A Persistant Question

in memory of Karla Ember

I want to ask my question again.  Why did  the Tucson Police not  arrest Richard Wojcik, when they had the opportunity, a hour before he fatally stabbed Karla Ember? 

 

On that tragic Friday night, Karla was returning home from the synagogue where she was the cantorial soloist, and she saw Richard Wojcik, her ex-boyfriend, near her house.  She called the police, because he was already a proven danger to her.  The police responded and soon found him, but did not arrest him, and I need to ask again why not.  Why did they not arrest him?  According to the reports in the press, and in the superior courthouse library, the police escorted him away from her property and issued an injunction that he not return. 

 

But this just seems to me, and to other people I know, a missed opportunity to have prevented a crime.  There was already a restraining order in place.  He had already served time in jail for aggravated domestic assault against Karla.  He had been released from jail, and had threatened her, and had vandalized her car.  She had obtained a restraining order which I read in the law library, on their computer, and it said he was prohibited from coming near her, or her property, or her places of employment, or her daughter, or her daughter's school, or property.

 

So he was already in violation of the restraining order against him.  Why was he not arrested?  Did he snow the police officers?  Were they empathetic with him?  Did he convince them he was harmless, so they let him go, and then, an hour later, he came back, broke into Karla's home, and stabbed her, in the chest.  She never regained consciousness and died five days later.

 

What was the content of the conversation the police had with him?  What was their basis for deciding to let him go?

 

In Santa Barbara more recently, the police interviewed a young man in the doorway of his apartment, and he snowed them, and they did not enter the apartment where they would have seen the weapons he would soon use to perpetrate multiple murders, at a sorority house, at the university.  The first coverage of this Santa Barbara debacle reported that one of the officers had declared the subject to be  "a wonderful person."  Clearly they were snowed, and negligent in their investigation.

 

Did something like that occur with Richard Wojcik?   What happened that they missed an opportunity to save a life, that of Karla Ember, whom I knew.  I used to be a member of the synagogue at which she was the cantorial soloist.  Her voice and her musical leadership  enhanced my prayer experience on many a Friday night. 

 

Her death was part of a murder spike in Tucson, and then four months later, the attempted assassination of Gabby Giffords occurred, and I personally was overwhelmed during this entire period.