experience that set the mark, Isuppose, for his younger brother
(06:39):
who then went into the Army andhad left it to Abby.
And I think there was a sort ofa natural progression perhaps
from that sort of stepping offinto public service by the
oldest and then middle,expanding it a little bit and
then following him into lawenforcement, so on.
Abby with her talent andabilities could have gone in any
one of a thousand directions.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Yeah, they definitely sound like a unique group and,
as you mentioned, they were very, very close.
Let's get into the story alittle bit about the
officer-involved domesticviolence that she experienced.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
What happened to Abby ?
Well, the shortest, simplestway to say it is a
then-boyfriend there are quotesthere murdered her and then
himself.
She confronted him with thefact that she was leaving him.
The relationship was over.
As we all know, now is the mostdangerous time.
Abusive relationship and he shother.
I'm going to be frank becausereality, I think, should be
(07:35):
shared.
That's how brutal this can bewhen it ends this most horrible
way.
He shot her three times in thehead and then he shot himself.
They were with other deputies,two other couples, couples in
air quotes on an extendedweekend vacation trip to St
Augustine, about three hoursfrom where I'm sitting, from
where Abby lived, and thoseoddly, it's sort of a side note,
(07:56):
but those deputies, when theshooting happened, hid in a
closet for almost two hours.
They did almost nothing to helpcheck on their friend.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Right, they were there when the shooting happened
and yet they didn't confrontanything or go in and look at
what happened.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
They did not and in fact we asked them there after.
It's not uncommon for lawenforcement officers to carry
weapons off duty and we asked ifany of them had had their
weapons with them when thishappened and they said that two
of the men had brought guns butthey were downstairs packed up
because they were going to comehome the next day.
(08:33):
They were inaccessible.
The shooting happened upstairsin this rental home and then I
got the public record.
I did a public record requestto the county that did the
investigation and got the 911transcript and the actual audio
recording.
And of course, the local policewanted to know is anybody armed?
We understand you're cops.
Somebody's been shot, we don'tknow who.
(08:54):
Somebody's, you're all cops.
You may or may not have guns.
Who has a gun?
Who doesn't have a gun?
Sure, and it turned out theywere lying to us.
One of them did have a gun onhim hiding in the closet, still
didn't act.
So when I think of Uvalde, Ithink of the.
Parkland thing.
And I wonder, my wife wonders,and my sons and, frankly, every
law enforcement officer we know,who we present this to wonders
(09:14):
why did they do that?
Why didn't they act?
And again, that's a side thing,that's not why we're here.
More madness that I uncovered,which is, I think, germane to
why we're here, the morequestions I started asking about
what happened to my daughter,the more malfeasance, the more
obfuscation, the more sort ofjust absolute corruption I know
(09:38):
this is a I use this termadvisedly criminality and other
just very poor behavior thatjust does not promote a sense of
integrity and faith in the lawenforcement organization.
That all arose because of thishorrible, tragic murder.
And I'm just a dad who wantedanswers.
I just wanted to know why is mydaughter dead?
(09:59):
What could be done differently,what should have been done
differently?
And as I start, and the sheriff, a very charismatic, very
powerful man in this area healmost literally wrapped his
arms around me and my wholefamily and said we're here for
you.
Anything you need, we'll openinvestigations, we'll arrest
people, we'll do this, we'll dothat.
There's no limits.
But then, as I put meat on thebones, I did start asking
(10:22):
questions.
I did ask for help.
That door closed a little andthen more and more and more
until it was shut.
So and I think that that isemblematic, frankly, of almost
an institutional imperative, analmost reflexive move on the
part of some law enforcement tonot own up to their
transgressions, their failuresto stare, you know, frankly,
(10:44):
into the face of opportunitiesto do better and, I think,
fulfill their mission to protectand serve, and they don't take
it seriously.
And I think it implicatespatriarchy, it implicates
certainly hundreds, if notthousands, of years of men just
thinking they can treadwilly-nilly on women as if they
were mere chattels, Any andeveryone that gets in the way of
(11:05):
maintaining that hegemony, andit's just wrong and it's got to
stop.
