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On Feb. 20, a SeaTac Municipal Court judge signed a no-contact order barring Karl Vance from seeing his wife. The order wasnt unusual, just one of scores of no-contact orders filed every
year in King County. It told Vance, who had been charged with misdemeanor domestic violence assault, how to keep on the right side of the law stay at least 500 feet away from his wife of two years, dont call or stop by places she frequented. And Vance was to turn in his guns for
safekeeping. Vance turned over an air pistol. Two months later, prosecutors say, Vance used a more formidable weapon, a .357-caliber revolver, to gun down his estranged wife on a Des Moines street. At 37, Monique Vance died in a doorway begging neighbors for help;
Karl Vance waits in the King County Jail facing first-degree murder and assault charges. Because of federal laws enacted in the early 1990s and the state laws that followed, Vance should have lost his guns. The same laws, which are largely ignored by law enforcement around the country, form the legal backbone for gun-seizure programs and protocols in
Seattle and King County. In the past four years, the city and county were among the few jurisdictions in the nation to start programs aimed at enforcing domestic violence gun-seizure laws. But documents obtained by the Seattle P-I show that, despite the muchlauded initiatives, guns are seized in a small fraction of domestic violence
SEE GUNS, A10
Musician Marco UnderSong calls the area around Fifth Avenue and Virginia Street the Under the Rail neighborhood, after a defunct club. Condo marketers have recently branded the area roughly defined by Denny Way, Westlake Avenue North, Battery Street and Fourth Avenue as Midtown Seattle.
Condo blogs, brochures confuse and amuse as sections of Seattle inherit new monikers
BY JENNIFER LANGSTON
P-I reporter
Ian Cohens advertising agency recently moved to Fifth Avenue the heart of what condo marketers and breathless real estate blogs call Midtown Seattle. Micro-neighborhood names have proliferated as residents colonize new parts of downtown and developers strive to set their projects apart.
Theres the Park District near Olympic Sculpture Park, South Lake Unions Gateway District anchored by Whole Foods, and the West Edge campaign still trundling along after six years. Along with delivery drivers and parking police in the new Midtown bounded roughly by Fourth and Westlake avenues, Battery Street and Denny Way Cohen had never heard of it. Somehow, he decided, the name manages to be both pretentious and unoriginal. I have to call B.S. because it sounds like were trying to throw New York into it, said Cohen, cofounder of Wexley School for Girls, who knows how to make a lasting impression. The ad agencys red reception area has sewing machines and Chinese silk next to the phones a joke about small creative companies being sweatshops. The all-white conference room, with a python curled on a grand piano, looks as if it belongs in a demented finishing school. Were in Wexleytown right
SEE NAMES, A9
Second Lt. Bryan Jackson was eight months into his first tour of duty in Iraq and out on patrol in Anbar Province in September 2006 when the Humvee he was towing behind a Bradley Fighting Vehicle got stuck in the mud. It was a mundane mishap, but it made Jackson and his crew nervous. Not only did they fear the Humvee would roll over, but they also knew the stall made them a naked target for insurgent fire. Just a month earlier, a comINSIDE rade had been seriIRAQ WAR: The ously wounded at the House passed a same spot near the war funding bill town of Hit. What happened that would require next would earn the president to Jackson, now a first pull out troops. A6 lieutenant, the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism in action making him only the seventh soldier since the Vietnam War to receive the nations secondhighest military honor. Jackson, a West Point graduate, is from Oak Harbor where his father, now based in Washington, D.C., commanded a Navy P3 Orion squadron on Whidbey Island. On Sept. 27, 2006, Jackson and his crew climbed down and began working quickly to try to free the mired Humvee. In almost the same instant, Jackson
SEE HERO, A10
WHATS IN A NAME?
FREMONT: This neighborhood got its name from land developers, based on their hometown in Fremont, Neb. CAPITOL HILL: A turn-of-the-century developer persuaded a state legislator to introduce a bill to move the state capital there. SODO: Seattle Weekly Editor Rose Pike suggested the name for SOuth of the KingDOme, which is now gone. WEST EDGE: Six years ago, a campaign began to recast the neighborhood north of Pioneer Square as West Edge, but the name still draws confused looks.
Second Lt. Bryan Jackson rushed to the aid of two wounded soldiers while he was shot three times.
