When Mark Wynn was 7 years old, he plotted a murder. The target was his stepfather. With his 12-year-old brother helping him, Wynn emptied a can of Black Flag bug spray into the bottle of Mad Dog 20-20 that his alcoholic stepfather kept by his bed. The two Wynn brothers hoped that the drunken Dallas crop duster would swill the poisonous concoction and die, ending a horrifying streak of child and spousal abuse the man had been inflicting on his family for years.
”My brother and I had seen this Black Flag bug spray commercial on television, this black-and-white cartoon,“ recalls Wynn, the youngest of five siblings, who is now a lieutenant in the Metro Police Department’s Domestic Violence Unit. ”And we knew if it could kill roaches it could kill him because roaches are indestructible, especially in Texas.“
Creeping into their stepfather’s bedroom while he was asleep, the two boys placed the tainted bottle of wine on their stepfather’s nightstand. When he awoke from his inebriated slumber, he grabbed the wine bottle filled with the toxic substance and walked into the family’s modest living room. ”We looked like, I guess, two little vultures in a Far Side cartoon, you know, waiting on him to die. But this guy drank all of it and it didn’t affect him.“
As it turned out, not much affected the monstrous stepfather—not the bottles of rubbing alcohol or shoe polish he would occasionally drink, not the beatings from police officers who were periodically called to the house to contain his madness, not even a baseball bat blow to the head Wynn’s mother once gave him after he attacked her particularly brutally. ”There are some guys you could cut in two and sew back together and they’d be fine. He was one of those,“ Wynn says.
As he ruminates about the experience now, Wynn wonders how his life might have been different had the Black Flag potion been deadly. ”They would have arrested me and my brother,“ he says. ”We would have gone to juvenile, we would have been charged with homicide, we would have been mixed into a population with older men, we probably would have been raped.“ Then, he says, ”We would have probably graduated into the adult correctional system and I’d be in Huntsville, Texas, right now in the state penitentiary and would be one hell of a predator.“
Thankfully, none of that came to pass. When Wynn was 13, his family waited for their stepfather to pass out one evening. Then, they quietly loaded up their 1962 Chevy with as many possessions as they could, including two dogs and Wynn’s gold fish in a Kool-Aid pitcher. Fleeing to Columbia, Tenn., they hid out with relatives. ”I’ll never forget it,“ he says. ”We left the furniture, we left the house, we left everything, and we ran.“
Wynn’s early life is not the stuff of warm Christmas memories. But the 10 years of abuse he, his mom, and four siblings suffered at their stepfather’s hands—without adequate intervention from law enforcement agencies—have put the 43-year-old police officer in a position to end the same cycle of terror for victims in Nashville and all over the world. For his incredible determination in ending domestic abuse, and for the strides that have been made locally in reducing domestic abuse, Wynn is the Nashville Scene’s 1998 ”Nashvillian of the Year.“
With 35 full-time staffers, Nashville’s Domestic Violence Unit is one of the largest of its kind in the United States. The program, only four years old, has quickly become a national—and even international— model for officials seeking answers to the problem of domestic violence. As a domestic violence survivor himself, Wynn is perhaps the most influential and inspiring member of the department’s unit. It’s not too much to say that the 20-year veteran of the Metro Police Department—despite his modesty and his tendency to give credit to others— has become the Domestic Violence Unit’s star.
Pleasant and engaging despite his early life of violence, Wynn has traveled all over the world—to Russia, Ireland, and Germany, just to name a few countries—testified before Congress, and even delivered a speech at the White House as an expert on domestic violence. For more than 10 years, he has delivered lectures, presided over symposiums, and given training sessions at police departments in huge metropolitan areas like Chicago and New York as part of a federal effort to better define domestic violence and prosecute abusers. Ironically, Wynn was on the road for years training other police departments how to start domestic violence units when Nashville’s own police department didn’t have such a unit.
”One of the reasons that they [federal officials] asked me to talk to police chiefs and judges and prosecutors is that I can put domestic violence in a historical perspective,“ Wynn says. ”I relate to people what this crime really is, and the way I do that is I just tell them but for the grace of God and a strong mother I could really be standing up here today speaking to you as someone who’s spent 20 years in prison and not 20 years in law enforcement.“
”If you understand the impact it has on families, you know that it’s learned behavior and fathers pass it on to sons. We’re paying the price today of yesterday ignoring it. That’s why our prisons are full today.“
Wynn was just 5 years old when he told his mom he wanted to be a police officer. As a child, he says, he saw his stepfather throw her out of a car at 60 miles an hour, and watched him knock her to the floor unconscious as he came home from work. Early on, Wynn also became an expert in how to cover up the abuse to keep from aggravating the man further. At that time, there was no hope that police intervention would protect the family.
