The Crystal Judson Family Justice Center in Tacoma has received a national award for its continued dedication to supporting domestic violence victims.

The National Criminal Justice Association presented the center with the Outstanding Criminal Justice Program Award at a three-day conference in Bellevue. The annual conference ended Tuesday.

The national association honors four programs each year. The programs are selected by experts "as innovative criminal justice programs that showcase promising practices to address critical crime-related issues in their communities," according to a Pierce County press release.

"It is truly an honor to receive this award," said Susan Adams, director of the Crystal Judson Family Justice Center. "It is a testament to the women and men working at the Center on behalf of clients and in pursuit of justice. This award belongs to each and every one of them."

The Pierce County and Tacoma City councils will present proclamations to the justice center next week to recognize the award.

The center, named in honor of the slain wife of former Tacoma Police Chief David Brame, opened in December 2005. Brame killed his wife, Crystal, and then fatally shot himself in 2003.

The center is a one stop resource for domestic violence victims. Last year, 2,654 clients and 863 children visited the center to receive help in getting civil legal and protection orders, housing and other assistance. Another 3,137 people were helped over the phone.

The center, which can be contacted at 253-798-4166, is a collaboration by Pierce County and the City of Tacoma. The center's operates on funding from Tacoma, Pierce County, the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department and the federal government.

The Puyallup Police Metro SWAT team is negotiating with a man barricaded in an apartment on Valley Avenue.

At about 12:30 p.m., Puyallup Police responded to a domestic violence call at the Meridian Pointe Apartments, 407 Valley Ave. Northeast. A man refused to cooperate, and barricaded himself inside the apartment after a woman was able to flee. The man has threatened to use a gun.

The suspect has talked to negotiators intermittently but has not cooperated. Police have blocked off the area, and residents are asked to stay in their apartments.

UPDATE: 6:03 p.m. Puyallup Police say the suspect is dead in the apartment from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Police are still at the apartment and residents can return to their homes.

A Kent woman is in critical condition after her ex-boyfriend stabbed her in a bar parking lot Tuesday night.

Kent Police say the 22-year-old woman ran into the bar to get help and patrons ran after her boyfriend, a 24-year-old Federal Way man. The man's red Ford pickup drove quickly out of the lot and into the intersection of 84th Avenue South and 216th Street, where it careened into a passing vehicle, forcing both over a hedge and into an empty parking lot.

The suspect got out of his truck and ran through a warehouse area. Officers set up a perimeter and the department's K-9, Bosco, was able to track him under a Highway 167 bridge. He was arrested on suspicion of felony assault, hit and run, and drunk driving, police said.

The woman was treated for multiple stab wounds, and was transported to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

"This was an extreme and highly visible incident that shows the volatile nature of domestic violence," Kent Police Chief Steve Strachan said in a news release. "Communities nationwide have experienced an increase in violent, public incidents of domestic violence, where others have also been affected."

An 8-year-old Lacey boy called police Tuesday morning to report that his dad was hitting his mom.

When officers arrived to the house, they found the boy's father on the front porch covered in blood. He allegedly stabbed his wife, who was able to flee to a neighbor's house. She was taken to St. Peter's Hospital and underwent emergency surgery.

Officers said the child's 17-year-old older brother was awakened by the noise of his parent's fighting. He tried to break up the fight, which gave his mother the chance to flee..

The father, 39, was arrested on suspicion of attempted first-degree murder and second-degree attempted assault.

Quinault tribal police arrested the friend of Angela Harrison, whose five children were shot and killed earlier this month by their father.

Shannon Comenout, 38, was spotted by officers on the reservation Sunday afternoon, and officers were working to bring him to Pierce County late Sunday night.

Comenout was with Harrison when her husband, 34-year-old James Harrison, found them at an Auburn convenience store the night before the children were killed. He was arrested on a $15,000 warrant for a 2006 alleged domestic violence case that was unrelated to the Harrison family.

In that case, officers believe Comenout grabbed his then girlfriend by the throat during an argument, and slammed her father into a wall when he tried to intervene.

Officers wanted him on both the warrant and for his relationship with the Harrison family, so investigators can confirm the timeline of what happened.

"This is nothing to do with changing what happened," Pierce County Sheriff spokesman Ed Troyer said. "It is more to do with us confirming everybody's timeline and activities leading up to it. There are five dead kids. We need to do them a service so that history will never be able to repeat itself."