And, by the way, you know, Isay this as somebody who
respects law enforcement, withnot one, two, but all three of
our kids in law.
I understand the importance ofthe field profession.
We need it, we need it, we wantit.
As a civilized society, weauthorize it and demand it, but
(11:27):
I think that we should.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
And it's absolutely fair to expect them to police
themselves.
That's where they've fallendown.
Yeah, for sure that's fair.
Your comments are very wellstated and very well taken.
For sure that's fair and very.
Your comments are very wellstated and very well taken.
I understand you have beenthrough tremendous amount of
trauma and challenge related tonot just the loss of your
daughter but the entire falloutof the investigation and
deterioration of relationshipwith the sheriff's office.
(11:55):
I want to go back for a minutebecause there's a little bit
more to the story that you and Ihave talked about before and
then I also did some readingabout, because Abby, your
daughter, was not laid in herformer boyfriend's first victim.
He had been accused of intimatepartner violence by a woman he
previously dated.
(12:16):
He reported the violence andyet law enforcement at that time
did not arrest him or even takethe event seriously.
A fact cited in the Crime Linespodcast that covered this story,
where host Charlie Worrellcalled the behavior willful
ignorance.
That's a quote, In other words,a quote.
You're not going to find whatyou don't look for.
(12:38):
And she goes on to say it is aharsh reality that domestic
violence is seen as a lessercrime.
And these quotes are fromepisode 45, published in
December 16th 2024.
And this is just the beginningof how law enforcement failed a
DV victim in that case.
Let's talk about that.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Well, when I made mention of the fact that I
started a progression of askingquestions and unpeeling layers
of obfuscation, it all arosefrom that catalyst.
That was the origin point, whena guy a deputy I didn't know
told me Dan Layden had been thesubject of a DV call six years
earlier, July 3rd 2016,.
That's when I and that was two,three days after Abby was
(13:20):
killed and this guy told me thisand my head exploded.
I was like, oh my God.
I immediately knew, with aclarity that I've never had in
my life, that this didn't haveto happen.
I didn't know the facts and thecircumstances of what he was
referring to, but it was clearto me that Dan Layden, the
murderer, had come to officialpolice notice his own agency, no
(13:40):
less and that told me somebodydropped something, somewhere,
somehow, and it was my job tofigure out what and where.
I set out right from that momentto contact everybody who was on
that call, Every other deputywho works for that agency who
responded that night I wanted totalk to and I got to some, but
not all of them who respondedthat night I wanted to talk to
(14:02):
and I got to some, but not allof them, and I very quickly was
able to triangulate a sense that, oh, absolutely, Mr Bieber, he
should have been fired.
Absolutely, Mr Bieber, that manwas out of control and they felt
that it was disturbing that hewasn't fired.
And they didn't know, theywouldn't have had the
information that he wasn't eveninvestigated in even the barest
administrative internal sense.
But Charlie's absolutely right.
(14:22):
You know, and I've made thepoint myself, you don't see what
you don't look for and lawenforcement doesn't want to see
this.
They know it's there and theydon't admit it except in, you
know, the confines of their owninner sanctums.
So very definitely, yes, thisguy had other and, by the way,
her name is Chyna Ratner thatother victim, and I think I can
say it because she put up anInstagram video out very
(14:45):
publicly.
And she became a subject ofinterest to the investigators
who were investigating Abby'sdeath.
They came down from StAugustine to meet her and told
her or told them there wereeight other women who had
essentially come out of thewoodwork and confided in her
(15:06):
that they too had beenvictimized to one unknown extent
or another by the same guy.
Incredible Not only was itChina Ratner.
There are other women.
I don't know how legitimatethose accounts are.
It's sort of hearsay from.
China to a homicide investigator.
I don't know who they are.
I don't know how legitimatethose accounts are.
It's sort of hearsay from Chinato a homicide investigator.
I don't know who they are.
I don't know what he did, but Ihave no doubt that he did do
something to other, that therewere other victims.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Right, I mean domestic violence is.