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2007 SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
(FJECD|14000X
A10
SEIZING GUNS
Laws restricting gun ownership among people convicted or accused of domestic violence have been on the books for 14 years. But a P-I review found that authorities have gathered guns from only a small fraction of domestic violence suspects. CASES
INCIDENTS REPORTED
33 81 367
98 206 1,026
Sources: City of Seattle, the King County Sheriff's Office, the Washington Association of Sheriff's and Police Chiefs.
found that while departments were going after guns used in crime, officers statewide were unwilling to remove firearms found in the home. I felt that there was a certain amount of reluctance to enforce the law, he said. I couldnt understand it then, and dont even to this day. Whatever their other merits, Conder said, the city and county programs have raised awareness on the issue. Thats more than most jurisdictions have done. Kerlikowske said he couldnt speculate on how often officers are missing guns that could be confiscated at the scene. Whats clear, he said, is that about a third of the 272 guns secured by Seattle police through the program would otherwise still be on the street. I dont think anybody went into this saying Gee, we have a set number, Kerlikowske said. Every additional gun taken off the street is one less gun that was involved in a domestic violence situation.
When asked about the county program by e-mail Sheriffs Office spokesman John Urquhart suggested several factors could account for the gap between the number of domestic violence complaints and guns seized. For example, witnesses and victims could be underreporting gun ownership. But, Urquhart said, gun owners could be less likely to commit domestic violence crimes, or the socioeconomics of King County could mean gun ownership is just less common. Nationally, such programs are the exception rather than the rule, said Emily Sack, a professor of criminal law at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island whos written extensively on gun seizure programs. Sack said some jurisdictions have gone further than Seattle or King County. In New Jersey, for instance, state law requires that a search warrant be issued with each no-contact order, clearing the way for police to search for weapons in the homes of those
accused of domestic violence. Other states have either adopted laws less broad than the federal statute usually only allowing for gun surrender if the firearm was used in a crime or failed to pass any legislation. The reality is that if you want to deal with domestic violence, you have to deal with the gun issue, Sack said. Having access to a weapon is a huge risk factor. Prosecutors asking for a gun surrender order have to rely on either victims statements that theres a gun in the home or other evidence, such as a concealed weapons permit. Even when an order is issued, theres little to stop perpetrators from satisfying the order by simply signing an affidavit saying they dont have a gun or have given it to a friend. Ultimately, SeaTac City Attorney Mary Mirante Bartolo said, fulfillment of the gun surrender orders comes down to a matter of trust between the court and the accused. Mirante Bartolo said her office and others file the orders to give victims of domestic violence the maximum amount of protection possible. But she said authorities ultimately are asked to take a defendants word that he or she no longer has a firearm. Theres no way you could ever know if they do comply, Mirante Bartolo said. In fact, they could have complied at that date and time, then bought a gun on the street for $50. Seattle City Attorney Tom Carr, whose office along with police and others helped create the city gun surrender program, said weak gun registration laws have hindered efforts by police and his office to enforce surrender orders. Lawmakers, Carr said, have been reluctant to create such
laws in part because of pressure from gun-rights groups. When you get into gun issues, it gets very difficult to get things done, Carr said. I would ban handguns in the city of Seattle if I could. Were in an urban environment. They provide no good use. But the state prevents that, and I dont know why. While both said one killing is too many, Kerlikowske and Carr each emphasized that Seattle sees few domestic violence killings each year. Though 2007 has been particularly rough six people have been killed in domestic violence situations the city usually sees two or three such slayings a year. But firearms arent just used to kill, said Cousin, of the county domestic violence coalition. She said shes heard from women whose partners played Russian roulette with them or shot their pets. Others she knows were sexually assaulted with a gun. In relationships built on control, where the threat of physical violence forms the foundation, guns can play a subtler role. Cousin said some victims have told her their partners would glance toward the shotgun closet to send home the message. Cousin said she gets a variety of reactions from domestic violence survivors when she tells them about the gun seizure initiatives. A few, she said, tell her their partners are more scared of losing their guns than going to jail. The other women, Cousin said, they kind of laugh at me and say If he wants to get a gun, he can walk out the door and obtain one right now.
P-I reporter Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 or levipulkkinen@seattlepi.com.