Mundell and Hausner

Deputy Kent Mundell and Sgt. Nick Hausner deserve better from their colleagues in the Pierce County, WA criminal justice system.    

Mundell is fighting for his life at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.  Hausner is in stable condition at Madigan Army Medical Center at Ft. Lewis.  These brave officers got shot-up last night by David E. Crable, who was a repeat domestic violence offender.     

The officers had been called to the home of Crable’s brother near Eatonville about 8:45 PM last night because Crable was drunk and belligerent.  He wasn’t going to be arrested.  The officers were merely intending to escort him home.  Crable collected his clothes and pulled a gun on the officers.  He fired 10 rounds at close range at the officers before Mundell fired the shot that killed him.    

Mundell was shot multiple times.  Hausner was pulled from danger by Crable’s brother and daughter after he was shot once.    

Their boss Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor seized the opportunity this afternoon to lobby the public for more funding for his department.    

Politicians rushed to their microphones to wring their hands with “hearts and prayers” rhetoric.    

Ed Troyer, the perpetually clueless sheriff’s spokesperson, adopted a victim mentality:    

It just shows if somebody’s hellbent on doing this to somebody, family members or officers, there’s nothing you can do to stop them.    

Callous Indifference to Domestic Violence Reigns in Pierce County    

Gimme a break.  Let’s review the myriad opportunities various government officials had to stop Crable:    

• Spring, 2007:  Crable was hospitalized after threatening suicide.  He was arrested on domestic violence charges against his mother and daughter.
• June or July, 2007:  Crable’s brother Jason sought a protection order against David because he had threatened “to kill my dogs and damage my car. .We started talking and he started to get upset then started yelling. . .he was going to ruin my life and do anything to possible to mess up my move.”  This was a clear indication that Crable was a pit bull abuser.
• February, 2008:  Crable was charged with DUI, fined $966, and sentenced to 24 hours of community service.
• May 18, 2009:  Patsy Jo Crable (his 71 year-old mother) asked for a restraining order against her son David:  “I am afraid in my own home with  him because of the many guns he owns. . .before I left home, he was always threating suicide, and told his daughter he wanted to die. . .The altercations have escalated.  This constant threat of what he’s going to do has caused me great stress.  I have a heart condition, and he constantly gets in my face and tells me he wants me to die.”  She described him as armed, suicidal, violent, and abusing drugs.
• May 28, 2009:  Crable was arrested at his mother’s home after getting into a fight with his brother, choking his daughter, threatening to punch her in the face, and pointing a knife at her.  All four of the tires on his brother’s car were slashed.  This was the first police standoff.
• June 25, 2009:  Crable pleaded guilty to a third-degree malicious mischief, to unlawful display of a weapon, and to unlawful carrying of weapons in Pierce County Superior Court.  Judge Vicki Hogan suspended his sentence, put him on two years of probation, and ordered him to pay $800 in fines and court costs, to have no hostile contact with his brother Jason, and to take parenting classes.
• June, 2009:  Child Protective Services (CPS) received a complaint that Crable had assaulted his 15 year old daughter.  The allegations were deemed to be “founded,” but nobody at CPS did anything to protect his daughter.
• November 14, 2009:  Crable was arrested for a DUI.
• Pierce County prosecutor Mark Lindquist said multiple protection orders were issued against Crable:  “They are a result of people saying this guy is a danger to me.  I think you can reasonably infer from his history, he had an alcohol problem.”

Crable obviously had more than a problem with alcohol.  But, Lindquist, Troyer, and the judges in Pierce County minimize and trivialize evidence in domestic violence cases.  Perpetrators get a slap on the wrist.  Crable, for example, was never charged with a felony despite abundant evidence that his long history of terrorizing his family was escalating.  He was, therefore, allowed to own guns.  His victims survived the best they could with nothing but a piece of paper to protect them.    

Crable’s daughter wasn’t the only terrified teenager in Pierce County in 2009.  Maurice Clemmons’ daughter was similarly left unprotected after her daddy raped her until her daddy assasinated four Lakewood cops.  Then, the system pulled out all the stops to arrest him.  The people who allegedly aided and abetted him before he was murdered by a Seattle cop are facing serious jail time.    

Why does Pierce County have so many murderers who “slip through the cracks”?    

• Tacoma, WA Police Chief David Brame fatally shot his estranged wife Crystal Judson Brame in front of their kids before turning his service revolver on himself.  Troyer knew or should have known what he was about to do but did nothing to protect Crystal.
• The DC Sniper John Allen Muhammad was arrested for domestic violence on his estranged wife.  He told arresting officers that she was the intended victim of his cross-country shooting rampage.
• Isaiah M.K. Kalebu‘s  mother and aunt had restraining orders against him before he allegedly burned down his aunt’s house killing her and her tenant.  He was never arrested for the arson.  He allegedly broke into the Auburn city hall but was never arrested for this crime either.  He went on to allegedly brutally rape and murder Teresa Butz and to savagely stab and rape her partner.
• Judge Thomas Felnagle denied bail to a couple of punks who killed a stray dog, but he gave Maurice Clemmons a slap on the wrist for allegedly raping his daughter.  Clemmons assasinated four Lakewood police officers in a coffee shop.
• Darrel Street, an Iraq veteran and corrections officer with a federal immigration detention center, shot his live-in-girlfriend Rosa Duran in their Summit-area home before turning the gun on himself.  This happened about a week after the assasination of the Lakewood officers.  The story got minimal coverage by local press.

Pierce County also has the distinction of having the most bank robberies in Washington State.    

The coffee shop where the Lakewood officers were assasinated is open again.  It is owned by a former cop and is quite popular with local law enforcement.  My Christmas wish is that Troyer, Lindquist, and the Pierce County judges will “wake up and smell the coffee.”  Domestic violence is the number one reason people call 9-1-1 in Washington State.  If the criminal justice system had taken Crable’s escalating violence seriously, two seasoned veterans would be at home celebrating the holidays with their families instead of fighting for their lives.    

There’s no excuse.  Callous indifference to domestic violence wounded those officers as much as the bullets from Crable’s gun.

Sources:  Seattle P-I, Tacoma News-Tribune, Seattle Times, KING5, KIRO7 .