It's a pattern and it's usuallynot an isolated incident, and
it also escalates, typicallyuntil a murder or murder suicide
.
Those are facts.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
And I.
If anybody doubts it, you cangive them my number.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Right, I mean, and the fact that you had to have
that call and hear that newsthree days after your daughter
was murdered is that's reallydevastating.
I mean I just it's crushing.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I was you know.
The sheriff's office has sent asergeant over.
We live in Pinellas County,next door to Hillsborough County
.
We're having work there youknow adjacent, but you know law
enforcement.
You probably know you've seenwhen a deputy or an officer is
killed in the line of duty.
There's a very big productionyou know about.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
There is.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yeah, you know the bagpipes and all the formal
stuff they do and trust me whenI tell you it's in a strange way
comforting, you know, to have awhole lot of people expressing
some sort of dignified gratitudein a public way.
Yeah, you know, we're up, we'reupside down and sideways, we
(16:35):
don't know what.
What the heck is going on.
You're in a strange world.
Yes, yes, but I learned that inthe middle of that.
So this sergeant had picked usup at our home in Pinellas
County to drive us toHillsborough County where a
procession was going to goacross state it was well filmed
and televised to St Augustine toretrieve Abby's body and bring
her back home to Pinellas County.
My wife and I saw a fit to seethe procession off at O Dark 30.
(16:56):
So they said they'd pick us up.
So a very kind sergeant pickedus up we didn't know this guy
and it was after the processionand our sons, our two boys, were
in the procession.
They wanted to participate togo get their sister.
My one son, having been afirefighter and an EMS operator
for many years and a cop,frankly in his mind's eye, knew
(17:17):
that her body was lying in amorgue in St Augustine, far more
likely than not, right next tothe body of the guy that killed
her.
Yes, and he was consumed by theneed to get her away from him
as quickly as he could.
So they jumped at theopportunity to go with that
procession.
So this whole thing was sofraught with emotion.
Yeah, and then, to your point,this guy lays this just
(17:40):
mind-blowing news on it.
I mean, it was bad enough.
You know, our daughter was juststricken dead and you know we
had to plan a funeral.
And then this, and I was, Iremember, being in the
sergeant's car, kind of shakingin the back.
My wife was texting thedeputy's name badge, or you know
his name, on his shirt tomyself, because I'd forget, and
(18:00):
the barest outline of what hetold me, because I knew it was
going to again be the catalyst,the impetus for something.
I was going to have to find outwhat happened and it was going
to start with him.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
I really value you sharing this level of detail
with us, because this is asubject that's very hard to
document and research.
You know, if you're in thefield of domestic violence or
even law enforcement trying toget more information about
officer-involved domesticviolence or what you've informed
me is also calledpolice-perpetrated domestic
(18:32):
violence.
Let's talk about some of thesubstance to that.
What are some of the statisticsor background information you
can give us on that topic?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Well, I'd recommend everybody interested in the
topic, everybody read PoliceWife Alex Roslin's book 10 years
old now but he does, I think, avery good and broad summation
of the field from a data andacademic set, not only academic.
It's not a dry academic book byany means, right, he's a well,
(19:01):
it's called Police Wife.
He's a well-known writer, he'sstill around a Canadian and he
recites the case of EleanorBoulin Johnson who in the mid to
late 80s was doing a study on adifferent topic, but I think it
was related, but it wasn't.
Oidv Women came in prospectivesubjects and the first subject
(19:21):
said I don't care what you wantto talk about, I want to tell
you about the abuse I'msuffering at the hands of my
husband, a cop, and it wasstaggering, devastating news.
And she and her researchassistant made a mental note
that wow, that was weird becausewe were asking about apples and
she told us about oranges.
Then the next one comes in,same thing and another woman
(19:42):
married to another cop, and samekind of story of abuse.
And it started dawning on themthat wait a minute, maybe we
should be studying oranges, notapples.
And so it's odd, but it was anaccident.
She didn't even intend to studyit.
