When an Abusive Partner Is a Police Officer

This piece was originally published in 2015. It was updated in 2026. 

Key Takeaways

• Abuse by a police officer is uniquely dangerous and often underreported, in part because officers can influence how—or whether—violence is investigated and documented.
• Gaps in data, enforcement and firearm restrictions allow some abusive officers to avoid accountability, even after allegations or arrests.
• Model policies, outside oversight and survivor-informed responses can reduce harm and make abuse harder to conceal—while giving survivors a better chance of being believed and protected.

Four years ago, Bruce Bieber and his wife had the 3 a.m. knock on their door that no parent ever wants to have. As Bieber walked to the door, his wife behind him, he says he wanted to stop time. He already knew who was at his door. And he already knew what they were going to tell him. 

“I knew it was Leyden who did it.”

On Jan. 29, 2022, his 30-year-old daughter, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office deputy Abigail “Abby” Bieber, was murdered by a fellow officer, Detective Daniel Leyden, while vacationing with friends in St. Augustine. Leyden shot Abby in the head before fatally shooting himself. The two had been dating on and off, but Abby was trying to end things. 

“She was due back later that morning,” her father remembers. “We knew she was having a miserable time and just wanted to get home.” He and his wife had spent the day at her house just a few miles away taking care of her two German Shepherds, doing her laundry and completing a few household repairs.

“It was all for naught,” he says forlornly. The moment after the officers left them to digest the news that their daughter had been killed by one of their own, the future turned dark, Bieber says. “The curtain descended. You barely know how to walk or talk or breathe.”

And somehow, he still had to tell her two older brothers, also in law enforcement. 

“You could hardly slip a piece of paper between them, they were so close. It was easily one of the worst moments of my life.”

From there began to unfurl the expected stages of grief—shock, denial, depression and, of course, anger. Especially when they found out that Leyden had given a pretty clear warning earlier that he was capable of this very moment. 

Years before, he had dated a woman named Chynna Ratner, who revealed on her social media and to the local news station that the detective had pulled a gun on her, held it to the side of her head and threatened to kill her and then himself. 

“I told them that he was controlling, that he was trying to stop me from leaving, I told them that he was punching me [in the] car, I told them all of these things, that I didn’t feel safe," Ratner told TampaBay28.

She reported his assault to the HCSO. They gave her a Victim’s Right’s pamphlet, cleared the incident as “unfounded” and didn’t include a mention of it in Leyden’s personnel file.

Domestic Violence in Policing: A Hidden Epidemic

Much like abuse in the military, an organization that largely polices itself with its own code of justice, abuse within police families is underreported for the same reasons. When survivors of police officer abusers need to call someone to report abuse, it’s likely that colleagues—sometimes members of the same unit—of the abusive partner respond. For many officers, protecting survivors no doubt surpasses any loyalty they feel to a fellow officer. But that won’t always be the case, and the victim won’t know who they’ll get—the officer who will prioritize their safety, or the officer who will shield a fellow officer from consequences. 

“The prevalence of this problem is unknown,” says Bieber, who has since become an outspoken advocate for ending officer-involved domestic violence (OIDV), a fact he says is more than likely on purpose. 

“Why on earth would some 750,000 individual sworn-in law enforcement individuals want to draw to the public’s or politicians’ attention that they engage in [domestic violence] on a scale that I suspect that it occurs?” Bieber asks angrily. “As long as they don’t count, it allows it to fester in the darkness and damage lives and take lives.”  

The last study of OIVD that’s often quoted in the media is from the early ‘90s, when it was reported that at least 40 percent of police officer families experienced domestic violence, two to four times higher than in civilian families. Since then, this statistic has been called outdated, false and inflated, yet no follow-up study has refuted it. Many question why. 

Surely, the absence of data doesn’t prove that abuse within law enforcement families is rare. Quite the opposite, say experts. It’s simply evidence that no one is making it a priority to collect the numbers. And of the numbers that are collected, how many have been reclassified?

Former police officer-turned advocate Mark Wynn, who now trains officers in preventing violence against women, says police know how to work the system. If an officer is the subject of a domestic dispute, for instance, it may be rewritten in the report as a “verbal incident” or “family dispute” rather than domestic violence.

In addition, for female officers being abused by a male officer, reporting that abuse can make her a target instead of him. And women aren’t the only victims of domestic violence.

“Women officers worry about reporting. If she can’t take care of herself at home, will she be able to take care of herself on the job? It’s the same with male officers being abused as well,” says Wynn. 

Then, there’s the danger of reporting a popular cop in the department. After all, abusers are usually one way with the survivor and another way with everyone else. Bieber knows this well. 