”We did what we were told to do. We lied, and we were indirect, and we deceived everybody because if we didn’t we knew we would die. When you live at death’s door—and we did for 10 years—you’ll do anything to stay alive and that includes putting on a false face.“
Still, Wynn says, his mother promised him that something good would become of him and he believed her. ”There was an element in my family where she countered all the negative brainwashing,“ he says. Even at that young age, Wynn says, he knew something was wrong with the law enforcement and criminal justice systems. He’s making a difference now, he says, because he’s ”someone who lived in it and watched ineffective law enforcement at a time when women were really considered just property, and domestic violence wasn’t even defined.“
What Wynn brings to the table is an understanding of how an issue like domestic violence has so many ramifications. ”When you go to school as a child, and you’re worried that you’re going to die when you get home that evening, you’re really not concentrating much on doing a book report. This is what children go through today. That element hasn’t changed any. What has changed today is that there are people who understand it and have taken the government—which is supposed to work for the taxpayer and hasn’t in the past—and are finally filling that void.“
Indeed, the numbers show Metro really is starting to make some progress in addressing the issue. In 1993, the year before Mayor Phil Bredesen announced creation of the Domestic Violence Unit, there were 25 homicides in Nashville directly attributed to domestic abuse. In 1996, that number was down to 15. So far this year, there have been just 12 murders related to domestic abuse. ”I’d like to think that has something to do with the work we’re doing,“ Wynn says. ”But I’d like that number to be zero.“
Publicly, Bredesen and his wife, Andrea Conte, have been credited with much of Metro’s success in the area of domestic violence. Without the mayor’s political backing, Wynn might still be preaching solutions outside Nashville even while his own city wasn’t addressing the problem. But aside from money, the efforts here are working because they are coordinated. Domestic violence detectives and counselors work together on cases. The district attorney’s office is quick to prosecute abusers, and specific judges have been assigned to handle the caseloads. Sheriff Gayle Ray has also established a rehabilitation program for batterers inside the jail.
”Every piece supports the other,“ Wynn says. ”The police are responsible for taking the women out of harm’s way and bringing a strong case against the perpetrator in court. The court system must hand down strong convictions. It’s a chain of events.“
Carran Daughtrey, a prosecutor and supervisor in the district attorney’s office, says it helps that the prosecutors and detectives are communicating. ”We’re all sort of on a first-name basis, which means a lot of information gets exchanged,“ she says.
To convict more abusers, Metro’s Domestic Violence Unit has been helped by a new ”domestic violence probable cause“ ruling by the General Sessions Court. This means police officers do not have to wait for a victim to press charges. Instead, they can make an arrest simply if they are convinced an abuser has been involved in domestic violence. What has also helped the domestic violence unit is the district attorney’s aggressive ”no drop“ policy. The no drop policy permits officers to proceed with investigating a domestic violence case, and to bring it to prosecution, with or without the cooperation of the victim.
Beyond that, more resources dedicated to helping victims and prosecuting criminals are available. In 1993, for example, the Metro Police Department received about 18,000 reports of domestic violence incidents, but there was essentially only one detective doing follow-up research on the victims. Now, there are about 22,000 domestic abuse cases reported in a given year in Nashville, but 22 detectives follow up on those cases, and a staff of counselors assists the victims.
”In the past, you saw these big gaps in the response,“ Wynn says. ”The victims hit a gap, and they couldn’t bridge it.“
Aside from stinging memories of abuse, and the incredible understanding he brings to the issue, what may make Mark Wynn so good at his job is his sense of righteous indignation. It is simply a part of his character.
When Wynn graduated from high school, he decided he wanted to become a reporter. One day he went to see the former publisher of the Columbia Herald, Sam Kennedy, who hired him, but not as a reporter. Kennedy put Wynn to work for three months cleaning the printing press. ”I literally got ink in my blood,“ he says.
Then one day Kennedy came to him and told him to show up at work the next day with a coat and tie. For two and a half years, Wynn covered the police beat. ”I was one of those reporters who could get the news but putting it down on paper was a completely different story.“
One thing the assignment did was convince him he wanted to be a police officer. In Columbia, he was told he would have to wait until he was 25 to join the force. A friend told him about a sheriff’s deputy job that was available in Wichita, Kansas, so he packed up and went west until he got a job as an officer in Nashville.
Wynn says it was his newspaper stint that gave him a healthy sense of how government should work. ”I’ve looked inside government as a reporter and said, åWait a minute. You’ve screwed this up.’ “
Despite all the gains in Nashville, Wynn acknowledges that there’s a lot left to do in the area of domestic violence. For starters, certain populations simply won’t report the crime. Internationals, gays, lesbians, and even more affluent victims are less likely to report abuse than others.
Also, Metro’s police department, like many others, is still male-dominated, and making strides against abuse oftentimes requires a pluralistic approach. ”Only now are our police departments beginning to look like the community,“ Wynn says. ”I mean, there was a time in Tennessee when you couldn’t get a job as a cop unless you were over six feet tall and basically you were white and male.“
The image of the young, white cowboy cop still may be keeping certain victims from reporting violence, he says. ”I mean, why call the police when a police officer is going to make fun of you because you’re a man and you happen to be gay and your partner has assaulted you?“
If a police department is not ”clued“ into diversity, Wynn says, victims aren’t going to call. ”Why would they call? We’ve got to do better in these areas.“
Until then, Wynn says, he’s committed to working on the problem and traveling around the world to help other departments emulate Nashville’s successes.
”I know this sounds strange,“ he says. ”But I’m almost glad about what happened to me. I think things happen for a reason. I believe in predestiny. And as long as I can keep my eye on my past and stay true to what I think should be done, I’ve got a mission.“
In Good Company
Previous ”Nashvillian of the Year“ winners:
1989: Joyce Harris and Suzanne Brown, instructors at the Caldwell Early Childhood Center
1990: Andy Shookhoff, then-juvenile court judge
1991: Mayor Phil Bredesen
1992: David Satcher, then-president, Meharry Medical College
1993: Gordon Bonnyman, staff attorney, Legal Services of Middle Tennessee
1994: Barry Scott, actor
1995: Henry Foster, then-nominee, U.S. surgeon general
1996: Metro Police Chief Emmett Turner
1997: Andrea Conte, president, You Have the Power Inc.
Cal Turner Jr., chairman and CEO, Dollar General Corp.