Troyer said officers had spoken with Comenout over the phone since the shooting, but that he had not been cooperative. Tribal police reportedly recognized him from a Crime Stoppers flyer and knew he was a regular on the reservation.

Tacoma police have arrested a man wanted on suspicion of kidnapping and assaulting an ex-girlfriend last month.

Prosecutors had charged Cortlandt Young, 26, with first-degree kidnapping and two counts of second-degree assault after he and a friend beat up and held the woman hostage for 13 hours last month in a domestic violence-related attack in Lakewood. The friend, Devan Hopson, was charged with three counts of second-degree assault.
Warrants had been issued for the arrest of Young and Hopson last week. Lakewood police arrested Hopson last week.

Tacoma police found Young on Wednesday night. He was booked into Pierce County Jail just before 8:45 p.m. The circumstances of the arrest were not immediately known.

UPDATE: Members of the local violent crimes task force received information Young was at an apartment complex in the county, Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulghum said.

Members of the task force and the Tacoma Police Department's gang unit contacted Young and took him into custody without incident, Fulghum said.

Saturday's slaying of five children inside their Graham-area home brings (again) to light the continuing problem of domestic violence in the community.

"It is a really horrific reminder that domestic violence is lethal," said Kelly Starr of the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

The coalition studies domestic violence-related homicides in the state and publishes a report every two years. The coalition believes that domestic violence - no matter what form - should be taken seriously. Not all domestic abuse is physical. It can be more subtle such as controlling the finances and controlling whom the partner can see and when.

The coalition also found that an abuser who is suicidal has a higher likelihood of being homicidal.

Abusers, Starr said, can target their children, friends and other family members for violence as a way to further hurt their victims or to seek revenge. The abuser might try "to figure out how to hurt their partner in the worst possible," Starr said.

Leaving an abusive partner also can trigger a violent outbreak, Starr said. Abusers want to be in control and when a victim leaves, the abuser loses that control. The danger level increases if the abuser has access to weapons.

"That can really escalate things," Starr said.

Starr said there's not always a documented history of domestic abuse when a relationship turns deadly.

"No documented history often doesn't mean no history," Starr said.

According to the coalition, here are some warning signs of domestic violence:

Jealousy, controlling behavior, quick involvement, unrealistic expectations, isolation,
blames others for problems or feelings, hypersensitivity, cruelty to children, cruelty to
animals, use of force during sex, verbal abuse, rigid sex roles, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde
personality, past battering, threats of violence, breaking or striking objects, using force
during an argument, controlling finances in the relationship

Here are some suggestions for helping someone who might be in an abusive relationship:

· Approach the person in an understanding, non-blaming way.

· Acknowledge that it is scary and difficult to talk about abuse; let the person know that
they do not deserve to be treated this way and that they in no way caused the abuse.

· Support the person as a friend. Be a good listener and do not tell them what to do.
Allow the person to make their own decisions, even if you do not agree with them.
Avoid ultimatums that require them to end the relationship or lose your friendship.
This only results in further isolating them and ultimately gives the abuser even more
control.

· Consider that leaving an abusive relationship is often the most dangerous time for a
victim. It is important to talk with an advocate about safety planning.

· Provide information about where to go for help (call the Washington State Domestic
Violence Hotline at 1-800-562-6025 for local resources).

· Let the person know that they are not alone.

Nothing says happy belated Valentines Day like a Molotov cocktail.

James Lawrence Williams, 52, was charged Monday with attempted first-degree arson in an early morning incident Feb. 16 at his girlfriend’s house in the 11600 block of Yakima Avenue South.

According to a prosecutor’s affidavit, his girlfriend had heard a “knocking noise on her home” and looked out to see flames and Williams running away.

Pierce County Sheriff’s deputies later found a glass bottle with a burnt rag sticking out of it about three feet from the side of her home. It smelled of gasoline.

The house had burn marks under the eaves where the incendiary device was found.

When he was found hiding under a blanket in a home near his father’s house a few days later, Williams denied being involved in the apparent firebombing.

William’s girlfriend also told police he left her a cell phone message the evening before the fire saying, “Say Peaches, it’s on and crackin’, it’s on and crackin’.” The couple had reportedly quarreled over her plans to move out.

(Photo: Zack Akukumba)

The Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence released a review today of domestic violence homicides in the state.

They looked at the 68 deaths in the past two years.

The coalition research found, among other things, that many of the abusers had no prior arrests for their violence and many victims filed for protection orders before their deaths but few received needed help.

