SEATTLE, Washington (AP) — A University of Washington researcher was shot to death in her office Monday morning by a former boyfriend who then turned the gun on himself, police said.
Officers responding to reports of gunfire found the two dead in an office on the fourth floor of Gould Hall, the university’s architecture building, Assistant University Police Chief Ray Wittmier said.
The 26-year-old woman was granted a restraining order last month against Jonathan Rowan, according to court documents. University police said he was not affiliated with the school.
“I cannot find him but he can find me (knows my place of work),” the victim, identified by colleagues as Rebecca Griego, wrote in a restraining order petition filed against Rowan on March 6 in King County Superior Court.
About six shots were fired, and a handgun was found in the room. There were no eyewitnesses, and no one else was harmed, Wittmier said.
Lance Nguyen, who worked with Griego at the Runstad Center for Real Estate Research, said the victim had become increasingly worried about her former boyfriend in recent weeks.
“She said it’s a psycho from her past,” Nguyen said.
In the restraining order petition, Griego wrote that Rowan had threatened her and her sister, and said he had threatened suicide “because he couldn’t see me.”
Campus police were not aware of the restraining order, Wittmier said. He also said he did not think the man had permission to carry a handgun on campus, where firearms are banned.
How’s that “gun-free zone” policy working for you out there? Not only did the stalker violate it, but once again, gun control claims another victim: The murdered woman who might have defended herself, had she been armed.
Oh, but I forgot the headline, just as clueless:
Police: Slain woman had restraining order
And a restraining order is supposed to do . . . what, exactly?
Idiots.
Mike says:
In my many years in law enforcement, I often found myself dealing with stalking victims. It was probably against departmental rules (my chief was virulently, irrationally anti-gun), but I always encouraged victims to arm themselves.
I had no doubt that if a stalker wanted to kill his victim, my only role would be to carry on the investigation after he did his work. Restraining orders? To be sure, a useful tool in some cases, but they ultimately suggest only the possibility of punishment after a violation of the restraining order occurs. If the offender kills the victim, violation of the restraining order will be the least of his concerns. Restraining orders work only for people who are rational, and as a result, fear the social consequences for violating misdemeanor offenses.
Virtually any offense involving a firearm is a felony. People willing to commit felonies are not in the slightest detered by any gun control meaure known to man. That anyone associated with the school involved would say aloud that he didn’t think the killer had a permit to carry the murder weapon on campus indicates the utter idiocy and futility of liberal thinking on this issue. My goodness. Apart from murder, the killer didn’t have the permission of the college to carry a gun on campus? He’s in real trouble now!
I may be off base on this one, but I suspect his lack of a college gun permit didn’t figure prominently in the killer’s calculations.
April 4, 2007, 9:50 pmPeggy U says:
Mike: Just out of curiosity, are there programs for people who are victims of stalkers, so that they can obtain guns and training? At the very least, do police refer these victims to reputable resources?
April 5, 2007, 1:05 pmdragonlady474 says:
Stalkers want attention from the victims. If the stalker leaves messages, don’t return the calls. Victims should have an answering machine to screen calls so they don’t pick up, not knowing it’s the stalker on the other end. If it is so bad that they have to move, then the victim should not tell anyone but close relatives they can trust. And the victim shouldn’t send snail mail to those relatives because they could be watching for the old mail man and intercept whatever you send. And finally, victims should always be prepared and aware of their surroundings…and have a plan to protect themselves.
April 5, 2007, 1:19 pmPeggy U says:
Dragonlady - That is very useful information. I don’t need it and I doubt I ever will! However, I have had a friend who put a restraining order on an abusive ex husband. That was a long time ago, and he is out of the picture completely now. I was just curious, more than anything! It seems like there should be some means of arming and training people who have to deal with this, so that they can sleep easier at night. Also, if there is a confrontation, the stalkee has more of a chance of survival if she is trained before she has to use the gun.
April 5, 2007, 2:25 pmMike says:
Dear Peggy U:
Interesting questions. Please keep in mind that for many reasons, probably the least of which is misogeny, the police tend not to deal well with stalking victims In many ways, and in many jurisdictions, stalking victims are treated much as were rape victims in the late 1950’s. This has been changing for many years, and great strides forward have been made, but it is still a problem.
In most states, stalking is a misdemeanor, yet stalking crimes are serial offenses that typically take place over long periods of time, even years. To properly deal with even a single victim, police agencies must commit resources almost always reserved only for the most serious felonies. In many cases, by the time a woman begins to make reports, she is frustrated, angry, perhaps even hysterical or irrational, and the police don’t like working with such people. It’s very easy to dismiss them and do the minimum. The state of training for officers to deal with stalking has also, historically, been either non-existant or poor.
