street roots
June 22, 2012
ABUSE from page 9
The day Brandy and Ian moved into Hope
Place, Richard, by then 37, had nowhere to
live. He worked his shift, met Brandy
afterward, then walked to a church near the
construction site to camp out for the
evening. He curled up in a sleeping bag, but
it offered little protection from the rain.
Drenched, he barely slept at all.
When Francisco Mitchell, Richard’s work
buddy, showed up the next day, he noticed
Richard looked a little rough around the
edges. He asked why.
I’m homeless, Richard said.
Francisco could relate. Not long after
meeting Richard the year before, Francisco
had spent nights in a shelter. If a friend
hadn’t rented him a room in an apartment in
Everett, 30 miles north of Seattle, who
knew where he’d be now.
You can come stay with me, Francisco
said.
Cool, Richard said.
And like that, a skinhead and a biracial
man became roommates.
One day, two police officers showed up at
Hope Place to talk to Brandy. Richard had
missed a court date for a domestic violence
review. Had she seen Richard James
Duncan? No, she said. Did she know where
he was? No.
On one level, her answers were lies, but
on another, they were part of a strategy. If
she told police Richard worked three blocks
away, he’d become angry, and he’d be
arrested. When he got of jail, he’d be even
more angry. Lying was her way to stay safe.
Brandy and Ian ate lunch with Richard
almost every workday. On weekends, she
and Ian would venture to Everett to hang
out. Because of the no-contact order, they
kept their meetings quiet. Because Richard
had missed the court date, the court had
issued a $25,000 warrant for his arrest.
Richard knew the police would catch him,
one day.
During the week, Richard and Francisco
followed a routine. “We just drank a couple
beers after work,” remembers Francisco,
“because we had to get up early in the
morning.” Taking buses to and from Everett,
they endured long commutes, sometimes
two hours each way. “It sucked,” says
Richard.
But not for long. Francisco’s original
roommate got a new job that required he
move and give up the Everett apartment.
Francisco and Richard needed to find
somewhere new. With the long commute,
Francisco wanted to live closer to work, so
he asked his boss for ideas. His boss talked
to someone who owned an apartment
building in Seattle. Yes, there was a two-
bedroom opening up close to work. Actually,
it was in the gray building right across the
street from the Station at Othello Park.
Francisco jumped at it. So did Richard,
who’d be his roomie. But Richard had a long
felony record from Nevada, so the landlord
wouldn’t put Richard’s name on the lease.
They needed someone else: Brandy.
Richard pitched the idea. We’ll all be
together, he said, and you can leave Hope
Place. “It sounded good, in theory,” Brandy
recalls. But live together again? Doubts
consumed her. Richard convinced her the
violence would be over. She signed her
name. On March 1, 2010, Brandy, Richard,
Ian and Francisco moved into 4222 S.
Othello St., into Apartment 21.
Within two months, their attempt at a
happy home life would come to an end.
Apartment 21
n the apartment, March came in like a
lamb and stayed that way. For a while.
The front door opened onto a hallway
with a bedroom to the left - that’s where
Brandy, Richard and Ian stayed - and a
bathroom. The hall turned right, with
another bedroom on the left, for Francisco,
before leading to the living room. Off to the
right, the kitchen. A wall jack provided
Internet but no phone service.
Richard and Francisco left for work by 6
a.m. Along with caring for the five-month-old
removed the doorknob. She still wouldn’t let
Ian, Brandy handled domestic duties.
him touch her.
Sometimes Richard came home for lunch.
As April progressed, the situation
Around 5 p.m., he and Francisco returned.
deteriorated. Drinking every day. Yelling
Brandy cooked.
every day. Fighting every day. No one saw a
Some evenings, Richard would hold Ian
way out. Brandy and Francisco had signed a
on his lap, dancing his infant body to “The
lease, and Richard and Francisco had to
Gummy Bear Song,” a short, animated
cover the $1,050
YouTube video of a
rent, plus finish
singing, break
paying the security
dancing neon green
piece of candy.
111 the a rg w liif r the je llin g ^ deposit. Everyone
Richard and
the b ittin g at Teat City
In had to pitch in.
Brandy, for her part,
Francisco read copies
the
Georgia«
Motel,
at
Way
dreamed of taking Ian
of “WWII History,” a
Bach Inn, For weeks,
and leaving Richard.
magazine extolling
Not having extra
the German military.
moitthgy 16 long months,
cash stifled that
On nice days, Brandy
sbeM bee« te llin g herself
dream, though she
strolled Ian around a
sheri leave him , go
knew Richard kept
nearby park. A calm
rent money in a
somewbere, anywhere, But
home life. But around
drawer in the living
the end of March, the
when would she do It?
room. One day she
internal climate
W
heat
took some money
changed.
and stayed with Ian
The drinking
Tonight, Now,
in a motel room for
seemed to shift it.