Among the coalition's recommendations:

1. Ethnic community organizations and domestic violence programs should work together to share information and develop strategies for how community members can stay safe while supporting domestic violence victims. Ethnic community organizations should also create opportunities to engage their communities in dialogue about violence against women.

2. Domestic violence advocates should become familiar with Child Protective Services (CPS) practices and engage with local CPS staff in order to effectively advocate for domestic violence victims involved with CPS.

3. Whenever law enforcement officers advise domestic violence victims to obtain a Protection Order, they should always refer victims to a trained domestic violence victim advocate for safety planning as well.

4. All courts issuing civil Protection Orders should have domestic violence advocates available on-site to meet with victims when they first petition for a Domestic Violence Protection Order.

5. Health care organizations should consider contracting with local domestic violence programs to provide on-site advocacy and safety planning for patients who are surviving domestic violence.

6. Local housing authorities should establish preference policies for domestic violence victims.

7. The Division of Child Support (DCS) and the Community Services Division of the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) should evaluate their processes for informing participants of the good cause option for non-cooperation with child support collection.

8. Domestic violence programs and batterer’s intervention programs should make connections with juvenile probation officers, juvenile offender treatment providers, and professionals conducting assessments of juvenile offenders to provide training about domestic violence and how to identify intimate partner violence in screening, and to facilitate referrals when intimate partner abuse is identified.

You can read the full 100-page report or the 32-page executive summary here.

To kick off domestic violence awareness month, advocates, law enforcement officers and others in the criminal justice system gathered at Tollefson Plaza in downtown Tacoma this afternoon.

In the driving rain, speakers talked about the seriousness of domestic violence and the need for the community to understand that.

Ann Eft, executive director of the Pierce County Commission Against Domestic Violence, wanted to put some attention on the perpetrators of domestic violence.

"We are talking about those people who chose to use violence against a family member," she told the sizable crowd. "Domestic violence is not about having a bad temper.

"It's not caused by your partner. The violent behavior is a choice."

As part of an awareness campaign for Domestic Violence Awareness Month, officers at the Friday press conference put purple ribbon magnets on their patrol cars. Each ribbon states: "Everyone deserves to be safe."

More magnets are being distributed to Tacoma police, Sumner police, Puyallup police, the state Department of Corrections and Community Health Care.

The Tacoma Police Department investigated more than 3,500 domestic violence incidents in 2007. In addition, all of the officer-involved shootings last year started out as domestic violence calls the officers were responding to.

Over the past five years, the Tacoma Police Department has handled 73 homicides. Of those, 13 were domestic violence.

"Domestic violence is not acceptable," Capt. Charles Meinema said. "Domestic violence is a crime. Domestic violence is not excusable."

(The photos pictured here were taken by yours truly after the press conference.)

Law enforcement officers and victims advocates will join together today to raise awareness of domestic violence.

Officers from the Pierce County Sheriff's Department and Bonney Lake, Lakewood, Puyallup, Sumner and Tacoma police departments will be putting purple ribbon magnets on their patrol cars as part of the awareness campaign. The campaign is a collaboration between the agencies and the Pierce County Commission Against Domestic Violence.

Law enforcement officials, prosecutors, probation officers, advocates and representatives of the Washington State Department of Corrections will talk at a press conference this afternoon about what their agencies are doing to fight domestic violence.

"Their message is that domestic violence is not acceptable in Pierce County and domestic violence offenders are being held accountable," a press release states.

Here's the press release from the Kent Police:

KENT, WA – September 27, 2008 – A Kent west hill man with an extensive criminal history was arrested early this morning at his residence without incident. The 42 year old man was involved in an early morning Domestic Violence incident where he assaulted his girlfriend in their home. The suspect was armed with a handgun at the time of the assault, is a two strike offender, and made additional threats that he would harm police if attempts were made to arrest him.

The suspect retreated to his residence and was unresponsive to officers attempting calls inside. Valley SWAT was activated, surrounded the residence, and deployed two Noise Flash Diversionary Devices (NFDD) to the exterior of the residence. After several minutes the suspect exited the front door, surrendered, and was arrested without incident.

According to Deputy Chief Mike Painter, “This was a textbook case of our Patrol Officers, Detectives and Valley SWAT working together to take a dangerous violent offender into custody without anyone being injured. We successfully removed a clear community threat from Kent’s streets today”.

The suspect is now held in custody at the Kent Jail where he awaits arraignment on Felony Assault and Violation of the Uniform Firearms Act (VUFA) charges.