Despite Brutal Murder of Randy Allen, Police Chiefs Give Female Abusers a Free Pass

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Contact: Rebecca Stewart

Telephone: 513-479-3335

Despite Brutal Murder of Randy Allen, Police Chiefs Give Female Abusers a Free Pass

WASHINGTON / August 9, 2021 – Residents of LaPorte, Indiana remain in shock following the July 27 murder of Randy Allen by his wife, Thessalonica. After the man announced his decision to leave the relationship, she shot him with a hand gun, then used an axe to dismember his body and stuff it into a tote bag. She then enlisted the help of her two children to dispose of the body. When police searched the apartment, they found a handwritten to-do list that described how the woman was planning to kill her husband (1).

Allen’s two teenage children told police that on the night of the fatal shooting, Randy had been helping them with their homework on a computer. Although the woman claimed that her former husband “beats me,” the children stated there had been no physical altercation. Allen now faces more than a half-dozen charges including murder, abuse of a corpse, and child neglect.

The gruesome late-night murder, covered by hundreds of local and national media outlets (2), reveals how female-perpetrated domestic violence has become a serious problem in our nation. Government reports confirm that domestic violence by women is far more widespread than partner violence by men. Each year there are 4.2 million male victims of physical domestic violence, compared to 3.5 million female victims (3), according to the Centers for Disease Control (3).

Despite these facts, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) is planning to sponsor a train-the-trainer program that ignores news reports and government surveys. Titled Considerations for Small Agency and Rural Response to Violence Against Women, the IACP describes the program this way (4):

“This 4-session, interactive virtual training for law enforcement instructors will instill deeper understanding of response to violence against women crimes” [emphases added]
“This 4-session virtual training offers a unique opportunity to: Enhance existing academy training curricula on law enforcement response to violence against women crimes and co-occurring and interconnected crimes.”
The August 10 session is titled, “Realities of Violence Against Women”

The program description says nothing about domestic violence against males, thereby promoting the illegal gender profiling of men.

Gender profiling is especially harmful to Black men, who are burdened by decades-old stereotypes. According to a recent DOJ report to Congress, domestic violence arrest policies may “produce disproportionate arrest rates among marginalized populations, including people of color, and particularly African American men.” (5)

Americans are disturbed by the epidemic of female-perpetrated violence, and outraged by the practice of police profiling, which violates the Constitution’s promise of equal protection under the law. The Coalition to End Domestic Violence demands that the IACP cancel its Violence Against Women program and revise the course so it is based on science, not ideology.

Citations:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/police-indiana-woman-shot-husband-used-axe-to-remove-legs/2021/08/04/fba73f66-f565-11eb-a636-18cac59a98dc_story.html
https://www.google.com/search?q=Thessalonica+allen+murder+indiana&oq=Thessalonica+allen+murder+indiana&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i160.5459j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/2015data-brief508.pdf Tables 9 and 11.
https://form.jotform.com/211755663360052?fbclid=IwAR3ebR6YL3kxZJ0560x8-zh842urqHqbWoC7I0OidEsrqHg1sNbfOvJEVic The IACP program is supported by Department of Justice Grant No. 2017-TA-AX-K051.
https://www.justice.gov/ovw/page/file/1292636/download , page 22.