Keep in mind too that many police agencies, particularly in large cities, are officially anti-gun and spend as much, perhaps more, time pursuing gun ownership by the law abiding as they do misuse of guns by stone cold criminals. Make no mistake, the officers who actually do the work and meet the public are overwhelmingly in support of gun rights, but must often be careful of expressing that support.
I know of no agency that sponsors firearm training specifically for stalking victims. This is not a lack of caring, but a recognition of the fact that the law regarding the use of deadly force does not change in terms of the crime an assailant intends to perpetrate (after all, what victim could read the mind of an attacker to discern this kind of thing?). If the justification for the use of deadly force exists, the charges filed later mean nothing.
Please keep in mind too that the courts have held without exception, including the Supreme Court, that the police own no specific duty to protect any citizen from harm, and cannot be successfully sued for failing to protect any individual. They owe only a general duty to the public at large to deter and investigate crime. This might sound wrong, but it is absolutely rational and necessary. If the police could be held accountable for every injury to every citizen, which city could possibly afford a police force? Big city mayors and police chiefs know this, yet absolutely want to deny firearms to the law abiding in the name of crime control, and they also know that gun control laws so absolutely nothing to control crime.
Some agencies do sponsor basic firearm training courses taught by their own instructors, but they are usually in the minority. The good news is that the NRA has thousands of qualified instructors throughout the nation, and you can find them through the NRA website. For excellent instruction beyond local instructors, there are first rate facilities throughout the nation that teach state of the art techniques and tactics. Your local instructors, or often, shooting magazines available everywhere have information on these schools, such as Thunder Ranch in Texas, Gunsite in Arizona, or Chuck Taylor’s American Small Arms Academy which travels throughout the nation and the world. At such schools you’ll learn, in a very short time, exception skills, and more importantly, how and when to employ them.
Good luck!
April 5, 2007, 9:49 pmPeggy U says:
Hi, Mike! Hope I haven’t alarmed you with my questions. I am not now, nor have I ever been a stalking victim. In fact, I seriously doubt I ever would be. My son describes me as intimidating (that’s a little embarrassing!). However, I have known people who have been, and it is very unpleasant and incovenient for them. I was just curious, because you see these kinds of stories all the time. I would think that if you searched for information, you could make a pretty accurate determination of what kinds of scenarios were likely to lead to escalating violence and homicide (certainly these profiles must exist!). In that case, it seems prudent to at least, at the minimum, give the people at risk the information and (possibly) tools to defend themselves. You stated:
. I would say that if a person is violating a restraining order, then too damned bad! No need to read his/her mind; the stalker shouldn’t oughtta be where he/she was told not to go!
April 6, 2007, 8:48 pmMike says:
Dear Peggy U:
Hi again. One of the reasons that police officers don’t like stalking cases is the uncertainty factor you bring up. Police officers like to be in control. They like straightforward information and procedures that allow them to successfully wrap up cases, arrest bad guys and move on to new cases. Stalking cases often don’t cooperate.
Yes, there are a number of profiles, depending on the experts you consult, that predict, to varying degrees of accuracy, exactly how dangerous a given stalker might be. It is generally conceded that stalkers who are mentally ill and/or strangers who inexplicably latch onto others of greater perceived status, such as celebrities, are more dangerous that jilted boyfriends, but every case is unique and one can never be complacent. Some stalkers can be deterred by a stern visit from the police. They may shift their focus to someone else, but that’s a case successfully closed. Other stalking cases may drag on for years and suddenly, for no apparent reason, stop. Others end in the death of the victim, or, if the victim is prepared, the death of the stalker.
Protection orders? They are effective in less than 40% of stalking cases, in my experience, and those are generally the low-risk, more easily deterred stalkers.
In any case, you certainly didn’t alarm me. But please be aware that stalkers often choose their victims for reasons inexplicable to those victims, and for reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the personality traits of those victims, such as intimidation factor. It can literally happen to anyone, and while women are more likely, but a significant margin, to be victims, men can also find themselves on the bad end of this particular phenemona.
One should always take the necessary steps to protect themselves and their loved ones. The police love nothing more than catching really bad people in the act, but this is very rare. The police can’t protect you and can’t be sued if they don’t. They’re not responsible for your continued existence. You are, and you always have been. Anyone telling you differently is not looking out for you.
April 7, 2007, 11:40 pm