Mother of slain London woman calls police reporting practices problematic

Three months after her daughter was found shot dead, Linda Davidson has a long list of questions with no easy route to the answers.

On Sept. 7 Davidson's daughter, Tiffany Gates, 30, was found dead in her boyfriend's apartment on Proudfoot Lane. The body of a man was also found there.

Police news releases issued about the killing in the days that followed never identified Gates as the victim or named the man who was found in the apartment. Davidson said she's learned the man found dead was Chris Charlton, Gates' on-and-off boyfriend of about a year. 

In the days after the killing, police said a firearm was recovered in the apartment and that there was no threat to the public. In a request for information from CBC News this week, a London Police Service spokesperson said the killing is still under investigation. They've said little more, either to Davidson or publicly, and that's what frustrates Davidson as she faces Christmas without her daughter. 

"I want to know if she suffered, not that it's going to give me any relief,"  said Davidson. "This is really out of hand how many women's deaths occur by intimate partners. I want something to come from her death, not just swept under the rug." 

Few details from police

She wants to know more about how her daughter died, including details in a coroner's report that police told Davidson is expected to come in the next few months. A coroner did call Davidson in the days after her daughter's death, explaining that details about the wound she suffered indicates it was not self-inflicted.

Police told her they believe Tiffany's death was the result of a murder suicide, Davidson said, but it's not been described that way in their public statements.

Police have also not confirmed to her it was Charlton who shot her daughter, she added. Sharing this information would be helpful because it would confirm that her daughter's death was a result of intimate-partner violence.

That's how the death is being described by those who advocate against violence against women. Gates is one of three women identified as victims of gender-based violence in London this year. 

It's a problem many women's groups say is reaching epidemic proportions, but not always easy to quantify properly because of the way police report the killings. 

Marissa Kokkoros is executive director of Aura Freedom International, a grassroots organization dedicated to ending male violence against women. While not able to speak about how the Gates investigation was handled, Kokkoros said the way police often report and speak publicly about such killings can obscure the breadth of the wider problem of male violence against female partners.

"Violence against women is often framed by police as isolated, random incidents rather than a pattern and a deeply embedded, systemic issue," she said.

Meanwhile, 62 women, children and gender-diverse people in Ontario were identified by the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses (OAITH) and the University of Guelph as victims of a gender-related killing by a man this past year. Gates was on that list. 

'Episodic framing' of killings

Kokkoros calls inconsistencies in police reporting "episodic framing" when it comes to the killings of women by men. She said not reporting certain details, such as the relationship between victim and accused killer, can act to "erase" information that might otherwise illustrate patterns in such killings.

It's important for police to report such killings as "femicides," which is most commonly defined as the killing of women by men, Kokkoros said. Femicide is not defined in the Criminal Code, but groups like the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability want such killings named as femicides by police so the wider male violence against women can be tracked. 

Aline Vlasceanu heads the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime. She also leads a support group for friends and family members of homicide victims. 

She said the way killings of women are reported now often leads to a muddy picture of the wider problem. 

"When we actually compile the list [of killings of women by men] it's really hard for us to figure out what femicides happened because police are refusing to name it," she said. 

Meanwhile Davidson is considering ways to honour the memory of her daughter. In the spring she plans to add a memorial plaque on a park bench in Niagara Falls, Ont., where Tiffany Gates was raised.

Gates also loved butterflies and Davidson wants to plant a butterfly bush in her name. 

"I'm frustrated because her name was all over the news, but they wouldn't mention him, it's like pulling teeth to get them to admit that he murdered her," she said.