Hypothetically speaking, what would you do if you left your gun safe open for three days, your three-year-old son gained access to a loaded gun and shot himself in the head? How would you respond to the police investigation? Would you STFU, talk to a lawyer, prepare a statement, own-up and accept your punishment? Not if you’re a cop without a conscience. “Following the shooting, [Clark County Sheriff’s Department Detective Ed] Owens and his wife persistently blamed the shooting on their 11-year-old. Reports said they thought she had opened the safe for the boy. They also thought she was showing signs of suicide and homicidal violence . . .”

However, other friends and doctors concluded she was a normal child experiencing grief from her brother’s death and isolation from her family.

Owens, according to reports, had the girl admitted to a hospital for treatment of mental illness following the shooting. With the intervention of the state’s Child Protective Services, the girl was released days later to stay with her great-grandmother in Vancouver. Then, the family planned for her to go to live with her father in Southern California.

On Oct. 27, 2010, Owens and his wife drove the girl to the airport. On the way there, they pulled the car over and ordered her to tell them what happened the night of the shooting, according to police reports. When she explained she fell asleep, Owens reportedly called her a (expletive) liar.

Owens’ wife allegedly slapped the girl and made threats that she would be hit with a belt if she didn’t confess, according to police reports. “Ed, give me your belt,” the woman said, according to police reports. Owens handed over his belt, though he later told investigators he didn’t know why she wanted it.

After the stepdaughter wouldn’t change her story, Owen’s wife then took the girl to a fast-food restaurant’s restroom. The two returned 45 minutes later, Owens said, and got back in the car. The girl then agreed to admit that she opened the safe. Owen’s wife recorded the alleged confession on her cellphone, according to the internal affairs investigation. The Owenses later gave investigators the tape as new evidence, but the investigators said they could tell the tape had been doctored.

Owens was reprimanded in the internal affairs investigation for not stepping in when his wife allegedly made threats against the girl, whose name was redacted from the report.

“Deputy Owens took an oath as a police officer to protect the innocent and to safeguard lives and property,” Horch wrote in the internal affairs report. “To the contrary, he did not safeguard (his stepdaughter), and was an active participant in the deception and intimidation against (his stepdaughter).”

-Courtesy of the (Vancouver, Washington) Columbian

To sum up from the Internal Affairs probe, Detective Owens negligently stored his firearms, lied to his brother officers about his son’s access to the weapons, and then tried to frame his young stepdaughter for manslaughter.

As a punishment, he’s been on vacation for the last 14 months and paid nearly $60,000 from my county’s coffers. While my community is cutting teachers and bus routes and library hours, Detective Ed Owens is receiving nearly $5,000 a month to do absolutely nothing.

Our county prosecutor says he can’t charge Owens with any crime; the alleged witness tampering (read: threatening his stepdaughter until she promised to take the fall for him) occurred in Portland, Oregon. The Portland D.A. declined to press charges, because Portland never charges or fires bad cops.

To call Detective Ownens an Irresponsible Gun Owner Of The Day is slightly misleading. If these published reports are even half true, he’s an irresponsible lying, vicious scumbag gun owner who terrorized and manipulated a little girl into taking the fall for him.

You could say Owen’s actions after the tragedy were the result of unfathomable grief. Not me. Taking responsibility for any firearms-related irresponsibility is a big part of being a gun owner. And a decent human being.

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27 COMMENTS

  2. I never thought something so stupid and insanely…out of this world would actually hold water long enough to not get the perp in question fried/needled/drug out into the street and shot.

  3. My father was a Detroit cop for over thirty years. Although we didn’t get along often he was as honest and principled as anyone I’ve ever known.

    What this incident demonstrates is the collapse of a society, the result of the reckless empowerment of gov’t, instilling in its agents the arrogance of “authority” that strips away morality.

    I have no doubt my father would have investigated this, written an honest report, and been outraged that this man was not fired and jailed pending trial.

    • “What this incident demonstrates is the collapse of a society, the result of the reckless empowerment of gov’t, instilling in its agents the arrogance of “authority” that strips away morality.”. Yes, sadly, it does.

      • Nah. Even in the “good old days,” there were plenty of scumbags in the world. Always have been, always will be.

  5. No offence to other honest leos but a pig is a pig is a pig. This guy doesn’t deserve to wear the uniform or be out of jail for the rest oh his life

    • All of which may be true, but none of which does anything to explain why they, or their bretheren in Portland, continue to tolerate the powers-that-be that allow the pig to continue to soil them all by his continued presence in and on their force.

      If they really and truly cared about their reputation, and the perceptions of the populace, they too would demand justice.

      That they do not speaks volumes.

      • “All of which may be true, but none of which does anything to explain why they, or their bretheren in Portland, continue to tolerate the powers-that-be that allow the pig to continue to soil them all by his continued presence in and on their force.”

        A: One word….UNIONS

  6. This makes me absolutely sick. This mans irreponsibility caused his childs death, and to blame it on onother child? Vigilanty justice looks better and better.

  8. The uniform used to require honor in its wearing. Unfortunately this __________________________ (fill in the blank, my list of adjectives is way to long) bastard has dishonored it. He should be publicly stripped to his shorts and hung by the neck. And as for being a father to do what he did be beaten like a pinata.

  9. I guess I’m glad to be old. When I retired a Deputy kept his service revolver on top of the refrigerator to keep it safe from children too young to know what a firearm really is. By the time the kids started school they’d learned and were safe around the guns.

    In my old Dept. a deputy who did such a thing would have been fired, his two levels of appeal were the elected Sheriff and then the County Commissioners’ Court. The appeal would have failed and unless he already had his full twenty in, no pension at all. And he’d have been on his way to Huntsville for a nice long vacation at very little taxpayer expense.

    My pay wasn’t anywhere near that clown’s and my pension isn’t near as large as those Yankee boys get but, Hell, I still have my self respect. Of course my county didn’t have enough money to throw around like that. I remember when a new Deputy, working part time got a whopping nine bucks an hour, and that was in the late ’90s. “Course, after he made full time and they took his training wheels off he went up a little. The trouble is that if the pols get too much money everything gets political. When the Sheriff handled the politics, the Chief Deputy handled the law enforcement and we Deputies did our damnedest to lock up the bad guys, or at least chase them off to the big cities.

  12. Did this cop think that a bogus story deflecting to an 11 year old absolved him of responsibility? Is there some sort of legal mumbo jumbo loophole plan he had?

    Many cop unions today are worse than a 1970’s UAW local when it comes to protecting thugs…

  13. Law enforcement attracts several different personality types. One such is the criminal personality that just happens to land a law enforcement job before racking up a criminal record. After that the psychological tendencies of that individual can find an outlet for a long while under the guise and protection of the badge. Eventually it comes to a head and is exposed.

    Psychological testing is an attempt to identify them before they get hired but like most things it isn’t foolproof. What should operate better than it seems to is the response of the law enforcement establishment once it is known that an undesirable has got over the wall.

  14. And the wife sides with her husband over the well-bring of her own daughter… Do they make dual- electric chairs? So they can go to hell together?

  15. We recently had the Commander of the Jail Deputy in our county beat his wife up while he was high on alcohol and drugs. Not as uncommon as what people think.

  18. What is wrong with people these days? Seems like people cant take that they are not perfect and have to blame imperfections on others!

  19. I get sick to my stomach when people treat their own children like shit. I know I should MMOB and worry about my own self but this is just so wrong. If they do these things to their own kids, what about the rest of us? Do you think this cop can be trusted to protect your rights in the slightest?
    And a child is dead on top of it. I don’t leave my safe unlocked even for a minute unless I’m standing in front of it.

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