DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, BLACK LIVES MATTERS, AND DEVIN KELLEY GETTING OUT OF JAIL 10 YEARS EARLY

As you may know by now, the Air Force forgot to update the FBI database with Devin Kelley's court-martialled which should have prevented the gun seller from selling a gun to mass murderer Devin Kelley.

What you may not know are some of the details of the domestic violence conviction. 

Kelley beat and kicked his wife several times. He aimed a loaded weapon at her several times. And he struck his 11 month old step-son with enough force to potentially kill him. He broke the child's skull

            https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/06/us/devin-patrick-kelley-texas.html 

Kelley was court-martialled by the Air Force and served 11 months in jail

Let's imagine instead that Kelley had committed these acts of violence against a grown man. Can you still imagine Kelley getting out of jail in 11 months? I can't. 

Instead of being charged with crimes under the heading of "domestic violence" Kelley would have been charged with crimes that fall under "assault" and "attempted murder." If Kelley had been charged with assault and attempted murder -- in the same ways law enforcement does when these crimes are committed against a man-- he'd probably still be in jail now

Don't think this is simply the way the Air Force handles things. Domestic violence is taken lightly all over. This is what happens when women don't have enough power in a society: 

"Domestic violence" becomes code for "no big deal" 

And when I say domestic violence is "no big deal" to the male gatekeepers of our society (cops, judges, lawyers, politicians) what I am saying is that it takes an extreme level of abuse for a man to get anywhere near prison for beating "his wife and child," for beating two people that are very nearly considered "his property." 

Don't believe me? I suggest to you that the unconscious belief that women and children are owned by husbands and fathers is why the sentences are so short and/or non-existent.  The implied ownership that comes with "domestic abuse" charges minimizes the crime of "assault" and "attempted murder" so much that Kelley was even able to widen his pattern of domestic violence after he got out of prison. 


This mass murderer was sending threatening e-mails to his mother-in-law, likely over the custody of his child, in the weeks before he killed 26 people. 

http://www.businessinsider.com/devin-patrick-kelley-texas-shooter-text-messages-mother-in-law-2017-11

I have done enough research to know, but I wonder if his mother-in-law bothered to call the police about the threatening e-mails? As a woman, I know the police don't take "domestic violence" cases all that seriously.  I don't know if I'd have reported threatening e-mails.

In fact, law enforcement can be seen as resistant to taking domestic violence seriously.

When women's rights groups started demanding that men be arrested immediately when they are called out to a domestic violence dispute, the men running our legal system took to arresting the husband and the wife saying they are "refusing to take sides" during an argument.    

What this means is, a woman has been beat and/or bleeding pretty badly for a cop to arrest a man.  This also means that statistics make it look like women have become more violent toward men over the years when that might NOT be true. (That's why I only count domestic violence dead bodies instead of arrests now.)

 An example of how cops handled domestic abuse:

I heard a white man threaten his wife and child then watched him throw himself on the hood of her car as she tried to get away from him. This happened at 6:30 AM in the morning a few years ago. And I was sure he was drunk. He sounded drunk? Slurring his words. I called the police myself. My neighbors did too. 

When the police showed up all the husband ranting and raving stopped and all of sudden the husband could stand upright and talk in complete sentences. They talked to him for 45 minutes, then let him go back inside to his wife...the wife who was trying to run from him in the car less than an hour before.  

I explain all this to make the following point:

If our predominantly male police departments took domestic violence seriously, Devin Kelley's mother-in-law would have known she'd be taken seriously; would have been able to have Kelley arrested and jailed immediately --especially with his prior conviction.

Instead, Kelley was free to go to the church she worships at and kill 26 people.

You know what other group beats and abuses women without much repercussion? Cops. 

"As the National Center for Women and Policing noted in a heavily footnoted information sheet, "Two studies have found that at least 40 percent of police officer families experience domestic violence, in contrast to 10 percent of families in the general population. A third study of older and more experienced officers found a rate of 24 percent, indicating that domestic violence is two to four times more common among police families than American families in general." Cops "typically handle cases of police family violence informally, often without an official report, investigation, or even check of the victim's safety," the summary continues. "

https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-officers-who-hit-their-wives-or-girlfriends/380329/

This should tell you that a large percentage of cops prove their masculinity via violence in their homes. And make no mistake, that is what beating a woman is. To the perpetrator, he proves through violence that "I am in charge;" that "I am king;" that "I am a man." 

Those wife beating cops take their ATTITUDES of seeing everything as competition, attitudes of winning-at-any-violent cost to work and help create a cop-culture rife with toxic masculinity. 

And if you have a cop culture rife with toxic masculinity, then you have cops (even those that don't beat their wives) going out into the street looking to win-at-any-violent cost. 

After that? All you have to do then is add white supremacy and stir. That's how you get cops shooting unarmed black people for "being sassy" or not obeying verbal orders as quickly as a slave would. 

A lot of people other than wives and girlfriends of violent men might be alive right now, including 26 people in Texas, if our society took domestic violence as seriously as it takes the assault and attempted murder of men.  

The Air Force forgetting to update the FBI's gun database may be a symptom of not taking domestic violence seriously as well.  If it's not, then maybe we should look at why the FBI and our government isn't providing enough funding to have the FBI do some enforcement on making sure the each law enforcement agency updates the database. When updating a database is mandatory instead of quasi-voluntary, somebody checks to make sure each law enforcement agency is updating the database.

If the National Rifle Association has as much power as I think it does, then that funding probably isn't there.

* * * * *
Are you counting?  

That's at least three ways, 26 people didn't have to die on Sunday, many of them children.

1. Devin Kelley could still be in jail for the original domestic abuse charge IF he'd been charged with straight assault and attempted murder. 

2) Devin Kelley could have been put back in jail for sending threatening e-mails as related to the original domestic incident 

3) The Air Force could have made sure his conviction for domestic abuse was in the FBI Database

 Any legal database worth maintaining is worth some quality control. If the FBI isn't already doing some sort of spot checks to make sure the database is being updated, they should be. So maybe that's 3.5 ways Devin Kelly should have been in prison instead free to kill 26 people last Sunday.

Somebody tell the Orange waste of space that this doesn't have thing-one to do with "mental health."