Bad Tacoma Top Cop, David Brame

Most people don't know about David Brame unless they live in Western Washington, but he makes the top of my list of bad cops. Mind you, I am from Los Angeles, I lived through the L.A. riots, believe the hype, L.A. cops are no joke; at least that was the case back in the day.

Perhaps living under a microscope for a while has changed their evil ways, but somehow I doubt it. Mark Furman is a prime example of how embarrassing LAPD is with their rogue, racist cops. So, you have to understand that I never expected to run into corrupt cops when I moved to the small berg of Tacoma Washington.

On December 28, 2001 Ray Corpuz, Tacoma City Manager, appoints Davie Brame as Tacoma's 46th police chief. On January 15 Brame appointed Catherine Woodward as assistant chief in Tacoma. The rest is history.

The news came on April 26th, 2003, of the murder/suicide by David Brame. He shot his wife and then himself in a small shopping center in the town of Gig Harbor. Brame had met his wife in the parking lot to drop of the children from an obvious visitation. He told the children to stay in the car and he went to have a conversation with his wife.

Witnesses said they heard shouting and then the shots. He had shot Crystal Brame in the head and then himself in the head. A bystander had to grab the little girl before she got to her mother. Both children were kept from their parents until the police arrived. Brame died a few hours later. Crystal was flown to Harbor View Trauma Center and while she hung on for a while, but ultimately she died.

What ensued was an absolute soap opera of epic proportions. The assistant chief of police was Catherine Woodard. There were rumors that she was personally "seeing" Chief Brame. Living in Tacoma, I watched Seattle/Tacoma area news and that night on the six o'clock news Assistant Chief Woodard was point blank asked, "Were you intimate with Chief Brame?" She answered "No". Later it was determined that this was a complete lie.

On closer examination it was discovered that Brame had very erratic behavior and he also had the taste for kinky relationships. He liked to "swing" and when Catherine Woodard and he were lovers, he persuaded her to try to convince his wife to do a threesome with himself and Assistant Chief Woodard. He convinced Crystal to called Woodard and just talk about getting together. What followed was a difficult conversation between the two. Crystal ultimately refused to have anything to do with this sexual proposal her husband had made. I think her answer probably sounded like "Hell No!"

Crystal Brame was dealing with a real Nut job. He would send her flowers posing as an unknown admirer and then use it as an excuse to fly into a rage about her seeing another man. Apparently there was some abuse to follow, but the most frightening thing about all this is he was a cop. Who was Crystal supposed to go to about her abusive husband, the cops? He was a cop; in fact he was the Top Cop.

She finally moved out and lived with her parents and was in the process of divorcing his sorry butt. It was at the end of that long and ugly divorce that Crystal met Brame in the parking lot of a Gig Harbor shopping center. As they sat in Crystal's car arguing, David Brame pulled her head into his lap and shot her in the head. He then shot himself in the head.

Can you imagine what these children to go through? These little kids had to experience seeing their parents die violent deaths. I have often thought that it would be better for the children if the media would move on quickly from this disaster. We all feel deeply for the children but unfortunately we must examine the system that allowed Brame to spin out of control.

David Brame was a cop as was his father. It was determined early in his career that Brame was unpredictable and erratic in his behavior. He was accused of a rape in 1988 and it was somehow kept quiet. When it came time for a Police Chief appointment he was the popular choice. City Manager, Ray Corpuz, made the decision to suppress the information that Brame had a questionable a psych evaluation from the department and he also had a rape charge suppressed somewhere in his past.

During his reign in Tacoma Brame worked hard to put "his people" in significant positions moving any one that didn't go along with him out of the department. In the end he had built his own little posse. These fellas are still in charge now but I am sure they are all good cops. I would like to think Brame was a rare case, but apparently this type of abuse of power does happen, so there should be a body of police to govern the police. Something perhaps that is a little more effective than the traditional and current means of managing rogue cop behavior.

More Bad Cops in my next report.