Today in Misogynist Terrorism

[Content Note: Murder; police brutality; misogynist terrorism; white/male supremacy.]

In Asbury Park, New Jersey, a Neptune Township police sergeant shot and killed his ex-wife in broad daylight yesterday, while their daughter and other police officers watched.

Phillip Seidle, 51, a 22-year veteran with the Neptune Township Police Department, was charged with murder in the shooting death of his ex-wife Tamara Seidle on Sewall Avenue, said First Assistant Monmouth County Prosecutor Marc LeMieux.

[Following a street chase, culminating in Tamara Seidle wrecking her car] Phillip Seidle got out of his car, took out his .40- caliber Glock service handgun and fired "several" shots into Tamara's Seidle's car.

Phillip Seidle then put the gun to his head and started pacing around the area of Tamara Seidle's Jetta, LeMieux said.

LeMieux said officers were able to talk Phillip Seidle into handing over the couple's daughter. Once the daughter was in police custody, Phillip Seidle then fired more shots at Tamara Seidle through her front windshield, he said.

...Several times during the standoff, Phillip Seidle complained to police about not being able to see his children as much as he wanted, the neighbors said.

"He said, "You guys don't understand. I'm tired of paying alimony. I don't get to see my children,'" said the witness, who asked not to be identified.

This is Seidle's defense in the making—and eager misogynists who defend toxic masculine violence are already jumping all over it, invoking narratives about bitch women who refuse to let their husbands see their kids.

But, even if it is true, and not just Phillip Seidle's skewed perception corrupted by entitlement, that Tamara Seidle was preventing him from seeing his children, it seems like she had very good reason, given that he chased and crashed into her with their 7-year-old daughter in the car and then murdered her.

Seidle, a police officer who appears to be white and who was armed and had just killed his ex-wife, was not harmed by police on the scene. Instead:

The standoff came to an end after police officers, on one side of Sewall Avenue, slid a small black box about the size of an individual cupcake box to Seidle, who was standing on the other side of the street, the witness said.

After looking at the object, he raised his arms over his head and walked out into the street to surrender, the witness said. The witness said police officers surrounded Seidle, who was "bawling his eyes out." While taking him into custody, some of the officers hugged him and patted him comfortingly on the back, the witness said.

Let me just repeat that: After killing Tamara Seidle and endangering his daughter, police welcomed Phillip Seidel into custody with hugs.

I trust that I don't need to elaborate on how white supremacy and male privilege protected this man from his fellow police officers and entitled him to sympathy and affection that was never extended to Rekia Boyd, Michael Brown, John Crawford, Jordan Davis, Jonathan Ferrell, Eric Garner, Oscar Grant, Freddie Gray, Darrien Hunt, Tamir Rice, Tony Robinson, Walter Scott, and all the other black women and black men killed by police, many of whom had committed no crime at all.

He killed his ex-wife and then they hugged him.

To be abundantly clear, I'm not arguing that police officers at the scene should have shot and killed Phillip Seidel. (His daughter has certainly been traumatized enough without seeing her father killed, too.) I'm arguing that the vast majority of other people killed by police don't need to be killed, either.

I don't want to hear a single fucking police officer anywhere in this country argue that they had to shoot anyone, when they can take the time to talk down an extremely dangerous and armed murderer and then hug him, as long as he's one of their own.

My condolences to the friends, family, and colleagues of Tamara Seidel. I'm sorry for your loss.

And my condolences to the women of Asbury Park, New Jersey, who might quite reasonably not be feeling very safe, seeing the officers tasked with protecting them instead embrace a man who murdered his ex-wife, because she wasn't giving him what he wanted.

I have serious questions about how well they protected Tamara Seidel, long before they embraced her murderer in broad daylight.

[H/T to Andrea Grimes. Because this has happened in other spaces in which this story has been reported, please let's remember that expressing a lack of surprise is not helpful to people who are reeling, but not surprised, from a devastating story like this one. Be angry with us, or feel free (and encouraged) to keep your thoughts to yourself.]