I d e i/t want to be w ith yon
the night. She called
True, Richard and
a shelter to ask if it
Brandy had drunk
anymore, Brandy said, I
had space. A staff
before, but Francisco
want I© go home, back I®
member told her yes,
noticed that, more
Idaho,
but it was so far
and more, their
away, Brandy worried
drinking led to
There^s the door,
she’d feel isolated. So
arguments. He might
Richard
said,
the next day, she
have a lady friend
returned to
over, and Brandy and
I need money for a
Apartment 21. She
Richard would bicker
bns
ticket
far
Ian
and
me,
figured if she left and
“over little things and
Richard found her,
for nothing,”
No, Richard said,
she’d be pulled into
Francisco recalls. At
the middle of another
least Richard never
violent confrontation.
hit Brandy, not that
And that was
he saw.
something she didn’t want to imagine.
But storms brewed in their bedroom.
Richard threw things at Brandy: books,
shoes, diaper boxes. It didn’t matter.
Middle man
Brandy, feeling mother bear energy, fought
s Francisco sat in a seedy, downtown
back. She had a kid to protect. Though she
restaurant-bar on April 29, 2010, he
was nowhere near as strong as Richard,
found himself in the middle of another
Brandy hit and punched him. The thought of
situation.
being intimate held little interest for her, so
This feeling of being caught in the middle
she created a barrier to the bedroom: “I
grew out of his youth. With one Mexican
locked him out.” But Richard worked at a
and one white parent, young Francisco
construction site, so he borrowed tools
A
Chavez Mitchell spent his childhood in
Southern California caught between
Mexicanos and Anglos. The middle ground
became more troubling when, at six, his
father died. His mother remarried, and
Francisco’s stepdad abused her. Unable to
stop the violence as a youth, Francisco
swore, when he grew up, he would never hit
a woman or allow another man to, either.
But as a young adult, he had other woes.
Cocaine and crack addiction led to an
assault with a deadly weapon charge. He
landed in the California Institution for Men.
Inside, inmates drew clear divisions along
racial lines. White, black, Mexican, and
within these groups, even more
subdivisions. Not declaring your allegiance
to one group left you a target. “They do a lot
of bad things to you,” he remembers.
Because Francisco wasn’t 100 percent
Mexican, he couldn’t run with them. Same
with the whites. He fell in with the
Chicanos, U.S. citizens of Mexican descent.
Since the Chicanos tended to speak
English, the white supremacists mostly left
them alone. A few even befriended
Francisco. One told him he’d only joined for
protection. When Francisco left prison, he
ran into the guy, and they hung out, became
friends. It taught Francisco that someone’s
tattoos or actions on the inside didn’t
predict how the person would behave on the
outside.
And Francisco wanted to be a better
person on the outside, so after rehab in
Cali, he wound his way to Seattle. He
worked as a bilingual translator for a while,
finally landing at TLC. He remembered that
at a job site in February 2009, a new guy,
white, showed up. Along with a shaved head
and scraggly beard, the white guy had,
tattooed near his left eye, a pair of S-shaped
lightning bolts for “SS,” Hitler’s elite
defense corps. Spelled out on the upper
portions of his fingers, another tattoo read
“SKINHEAD.” The guy, Richard, and
Francisco talked. Both had spent times in
shelters. As for the tattoos: so what? “There
was no Mexican, no white, no white
supremacy: just a couple of homeless
(guys), striving for life, looking for work,
making money.”
To Francisco’s Mexican friends, however,
the tattoos mattered. They wanted answers.
¿Ese es tu amigo? That’s your friend?
Si. Yeah.
Pero el es bianco, el es racista. But he’s
white, he’s a white supremacist.
Sififf... Y eaaaahhhh...
¿Como es que ustedes son buenos
amigos? How come you guys are good
friends?
Bueno nosotros trabajamos juntos, es
todo. We’ll, we’re working together, that’s
all.
Even with Richard’s other tattoos — the
palm-sized, blue-green swastika on one pec,
the line drawing of Hitler on the other —
Richard never gave Francisco any trouble.
They shared deep secrets that Francisco
never divulged. Their friendship grew
tighter.
Except now, in the apartment, he watched
Richard and Brandy drink and argue. On the
one hand, their private life was their
business. But on the other, their private life
spilled over into the apartment, which made
it his business, too. Again, he felt in the
middle, unsure whether to say something or
shut up.
He only wanted peace and quiet, both of
which were in short supply at the
apartment. So even though he had to work
early the next day, Francisco decided he’d
go home in a bit. Right after he had another
beer.
I
Something bad
y the time someone knocked on the
door of Apartment 21 on April 29,
Brandy and Richard had already downed a
couple beers. It was a neighbor down the
hall, inviting them over. Richard picked Ian
up, and they headed to the neighbor’s place.
People were there, including a guy
B
See ABUSE, page 11