POPE COUNTY, Minn. — Hundreds of people watched in silence as a procession of law enforcement vehicles returned the body of Pope County Sheriff's Deputy Joshua Owen to his hometown on Monday.
The vehicles accompanied Owen along the roughly 100-mile journey, but the pain and sadness extended many, many miles further.
"First of all, my heart goes out to Pope County," said Mark Wynn, a retired detective from Nashville, Tennesee. "I've lost four friends, all killed responding to domestic (violence) as an officer here in Nashville and it's devastating."
After retiring from the Nashville Police Department, Wynn dedicated himself to addressing concerns stemming from domestic violence. He has spent years training and consulting on domestic violence and sexual assault prevention and intervention for first responders, advocates, clinicians and other professionals.
"In the 16 countries that I've trained in, the language, the culture, the religion changes, but the profile and behavior of the defender is absolutely, spot-on, the same," Wynn said. "Domestic violence is very much a crime of power and control. The power is used to control and when they start losing control that's when they start fighting back."
Wynn said an increased understanding of those dynamics has helped lead to changes in the way agencies respond to domestic calls, including the practice of dispatching multiple officers.
He added some Minnesota agencies have also worked on ways to improve safety and better inform officers before they arrive.
"I know one of your model agencies, Brooklyn Park, does two or three lethality and risk assessments on every domestic violence offender so they can look at the potential of an assault or a death of an officer when they respond," Wynn said. "Minnesota, historically, is one of the most innovative states in the country around domestic violence. It's sort of the wellspring when we look at any kind of method around domestic violence, we come to Minnesota, so that means that Minnesota police are well trained and hold these offenders accountable to a high level."
But that still doesn't eliminate the potential for both dangerous and deadly encounters.
"When somebody is trying to leave, that really increases lethality for the victim and other people around," said Dr. Sarah Greenman, an associate professor of criminology at Hamline University.
Greenman, who spent her early career as an advocate for victims of domestic violence, has also been part of the effort to better understand the problem and how it impacts everyone from victims to officers.
Though this is the first officer line-of-duty death in Minnesota in more than a year, in 2021 alone, there were 26 victims of domestic violence homicides in Minnesota. Greenman spent several years serving on a domestic fatality review team in Hennepin County.
"That team sits down and reviews every domestic abuse fatality and talks about where the points are of intervention, and normally there is something that, not in a blaming way that you should have done this, but what could we do moving forward," she said. "You know, there are these places where there might be red flags along the way that, individually, you don't think too much, but in retrospect, a lot of times there could have been some intervention points along the way."
That work has helped lead to some recent successes in providing early intervention for partners, but Wynn says when confrontations and arrests are called for, firearms are posing an even bigger threat.
"The weaponry defeats a lot of the protective equipment the officers wear, and it's not unusual to see multiple officers killed recently," he said. "That's why, very often, you'll now see SWAT teams respond to the heavy arrest of these kinds of offenders. These calls are so, so dangerous for police, which means they are doubly dangerous for victims."
In response to that increased threat from firearms in recent years, Mark says he is hopeful that Minnesota, and his home state of Tennessee, join the growing list of states to pass "red flag" laws. The laws allow family members, law enforcement personnel or city or county attorneys to petition a court to have firearms removed from a person found to pose a significant danger to themselves or others.
Those wanting to seek help can reach out to the Minnesota Domestic Violence Crisis Line at (866)-223-1111, or the 24-hour National Domestic Violence Hotline at (800)-799-SAFE/(800)-787-3224 (TDD).
For a full list of resources, visit the link here.
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