Tacoma police chief shoots wife, self

GIG HARBOR — Tacoma Police Chief David Brame apparently shot his estranged wife and then himself this afternoon, a day after her allegations of abuse were publicized in media reports.

The two were in critical condition at St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma, a nursing supervisor said.

Pierce County Sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said it did not appear that anyone else was involved.

"The probability is strong that the chief shot his wife and then himself," Troyer said.

The couple had been going through a divorce.

The shooting took place around 3:10 p.m. in the parking lot of a shopping center in this town northwest of Tacoma, Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said.

Brame rose through the ranks to become police chief in Tacoma, a city of 194,000, in January 2002.

On Friday, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that documents in the couple’s divorce case recounted a stormy, sometimes violent relationship.

Crystal Brame accused her husband of pointing his gun at her, trying to choke her and saying he "could snap my neck if he wanted to."

But Brame said he had been victimized in the relationship. He accused his wife of having a "ferocious temper" and being emotionally unstable.

In court papers, Brame said his wife scratched, bruised and pushed him during two fights in September 1996.

"As hard as it is to believe and as ashamed as I am of this fact, Mrs. Brame has physically abused me for a number of years, often in the presence of the children," said Brame, who is 6-foot-1 and weighs 175 pounds. Crystal Brame is 5 feet tall and weighs about 105 pounds.