Time to face the truth about violence

It’s human nature to compare things and draw juxtapositions. Comparing current experiences to the past is a way to deepen one’s understanding of the world.

So please tell us what kind of understanding we should draw from the following events.

In January, a viewing gallery packed with animal lovers dripping with outrage greeted Frank Rich, the Willow-area dog breeder who’d arrived in court to receive his sentence for starving more than 100 dogs, several to the point of death.

But on Wednesday, when the trial of Andrew Thomas began in Palmer, the viewing gallery was empty. Sure, there were a few attorneys and courthouse-types seated there, and the well was full of attorneys, a judge and a jury. But there were no observers from the public and no signs of protest.

Those dog lovers who packed Rich’s hearing all proclaimed themselves advocates for those unfortunate animals who couldn’t speak for themselves.

But Susanna Braden, the woman Thomas stabbed and beat over the head with a sledgehammer and left dead on a cabin floor, also lacks a voice. And a gallery full of impassioned advocates interceding on her behalf.

Seeing the differences in the way the public responded to these two cases is a striking rebuke of our priorities as a community and a state.

Here’s another.

Periodically in this space we take on the issue of domestic violence. We agonize over Alaska’s sky-high abuse rates. We lament the steady stream of battered women and assaultive men who we seem to ignore, look past, or implicitly accept as part of life.

We can count on one hand the number of email, phone and online comments we’ve receive when we published our most recent editorial decrying domestic violence and sexual assault.

Compare that stony silence to the deluge of calls and emails that greeted our skepticism on the subject of whether Alaska’s laws were soon to be tossed out in favor of Sharia Law.

Or the dozens of calls and comments generated by a local work of art that set some high-schoolers tittering.

We expect that this editorial will be similarly, received. People will call or write to comment on the Warrior Within or Rep. Carl Gatto’s proposed bill, but will be utterly silent on this case of domestic violence that was so brutal it left Susanna Braden dead and seemingly forgotten by her community.

We know from sitting in the courtroom as the crimes against Susanna Braden were detailed how hard it is to wrap our minds around crimes like domestic violence — the images, the stories, the unthinking, unrelenting violence.

While we appreciate that the explicit details of such crimes that come out in a courtroom are very unsettling, we think more of our neighbors should share in this teaching moment.

It is our sincerest hope that Susanna Braden’s murder is a call to arms for Alaskans to organize ourselves to fight as hard to protect all women and children as we did for Frank Rich’s dogs.