But she kicked off and she'scredited with the origin story
of how the study of OIDV and thecollection of data started.
(20:04):
Testified on the Hill in 91, putout stats.
She studied, I think, 720 copsand tried to extrapolate from
their experiences in their studywhat the ratio, the prevalence
of abuse in those policefamilies was.
She's the one who first put anumber on the order of 40%,
saying 40% of law enforcementfamilies indicated the presence
(20:26):
of abuse in their families.
Now, from that, alex Roslin andmany others since have said if
you make a call for service asan abuse victim, you know.
Consequently, there's a two infive chance, you know, 40
percent chance that one of thosecops showing up is an abuser to
your house.
Yes, and if you let that gel alittle, you understand perhaps,
(20:48):
maybe better why Gabby Petitoended up the way she ended up,
because one of those cops inMoab supposedly also had a
record abuse.
Not a shock then.
And is the 40% correct?
I don't know.
There's 720,000 cops more orless in the US of all manner
university cops, railroad cops,state, local, federal.
(21:08):
40% of that's what?
280,000?
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Well, I can't do that math in my head, but I would
have to say that with domesticviolence going underreported,
40% may represent just the tipof the iceberg.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Well, that's a very fair point.
It's a very it's known to beunderreported in the civilian
context, right, yes, forgetpolice.
Yeah, and it doesn't reallyokay.
It's 20%, it's 40, it's 50,some say 50% higher in law
enforcement.
All the more the case.
You could well then have, youknow, 300 plus thousand families
(21:45):
putting their heads on pillowsevery night with an abuser, and
I get out of bed and go.
Why doesn't anybody care?
You know, that's a big number.
I look at the US census datamajor causes of death.
That's like half the number ofthe leading, you know, heart
disease.
I think it's like 700, 800,000.
You're approaching half of that, and that doesn't get countries
attention, you know.
(22:05):
And 800,000.
You're approaching half of that, and that doesn't get countries
attention, right, you know.
And no, that's not deaths, mindyou, that's just people
suffering abuse, and it's notnecessarily physical abuse, but
still it's a staggering number,I think.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
I won't argue with it .
I mean, I completely agree thatit is staggering, that this is
an epidemic and we haven't eventalked about and I don't know if
we'll have time to talk aboutthe issue of gun violence in
this and related situations,because law enforcement carry
firearms.
And if you have 50%, 40, 50% ofthe people who are legally
(22:38):
armed, protecting civilians.
What is that telling you?
It's a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
It is and the lethality assessment protocols
that are, in fact, the Petitofamily and the Schmitz have
pushed for the adoption oflegislation compelling law
enforcement when we'reresponding to a domestic
violence call to administer aLAP, a lethality assessment
protocol.
It's a list of questions thatassess the relative danger that
(23:07):
this person may be in and thepresence of a firearm is one of
them.
That's a gimme on police,you're right, so automatically
you're starting from a period ofenhanced risk, and that's nuts.
And I know you had Mark Wynn ononce, who I consider a dean, a
god, a guru, a mentor, and hehas a terrific way of breaking
(23:29):
this down the OIDV thing.
But he said how muchcriminality do you want in your
local law enforcement?
Which is to say, a cop on ashift who robs a bank and I use
this example to illustrate thepoint a nightly shift with let's
just assume, for simplicity,it's all guys.
So you have three guys, threemen on the shift.
(23:50):
One has to rob a bank once amonth, one has to deal meth once
a month and one beats his wifeonce a month.
Nobody has any problemconceiving or accepting the
proposition that of course youhave to go to your sergeant,
your corporal, your whatever,your higher up and report the
bank robber and the meth dealerbecause they're criminals,
(24:12):
behaving criminally, committingcrimes that should be prosecuted
.
We can't have that, becausewe're cops, we can't be bank
robbers and meth dealers.
But the guy who beats his wife?
We look the other way.
They tolerate that, they excusethat, they sanction it.
They wife.
We look the other way.
They tolerate that, they excusethat, they sanction it.
They implicitly, I think,become complicit.