“[Leyden] was super charming, personable, funny, knowledgeable, a smart guy. He got along with my sons, who are critical and protective. He concealed every indication [he was dangerous],” he says. 

It was only when Abby tried to break up with him, just seven short months into a relationship that hadn’t even gotten close to serious, that Leyden took her life. No one saw it coming, says her dad, least of all, he suspects, Abby. 

Headlines Tell a Sobering Truth

Abby’s story is, unfortunately, not unique. Since no one else is counting, it seems, Bieber says he has begun to. He says he’s aware of at least eight other women in less than four years who have been killed by police officers, and many more who have been injured. On average, just from his Google news alerts alone, he suspects there are at least three incidents a day of officers arrested for suspicion of domestic violence. And those are just the ones who are caught. 

“Police officer accused of beating, strangling and raping two women.”

“Sheriff’s deputy fatally shoots his former partner and then himself, leaving behind three young children.”

“Officer charged with strangling stepson until he passed out.”

“Police lieutenant follows ex-girlfriend home, fatally shoots her and her new boyfriend.”

The headlines point to a troubling pattern within a profession overwhelmingly dominated by men and defined by authority. Police officers are entrusted with weapons, granted broad discretion over civilians and empowered to enforce the law. For some, that authority does not stop at the end of a shift. It follows them home—into their intimate relationships, affecting partners, spouses and children.

The Advantages Cops Have as Abusive Partners

Carmen Pitre, executive director of the Sojourner Family Peace Center, the largest nonprofit provider of domestic violence support services in Wisconsin, knows all too well how abusers in law enforcement use their jobs as a tactic of power and control at home.

 “They can legally carry a firearm. They can use their power to actively harass and isolate victims. They can influence other officers in how they report and investigate. Officers who abuse use what they have. We consider these critical cases,” says Pitre.

Additionally, officers will often know the locations of women’s shelters. They’ll also know how to manipulate the system and blame the victim to avoid being charged. For these reasons, many abuse survivors married to police officers are scared to come forward. “The abuser may say to you, ‘I control everything. I can get the system to not respond to you.’ But 99 percent of the officers don’t subscribe to that,” says Pitre. “Officers mostly have great intentions and want to help.”

Police Are Keeping Their Guns Even After a Domestic Violence Arrest

Studies show that abusers who have access to a firearm are 5 times more likely to kill their partners than abusers without guns. That’s why the Lautenberg Amendment was introduced. Officially titled the Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban, the amendment to the Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibits anyone who’s been convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor from possessing a firearm (note: people convicted of any type of felony are prohibited possessors, as well). 

Yet, police officers are more likely to avoid conviction when compared with the general population. A review of cases in San Diego revealed that 92 percent of reported domestic violence cases involving the general public are prosecuted as compared with just 42 percent of reported OIDV cases, according to the International Journal of Police and Science Management. 

They do this through plea bargaining. A plea bargain is when an offender agrees to plead guilty to certain charges in exchange for a more lenient sentence and/or other charges being dropped. In an OIDV case, the offender might be charged with assault as well as something lesser, such as disturbing the peace. The officer might agree to plead guilty to disturbing the peace in exchange for the prosecutor dropping the assault charge. And without a domestic violence assault conviction, the officer gets to keep his or her weapon. 

Even if there is a domestic violence assault conviction, this federal law does limit the restriction on dating partners. Even though this so-called “boyfriend loophole,” was partially closed in 2022, as part of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, it only denies access to a firearm for five years. And abusive dating partners with a restraining order but no conviction can still legally purchase guns in many states. 

The problem isn’t just gaps in federal law—it’s also how unevenly the laws we already have are enforced. Not all states report prohibited abusers. Many don’t enter domestic violence protective orders into the database. In addition, private gun sellers aren’t required to run background checks in every state. The result? Background checks are unevenly effective, and guns still end up in the hands of abusers.

What Can Be Done?

Wynn says officer-perpetuated domestic violence— language he prefers because it signals the gravity of the issue—can only be addressed through model policies. These blueprints that other departments can follow clearly outline how domestic violence should be handled within a police department or other law enforcement agency. States such as Vermont, Washington and Oregon have model policies that mandate all police departments within the state have a course of action on their books to follow if an officer is arrested for domestic violence. These policies have started to pull back the curtain on an issue that, for decades, was largely handled behind closed doors. 

“There used to be a culture inside policing that felt like [officers] were untouchable,” Wynn says. He recalls a time when officers in some departments openly stated they would not arrest one of their own. As the women’s rights movement gained momentum in the ‘80s, cases in which women were seriously harmed or killed by their law enforcement partners began to draw increased attention.

“Police departments were being sued all over the country,” Wynn says. That, he argues, prompted departments to adopt mandates designed to protect victims and reduce institutional liability.

