#9 - Denise Keane-Barnett London police officer Sandeep
Khunkhun was fired from her position after her failure to investigate domestic abuse claims
led to Denise Keane-Barnett’s death on April the 16th of 2020. The victim had contacted authorities
about her former partner, 45-year-old Damien Simmons, whom she accused of assaulting her on
multiple occasions, as well as hiding a camera in one of the bedroom’s light bulbs to spy on her.
Khunkhun was assigned to the case, and 36-year-old Keane-Barnett reportedly expressed her desire to
press charges against the man. However, the officer repeatedly cancelled interviews,
neglected to directly investigate Simmons, and didn’t offer the victim any safety measures to
prevent further instances of violence. Khunkhun officially closed the inquiry just 10 days
before Simmons set Keane-Barnett on fire and burned her alive. The victim was rushed to the
ER with severe burn wounds, but died shortly thereafter. Simmons was consequently sentenced
to 32 years behind bars in October of 2020. An investigation was launched into Khunkhun’s
actions by an independent disciplinary panel, which concluded that the police officer was,
in fact, guilty of gross misconduct, leading to her dismissal from the force.
#8 - Casey Brittle On October the 3rd of 2010, British woman Casey
Brittle was beaten to death by her ex-boyfriend, 27-year-old Sanchez Williams, after her repeated
calls for help were ignored by the authorities. Over the span of two years, 21-year-old Brittle
had contacted Nottingham police about her partner’s violent tendencies upwards of 11 times,
but officers failed to intervene on her behalf. Williams, who had a long history of arrests for
other offenses, received multiple warnings for his outbursts against Brittle, but no domestic
violence charges were ever filed, in spite of the overwhelming evidence of abuse and stalking. The
victim’s young daughter was present at the scene during the violent assault that claimed her life,
but the child was fortunately left unharmed. After news of Brittle’s murder became public,
six police officers admitted to neglect of duty, but none of them were discharged. One
was written up, three others received management advice, while the two remaining men suffered no
repercussions whatsoever. An autopsy conducted by medical examiners determined that the victim had
suffered 27 separate injuries to the face and head, inflicted by some sort of blunt object.
#7 - Ashley Barlow Texas resident Ashley Barlow was shot to death
by her estranged husband, Terry, after asking him for a divorce on October the 23rd of 2021.
Ashley’s family told local police that the couple had undergone a recent separation and that Terry,
then aged 53, had been abusive for most of their marriage. The victim’s sister indicated that the
37-year-old woman had voiced concerns about her husband’s escalating pattern of violence,
and that she felt her life might be in danger. Images that investigators retrieved from a store’s
security camera showed the man confronting his wife and a second individual, angrily screaming
at them before pulling out a gun. The recording showed Terry driving away before soon returning,
at which point he proceeded to chase his former partner while firing the weapon in her direction,
eventually killing her. Ashley’s companion reportedly escaped the
attack unharmed. Terry again drove away from the scene, then returned soon after
and surrendered to the police. Following his arrest, the man refused to plead guilty,
rejecting a plea bargain that would have sentenced him to 50 years in prison in lieu of a full-scale
murder trial. Terry faced a possible sentence of 99 years to life if convicted by a jury.
#6 - Joshua Fitzpatrick 36-year-old Arizona resident Joshua Fitzpatrick
died on March the 31st of 2018, as a direct result of police negligence during a home invasion. The
victim’s wife, Katrina Smith, had contacted 911 after Curtis Bagley had broken into the family’s
Phoenix residence. Smith hid underneath the bed while she spoke with the operator, but was unaware
that her husband had been stabbed multiple times by the intruder. Although police arrived at the
scene within minutes and immediately apprehended Bagley, they failed to perform a sweep of the
house for over 20 minutes. Body cam footage showed the responding officers joking with the suspect
and blowing chewing gum bubbles while Fitzpatrick bled to death on the other side of the front
door. In a subsequent lawsuit, Smith accused the police department of causing her extreme emotional
distress and directly leading to her husband’s death. Her lawyers also denounced the city of
Phoenix for neglectfully releasing 38-year-old Bagley from prison two weeks prior to the attack,
and failing to provide him with proper treatment for his diagnosed mental ailments. Arizona
authorities ultimately agreed to pay the victim’s family $2 million in compensation for their
consequential shortcomings. #5 - Linda Vilika
After failure to investigate abuse accusations led to Linda Vilika’s death at the hands of her
estranged husband on August the 11th of 2019, British police officer Finley Clark was found
guilty of misconduct in connection to the case. 41-year-old Vilika had contacted Essex authorities
over threatening messages sent by her former partner, Wilfred Jacob, whom she also accused
of planting recording devices inside her home. Officer Clark, who responded to the initial
911 call, turned off her body camera upon her arrival at the scene, neglected to arrest Jacob,
and filed an inaccurate report of the victim’s allegations. Eight days later, suspicious that
Vilika was seeing other men, Jacob fatally stabbed her in a premeditated attack. The man reportedly
waited until the victim’s brother, who lived with her at the time, left for the day before pouncing.
