Last September, I offered some observations about the Moab, Utah traffic stop where officers encountered Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie. The stop took place August 12, 38 days before Petito’s body was found on September 19. After examination, it was ruled a homicide and Laundrie a person of interest.
An attorney could not help but wonder if the stop had been handled with more sagacity, the deaths of both Petito (homicide) and Laundrie (suicide) might have been avoided. The attorney filed a formal complaint raising questions about how the incident was handled.
Captain Brandon Ratcliffe of the Price City Police Department in Utah found that the officers who responded to the August 12 incident made two mistakes, but he denied that anyone could determine if the tragedy that followed could have been avoided. Ratcliffe wrote that it was “an impossible question to answer.” He said blame for Petito’s death rests with “the person or persons directly responsible … weeks after and several hundred miles away from their August 12th incident in Moab.”
Background
On August 12, 2021, the Moab, Utah police stopped a sleeper van that was speeding and driving erratically. The van crossed the yellow line and hit the curb.
The police found a male driver, Brian Laundrie, 23, and a female passenger, Gabrielle Petito, 22. Petito was visibly upset. Laundrie was calm, cooperative, even deferential.
The stop was recorded by the officer’s bodycam. At the conclusion, Petito was given the keys to the van and told where to drive and stop for the night. Petito told police she rarely drove the van and was uncomfortable doing so. The officer assured her it was not too far. She should go and take a hot shower.
The camera then continued to record as the officer drove Laundrie to a motel. The whole recording, including interview and private conversation with Laundrie, was one hour and 15 minutes. During the ride to the motel, the officer said, “She [Petito] seems a lot like my wife … my wife has bad anxiety. Sometimes it builds up and it just happens.”
The officer shared that before he was a policeman, he was a long-haul trucker and sometimes took his wife along. He compared it to the Petito-Laundrie road trip in a sleeper van. The policeman described it as being “caged up” with his wife. He said that when his wife had an anxiety attack, a hot shower and medication helped. He stopped short of recommending medication for Petito but told Laundrie when his wife took medication, it made his life easier.
According to communications from Petito to her family between August 12–25, the couple reconnected the next day and continued on their road trip. On September 7, six days after the Petito’s last communication, the family reported her missing.
What did the police investigation find? Inadequate documentation.
Laundrie blamed Petito for erratic driving, claiming she grabbed his arm. Petito denied grabbing his arm but said she might have slapped him, but the officers’ reports lacked details or documentation of any injury to Laudrie.
The review found that Petito appeared to have a scratch on her cheek, and Petito told officers Laundrie grabbed her face. But that does not appear in the report nor are her injuries documented.
At some point, Ratcliffe found, there was a 911 caller who reported “the gentleman slapping the girl” before the couple got in the van and drove away. No interview of the caller was conducted, and no report filed.
Ratcliffe concludes, “Both written reports are missing significant details as it relates to the who, what, when, where, and how of this incident.”
Misclassification
Ratcliffe found that one officer wrote the incident was “more accurately categorized as a mental/emotional health ‘break’ than a domestic assault.” That coincides with the officer’s comments to Laundrie. In the end, the incident was characterized as disorderly conduct, and the officers told Petito and Laundrie that no one would be charged.
The review found that the incident should have been classified as domestic violence, and Petito should have been charged. Then the officers would have been required to make an arrest or issue a citation, which would be sent to prosecutors.
The review recommended that the two officers, Eric Pratt and Daniel Scott Robbins, be placed on probation, and that the department offer additional training and policy changes — including a policy that photographs be taken of the injuries of everyone involved in incidents.
Questions
Is there is a connection between events that led to the traffic stop and the eventual deaths of both young people? The obvious connection is increasing violence leading to death in a relationship that was already violent on or before August 12.
According to the National Sexual Violence Recourse Center, 734,630 women were raped in one year and only about 25 percent were reported to police, down from 40 percent the preceding year. The causes are police mischaracterizing the women reporting as dishonest or unstable. Lack of reporting is understandable when the women reporting violence are seen by police and others as liars or insane (a.k.a. “bad anxiety”).
According to the Domestic Violence Prevention Center, in 2020, 2,000 women were murdered by a man with whom they had a relationship. Ninety-three percent of the time a man kills a woman; only 7 percent of the time does a woman kill a man. As the police on scene placed Petito in the back seat of the patrol car and told Laundrie “You’re not in trouble,” were they aware of the statistics? Laundrie blamed the erratic driving on Petito for “grabbing and pulling the wheel,” but she denied touching it. Though he was driving, she was blamed by police and admonished. Was he believed and she deemed to be lying? Sadly, when Radcliffe filed his report, he placed blame on Petito and said she, not Laundrie, should have been charged. If no injury was documented on either person, an eye-witness account of him hitting her was not followed up, and the wheel-pulling was a he said/she said, on what basis would anyone charge Petito?
After her homicide and his disappearance (before Laundrie’s body was found), North Port, Florida police stated the obvious: “Two people went on a trip, and only one returned home.”
Conclusion
Both the police on scene and the incident reviewer blamed Petito, and yet it is Petito who was murdered and Laundrie who committed suicide — often seen as a confession of guilt. Maybe it is time to accept that the police are not the right people to investigate sex crimes and other violence against women. The police are not trained, prepared, or predisposed for what they are being asked to do: sort out a domestic disturbance. Just as police are untrained and unprepared to deal with a psychotic break or other forms of mental illness and distress. We must stop asking police to answer these calls alone. It takes a team. A trained therapist needs the policeman for protection and procedural consultation, and the policeman needs the therapist to diagnose the type and extent of distress, and to separate the perpetrator from the victim before anyone decides what should happen next. Sadly, both the initial stop and the procedural review reinforce that.