“When there’s a mandate in the law, you have to act,” Wynn says. “Without a policy, departments face a much higher risk of costly litigation.”

Of course, having a domestic violence policy is only a starting point. In practice, departments and officers can deviate from or work around those policies—sometimes by labeling domestic violence as something else entirely—allowing misconduct to go unaddressed. That’s why effective policies include safeguards designed to limit discretion and ensure incidents are formally addressed.

How to Evaluate Your Local PD’s Domestic Violence Policy

When navigating OIDV, it can help to understand where the offending officer’s police department stands. 

When Jan Russell, JD, was developing a domestic violence program at the Chicago Police Department to provide services to survivors who were abused by members of the department in the early 1990s, she faced an uphill battle. 

Some were afraid that starting the program would make it look like there were a lot of incidents of domestic violence within the department.

“No,” she argued. “It would look like we were doing something about it.”

A police department might use a model policy as a template, then simply slide it into a manual. But this isn’t enough, says Russell, who worked for the Chicago Police Department for 16 years. Today, she is a senior policy counsel for the Cook County Sheriff's Office, where she works on policy issues related to domestic violence, sexual assault and the Prison Rape Elimination Act.

To shift the culture of a department, there needs to be ongoing conversation and training around the policy.

“You have to be active in getting the message out,” she says. Officers may be called in on a case that involves a colleague, for example. They need to know the department’s policy and be able to act accordingly. They need to know the consequences of their own actions should they elect not to act in accordance with the policy. They need to be aware of the risks to survivors as well as any consequence to their own jobs should they fail to report domestic violence or arrest a fellow officer.“

A police department’s OIDV policy should include such points as:

• Pre-hire screening for violent history and tendencies and exclusion of offender candidates
• Ongoing domestic violence policy and awareness training
• Introduction of the policy to an officer’s domestic partner
• Early intervention policies that require officers to report aggressiveness, violence or work performance warning signs among fellow officers
• Requirement to communicate any reports of violence, whether suspected or actual, to the highest level of command 
• Requirement that dispatchers report any OIDV and that officers create and file incident reports of any OIDV regardless of whether a criminal act has occurred or not
• A protocol in place for disciplinary and criminal charges for officers who are involved in OIDV, who do not report acts of violence or who interfere with investigations or coerce victims
• A rule that requires a supervisor to come to the scene and makes sure decisions about the case are guided by an outside prosecutor, not fellow officers
• Victim safety and protection procedures

Some policies are aimed only at punishing an officer, while others are focused on behavior change, preventing domestic violence and protecting survivors. Many police departments advocate firing a police officer who is accused of or charged with domestic violence. With 34 years of experience working with domestic violence issues, Russell’s position is more nuanced. In Chicago, she focused on keeping survivors safe.

“When you say you’re going to fire officers, that could prevent victims from coming forward,” she says, noting that in her experience most survivors don’t want their partners fired. Russell advocates using the power the department has over the abuser’s job to force the abuser to change behavior.

“The department loses that power if the abuser is fired and the abuser has no motivation to change,” she explains. Using the power over the abuser’s job works, she notes, as long as the department is aware of the abuse and the survivor is willing to report future incidents.

The Chicago program seeks to make sure each case is investigated and handled individually. Moreover, it works with survivors who are concerned about situations before they become violent, intervening at the early signs of power and control.

What To Do If Your Abusive Partner Is a Police Officer

You may feel like you’re the only one, but you’re not. Many survivors have faced abuse by partners in law enforcement, and many advocates know how complex and frightening this situation can be. Start with these actionable steps:

• Talk to an advocate first. They’re going to give you unbiased advice, help you safety plan and likely know officers you can trust within the department. Find an advocate through your local domestic violence agency or Family Justice Center. 
• Keep a log of everything that’s happening related to the abuse. Document each incident with photos or hospital records, if possible. Keep hard copies of these items in a safe, concealed place, such as a safe deposit box that your abuser doesn’t know about. 
• Keep hard copies of all communication from the abuser including emails, notes or recordings of phone messages that contain threats or show anger. 
• Also stash paperwork you’ll need once you leave the abuser, which they may try to destroy when you leave. This includes your passport, children’s birth certificates, insurance papers, or car registration. 
• If you can, set aside cash or gift cards to use when leaving. Abusers have been known to empty bank accounts or freeze credit cards to try to keep a survivor from having the financial means to leave. 
• Make friends and contacts outside of the law enforcement community so you can have a support system that’s not connected to the abuser. 

When abuse is committed by someone sworn to uphold the law, it can feel like the ultimate betrayal of safety. Survivors often feel like they have nowhere to turn and no one they can trust.  When departments are required to act, abuse is harder to hide, and survivors have a better chance of being believed and protected.