It's not even implicitly,they're explicitly doing it by
not saying hey, that's a crimetoo.
(24:34):
It is a crime.
So why do you accept it?
Bank robbery no.
Beating your wife yes.
Why?
What possible explanation isthere?
Except I think and if I'm wrong,I'm obviously not here to argue
and debate, but it strikes methat the only answer can only be
like a patriarchal notion, thatmen get to do whatever the hell
(24:55):
they want.
And if they want to beat theirkid, their dog or their wife,
that's not my business.
I'm not going to the sergeantwith that, that's his private
business.
Well, no, it isn't.
And when, as Mark points out,something on the order of half
the calls for service aredomestic related, a third, a
third you ask for statisticssomething like a third of all
(25:17):
line of duty deaths in lawenforcement come from domestic
calls.
It is in their own personalinterest, the interest of the
bank robber on the shift and themeth dealer, their own brothers
in blue and sisters, of course,to figure out a better way to
respond to domestic violencecalls For that reason alone, if
a third of their deaths and alot of the others are car
(25:39):
crashes, not wearing seatbelts,covid obviously killed a ton of
them, but if you look at themajor causes of death of law
enforcement, that's huge.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yeah, it definitely tops the list and you're
absolutely right and very, verypointed, well said stats and I
appreciate you having thatinformation to share with us.
I want to talk again for aminute about the sheriff's
office to understand how theyresponded to this incident and
if there was an internalinvestigation of Daniel Layden
(26:11):
before or after the fatalshooting.
And, if you can, how did lawenforcement fail your daughter?
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I'll do the last part first.
How did they fail?
You had Kimberly Orts from BlueOpal on yes, did they fail?
You had Kimberly Orts from BlueOpal on yes.
She trains law enforcement andothers on how to respond in a
more trauma-informed way todomestic violence she and many
others like Russ Strand whodeveloped this FETI approach.
There are different approachesthat are trauma-informed, that
are just enlightened bestpractices, ways of hey, here's
(26:42):
an idea, learn from the past,figure out a better way.
Well, law enforcement in someplaces cases has done that there
is a better model.
The IACP, the InternationalAssociation of Chiefs of Police,
developed a model rule for OIDV, originally in 99, reissued and
updated in 2003.
What are we looking at?
22 years ago, if everyjurisdiction had the model rules
(27:04):
or some form thereof in placeand the protocols that they
include, it would save lives.
Simple statement period, theend okay, right, adopt model
rules.
How did they fail?
They didn't do atrauma-informed investigation at
all afterwards, neithercriminally or administratively.
Most of the model rules have atwo-track system.
(27:25):
If a law enforcement officer isa perpetrator of domestic
violence, they will start bothtracks, criminal and
administrative.
After China Ratner's video cameout, the sheriff's office had
egg all over its face and had toact.
If they do anything right, theyare very big on social media
and public information stuff, sothe PIO puts out a statement.
They are very big on socialmedia and public information
(27:46):
stuff, so the PIO puts out astatement we are aware of the
very serious allegations raisedby Channa Ratner.
We've opened an investigation.
If you or anyone you know knowsanything about it, don't
hesitate to contact us.
And, by the way, if you'refeeling suicidal, call this
number.
Side note in murder, suicidesinvolving cops, the press, law
enforcement, almost everybodyinvolved there's a reflexive
(28:08):
move.
I say murder, suicide.
They only hear suicide.
Yeah, oh, my God, this poorperson saw so much terrible
stuff as a cop.
He killed somebody else andthen himself.
Too bad, he didn't call thesuicide hotline and get help.
They completely forget.
Wait a minute, there was amurder here too.
Right, you know it.
Call the suicide hotline andget help.
They completely forget.
Wait a minute, there was amurder here too.
(28:28):
It's like after the fact,incidental side bit.
But we have to stop that andthink before we do that next
time.
So they say they opened aninvestigation.
I'm half a genius.
So I say well, I'm sidewayswith the sheriff's office.
Now I'm going to do a publicrecords request and ask for a
copy of that investigation I getback.
