Yeah, that seems pretty clear. I'm really torn on this. Hindsight is always 20/20 but dang. I'm sure this will haunt her parents forever. The fact that someone saw him hitting her, the police stopped them and soon after she was dead.
The news media is making a big deal out of this factoid -- which has been common knowledge for weeks -- because there is no new news on this story.
I tend to take these "secondary crises" with a grain of salt, because I've seen way too many instances where the people doing the complaining have either a political or personal financial interest in using someone else's tragedy for their personal gain. That happens across the philosophical/political spectrum whenever there is a case like this -- it's certainly not limited to any particular world view.
It was the first I’d heard of the dispatch audio being released, and I knew people had been questioning what info the officers had when they arrived on the scene, so I posted it because it clears up that question.
I've heard this a lot locally speaking, only speaking in terms of the outcomes of the ones I can remember majority of the time no fault is found, proper procedure followed, etc. Sometimes it's not and even when it's not it doesn't mean police are faulted with an outcome that could have been avoided. Even when I talked about the difference in time between Gabby's parents last communication with her and filling a missing persons doesn't mean the outcome would have been any different (I think my only thought there was perhaps the body could have been found faster or that the disappearance of Brian something different may have happened there). Sometimes yes the police are faulted with something (though that doesn't mean criminally faulted).
so that's just double in there)
Well of course there is going to be a review of the incident! What do you expect the police department to say -- "Mind your own business???"
To the bolded. Moab police have said there was only one witness - Christopher. I posted information about this (but not sure exactly where it is at this point, buried somewhere in this thread).It was the first I’d heard of the dispatch audio being released, and I knew people had been questioning what info the officers had when they arrived on the scene, so I posted it because it clears up that question.
Who’s in a better position to evaluate the people involved? One could argue that the person who witnessed him hitting her had a clearer understanding of what happened over the officers who showed up after the fact, saw nothing firsthand, and were trying to piece together the story based on what the involved parties were willing, or not willing, to say based on their own motivations. Especially when one half of the involved parties, Gabby, couldn’t even really give a coherent description of what transpired. Most of her answers boiled down to “I don’t know what happened, I just know it’s my fault.” Oddly, some of the very few things she could say confidently, that Brian corroborated himself, were, 1) he was withholding her keys to her van, 2) he got in the driver’s seat and locked her out of her van, and 3) he grabbed her face. With these facts, it’s easy to imagine a scenario where he was threatening to drive off without her, whipping her anxiety into a frenzy as was probably his goal. The witness reporting that he was slapping/hitting her should’ve further put the spotlight on Brian as the agitator. But, because the police saw a calm, friendly guy joking and laughing and a crying girl who was willing to take 100% of the blame, they gave him travel tips and a ride to a free hotel for the night and wrote her off as mentally unstable.
We know the police got it wrong, but I’m not blaming them for not recognizing her as a victim of abuse at the time. I doubt their training gives them enough expertise to properly access mental health and/or domestic abuse cases in an hour while standing on the side of the road. A domestic violence counselor, however, would’ve seen right through this and would’ve been in a better position to talk to Gabby and set her up with resources. Instead of expecting police to sort out these types of complex situations, determine who is at fault, and issue citations/make arrests on the spot, perhaps it’d be better to shuttle the involved parties off to professionals who are better trained to understand these things and go from there.
I do think the police dropped the ball a few times. First, with the fact that they had been told the man was hitting the woman, yet they seemed to completely overlook that part by the time they were on the scene. Second, they called one of the witnesses, Christopher, while on the scene to hear his account directly. Christopher said he saw them physically engaged but couldn’t tell who was the aggressor, which the officers later used as evidence that Brian’s retelling of the incident checked out. But why didn’t the police call the other witness, the one who reported the man was hitting the woman? Would it have changed how the police handled this if the witness had insisted Brian was the aggressor? And third, they straight up missed Brian lying to them about not having a cell phone, which was his reason for why the argument escalated like it did. He literally pulled his phone out of his pocket in front of them and gave the officers his cell number after telling them he didn’t have one.
Of course.
If I recall, you are an attorney, correct?
Thanks. It’s very helpful to have this kind of input from the retired officers here and others who work with legalities, like yourself.
I know hindsight is 20/20 and also that it’s easy to make a mistake or have something slip by you in the moment, which is why I said I don’t blame the police in this situation even though they were wrong about who was ultimately the bigger victim in this relationship. And you’re right, police are trained to intervene, de-escalate, and investigate. They are not trained to assess mental health and domestic violence issues the way a professional in those fields would be, which is why it would be better if the handling of these situations — in regards to who’s at fault, what should be done in the short term, and recommendations and providing resources for the long term — were left up to someone more specialized in these areas.
The first couple articles that came up when I went to double check indicate there were two witnesses that contacted police in Moab.
Oh, but it did result in injury. The police took photos of Brian’s injuries on the scene.
Yes!
I'm not psychic, so I don't know who was the bigger aggressor or the most victimized person. I can't draw any conclusions like that from a one-hour video. All I know is that Gabby is dead. I don't know how she died, and neither does anyone else here.
There is NO IF. They knew -- they were very clearly told that by the dispatcher in the audio recordings that have been released.
Again, I personally don't know if there were two witness calls to 911 or only the one. I've seen news reports both ways, and both news reports and eyewitness reports are notoriously inaccurate.
I know all the facts aren’t in yet, but at this point I feel pretty comfortable saying the one who ended up dead was probably the bigger victim in that tumultuous relationship.
But supposedly Utah law doesn’t allow them discretion not to charge someone under the circumstances.
This was discussed on and around page 30 here.