He was eventually found guilty of murder and, in January of 2020, was sentenced to a minimum of 18
years in prison. After the case was reviewed by a disciplinary panel at the Chelmsford Civic Center,
Officer Clark received a written warning for failing to undertake an adequate investigation.
#4 - Kerry Power In 2013, school administrative
assistant Kerry Power called the police in Plymouth, England on several occasions, concerned
over her former partner’s increasingly violent behavior. 36-year-old Power told officers that
she was being stalked by her ex, David Wilder, and was scared he might seriously injure her. The
authorities informed Power that she could make a silent call to 999 if she was unable to speak
during a domestic incident. However, they failed to properly explain the protocol, and when Wilder
broke into Power’s house on the night of December the 14th of 2013, the operator hung up on her,
believing it to have been an accidental call. The operator asked Power to cough,
make a sound, or press 55 in order to indicate she required immediate assistance, but Power,
unaware of the so-called “silent solution’s” protocol, put the phone down after dialing 999.
Wilder contacted the police the following morning, admitting to having murdered his former partner.
He was sentenced to life in prison in 2014. A misconduct inquiry concluded that officers had
failed to properly investigate previous domestic abuse allegations leading up to the murder.
#3 - Tara Brown On September the 8th of 2015, 24-year-old
Tara Brown was murdered by her ex-partner, Lionel Patea, after the police in Queensland,
Australia had failed to investigate her domestic violence allegations. Five days before her death,
Brown had attempted to obtain a protection order against 25-year-old Patea following an
incident in which he’d pinned her down on her bed and threatened to stab her with a pair of
scissors. She showed police over 270 threatening messages he’d sent between 3 am and 1 pm of that
same day. The officers that received her complaint didn’t believe the messages constituted domestic
violence, and thus chose not to take statements from either the victim’s mother or lawyer,
who’d witnessed the instances of abuse take place. Brown’s petition was rejected, and she was told to
make a private domestic violence application if she so desired. No official police investigation
was opened regarding Patea’s threats of further violence. On the 8th, the man crashed his car into
the victim and used a steel water hydrant cover to strike her over the face more than 30 times.
Brown, who’d become trapped beneath her upturned car, was unable to defend herself from the
onslaught. Two officers were disciplined following an internal inquiry, and there was considerable
turnover in the police brass as a result of the misconduct and neglect investigation.
#2 - Darian Hailey Henderson-Bellman On July the 28th of 2020, Ontario woman Darian
Hailey Henderson-Bellman, aged 25, was murdered by her on-again-off-again boyfriend Darnell Reid.
After her death, the victim’s grandparents suggested that 27-year-old Reid should have
been in jail on the day of the attack, but he’d reportedly been released due to COVID concerns.
The man had been arrested earlier that year, in May, for illegally owning a firearm, and had
been ordered to stay at least 300 feet away from Henderson-Bellman. Reid was detained four times
for violating the restriction order in the past. He was released from jail with a GPS tracker, but
Henderson-Bellman’s family claimed that he wasn’t being properly monitored. After fatally shooting
his ex-girlfriend, Reid unsuccessfully attempted to take his own life and was hospitalized due to
his self-inflicted wounds. He remained at the hospital for seven months before being charged
with first-degree murder in March of 2021. #1 - Alicia Franklin
In September of 2022, Tennessee woman Alicia Franklin filed a lawsuit against the city of
Memphis, alleging that city officials had failed to properly investigate her kidnapping and assault
allegations, leading to the murder of Eliza Fletcher. The initial incident occurred on
September the 21st of the year prior, when Franklin agreed to go out to dinner with
38-year-old Cleotha Abson, whom she’d met on a dating app. When the woman arrived for the date,
Abson pulled out a gun and forced her into the back seat of his vehicle, where he abused her.
Following the assault, Franklin immediately reached out to the authorities. She submitted
to a forensic medical examination and provided detectives with her assailant’s phone number and
social media handles. The assault kit recovered from the articles of evidence wasn’t processed
until June of the following year. The DNA matched with Abson’s three days after he had already
been arrested for the murder of jogger Eliza Fletcher. He was charged with first-degree murder,
assault, and kidnapping. Franklin’s subsequent lawsuit suggested that Fletcher’s death would
have been avoided if police had expediently investigated her allegations against Abson.
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