You could have had a secondgrader who hadn't learned how to
(28:49):
write at all to respond to thatand that would have been more
meaningful than the response Igot back from them.
It was gobbledygook, garbage.
What are you talking about?
There's no investigation.
What do you mean?
There's no investigation?
This thing happened.
Somebody's dead, two people aredead.
There's a whole bunch of copsinvolved.
You yourself said you opened aninvestigation.
(29:10):
You're a law enforcementorganization.
I've actually got a law degree,believe it or not.
I can do the math and say well,even if there's a negative
finding, even if you did aninvestigation and found out
nothing meaningful, you say thatwho did you talk to?
When did you talk to them?
What went around?
Why?
And we reached no conclusionsSorry, unfounded.
(29:32):
I didn't even get that.
They acted as if none of itever happened.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Like none of the events ever happened, or the
investigation, the China Ratnerthing Okay.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
And I did a public record request for the incident.
You know I can find the report.
You know there's an officialpolice incident report of the
China Ratner thing.
I read.
You know every scrap of thatstarted asking questions.
They told me they'd get every.
I wanted everybody who wasthere in the room with the
sheriff.
I said I want my sons, who arejust absolutely natural gifted
(30:04):
investigators, just withouttraining.
They're just empaths andperceptive and intuitive and
smart and my wife.
I wanted us all there to beable to ask these people who
were their questions, because Ibelieve Abby's death warrant was
signed on July 3rd 2016, whenthey did nothing, when they did
nothing at all.
You had a hard-charging, youngbuck, up-and-coming officer
(30:26):
who's part of the tribe, andthey bring him in.
We sat in a room with the thendeputy chief, the number two in
that organization Again the top,I think 11 biggest sheriff's
office in the nation, almost ahalf a billion dollar budget
annually, not a small triflingMayberry RFD kind of a police
agency, a sophisticated group.
(30:47):
And that deputy chief and mysons and my wife, we all sat
there and we listened to.
They got very few.
I told you I wanted all thepeople that were there.
We got like two and actuallyone really.
And in summing up what all thegarbage we heard from them, all
the non-answers, all theobfuscation, I said it sounds to
me like the major, you know, afairly high-ranking command
(31:09):
staff person who handled thearea where the incident happened
with China Ratner.
It's his same.
The Hillsborough CountySheriff's Office responded he
was a Hillsborough CountySheriff's Deputy at the time.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Right.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
But he worked in a different district than where it
happened.
Okay, so there'd be a majorfrom his district who's got the
day-to-day command of whathappens in Dan Layden's world,
and then there's a major whohandles what happens in the
district where the eventhappened with China.
So you have two majors, twohigh-ranking people I was
surmising got together anddecided, well, she's not really
(31:43):
hurt, he's not really hurt,let's just let it go.
And that deputy chief affirmedthat, said, yeah, that's
probably the way it went.
Now I'm here to tell you.
You ask well, what could theyhave done differently or where
did it go wrong?
That's where we're wrong.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
That's not how you do it.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
You do the investigation the way
investigations are supposed tobe done, irrespective, without
any fear or favor, and, by theway, it would be, in a perfect
world, done by another agencytoo, not by your own fox
guarding the hen house, kind ofthing.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Exactly, and also from what I've read about Layden
.
That was six years prior towhen he murdered Abby and then
for those six years I don't knowabout any other DV incidents
with him.
That isn't the point, so muchas he received commendations.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
That's right, not uncommon.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
As an officer.
He went on to advance in hiswork and people truly forgot or
just completely dismissed theincident that had happened with
China.
And here we are.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
They quieted it up, they covered it up, they I can't
say quashed it in a legal sense, but they certainly didn't draw
attention to it.
Somebody else I know did apublic records request, knowing
the China incident happened, andasked for his jacket, his files
, after he was dead and theydidn't send it.
That was not included.
That whole incident you justspoke of, on July 3rd 2016,
(33:12):
wasn't even included in his file.
Now, there were no charges,there were allegations and, by
the way, that's something Ithink Kimberly Orts also points
out, you see what you look forand if you don't look for it,
you ain't going to see it.
And there were certainlystatutory elements of crimes
stalking, false imprisonment,probably a charge of domestic
(33:33):
abuse, assault.
He was beating on her car.
Should look up that episode ofCrime Lines to hear kind of an
outline of the whole storyaround Abby's case.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
But before I let you go, because offline you and I
discussed some other things, wediscussed similar cases that led
to at least some steps, somesignificant steps in this
country in addressingofficer-involved domestic
violence, and while I canresearch and find many cases of
similar nature, there is verylittle reliable data related to
(34:09):
OIDV and you're working tochange that.
Tell us about the work you aredoing to address the problem of
officer-involved domesticviolence or police-perpetrated
domestic violence.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Well, I am trying to get Tallahassee, the state
capital in Florida, pass astatute that would compel the
Florida Department of LawEnforcement, fdle, likely to
administer a program wherebyeach one of the 273 law
enforcement agencies in thestate of Florida adopt a model
rule for OIDV, which is to say,police perpetrated domestic
(34:42):
violence episode.
Every cop, almost withoutexception, in the United States
of America, is exposed intraining to how to handlerated
domestic violence episode.
Every cop, almost withoutexception, in the United States
of America, is exposed intraining to how to handle a
domestic violence call RightBecause, as we all agreed, it's
a predominant call nature type.
It strikes me as a very smallask to say and to add on to that
training that all cops get.
Oh, by the way, ladies andgentlemen, when you arrive at
(35:05):
that domestic violence callscene, it may very well be that
the perpetrator is a cop, maybeone you work with, maybe another
agency, who knows, but a cop.
And if it is a cop, well thenthis you know if that different
rules, different protocols,different buttons have to get
pushed, it should implicate anentire regimen of responses that
vary from those of the purelycivilian call.
(35:29):
I would like to see the state ofFlorida make every single
agency adopt a model rule, notthe model rule because one won't
fit all.
I get that.
Small agencies, large agencies,not the same rule.
They don't have the sameresources, same abilities, the
same skills, but they should atleast be socializing anybody who
carries a badge and a gun withthe idea that very different
(35:51):
dynamics.
Diane Wettendorf wroteprolifically on this topic.
Diane Wettendorf is aencyclopedia of police
perpetrated domestic violence,her preferred term.
That's one thing I'm trying todo.
The second thing, having amodel rule, is separate from the
training right.
I do want the training.
Fsu, florida State Universityalmost the same track timeline
(36:13):
that IACP did developed a modeltraining policy and implemented
it.
Verizon suffered the loss in aterrible.
I think it's called Amy's story.
I might get the name wrong.
You may know better than I, butI've seen it.
It's very compelling.
Poor woman, a subject ofhorrific abuse.
A Verizon retail store employeewas killed at a Verizon retail
(36:34):
store.
They funded the implementationof the OIDV training toolkit
developed by FSU.
It worked.
They tested it, a rigorousacademic study and proved it
worked.
How we let that lie on a shelfto this day, you know, 22 years
later, is beyond me and I don'tthink I'm asking much to say.
Can we not find a milliondollars somewhere to get this
(36:55):
program off the shelf, updatedand back in service?
Speaker 1 (36:59):
I don't think you're asking too much.
I think that's one of thesmartest things that I've heard
about.
I really value that you havetaken up this cause and I think
that's one of the smartestthings that I've heard about.
I really value that you havetaken up this cause and I'm
sorry for the way that it cameabout, but we need your voice in
this conversation.
I appreciate you and yourfamily, and I thank you, bruce,
for talking with me today.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Grateful for the opportunity.
Maria, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Thanks so much for listening.
Until next time, stay safe youso much.
Thanks so much for listening.
Until next time, stay safe.
The 2025 Conference on CrimesAgainst Women will take place in
Dallas, Texas, May 19th throughthe 22nd at the Sheraton Dallas
.
Learn more and register atconferencecaworg and follow us
on social media at National CCAW.
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