The headline reads "Police official suspended in internal investigation."  Doesn't sound so important, does it?  Probably forgot to file a form or something, right?  Well, no.

Veronica Williams, who reported her community organizer husband Cleaven Williams to the police for domestic violence multiple times, is dead because the police, who are his friends, failed to arrest him. 

Cleaven Williams was aware of the warrant for his arrest, and even came into the station to give himself up.  But his buddies  "couldn't find the warrant."  Wink wink.

A few weeks later, he spots her on the street, on her way from getting a protective order against him at the nearby Eastern District Court building.  He runs through traffic to get to her and then violently and repeatedly stabs her.  She died two days later.

"Police did not follow normal procedures in attempting to serve the warrant on Cleaven Williams. Instead of sending it to a special domestic violence unit, Eastern District officers, who knew him, tried to serve it themselves.'

To add insult to injury, this might never have even been uncovered, but text messages with the killer led homicide investigators directly to the phone of the deputy major of the police department in the Eastern District of Baltimore, Dan Lioi.

Sources with knowledge of the situation say Lioi exchanged text messages with 33-year-old Cleaven Lawrence Williams Jr. and might not have vigorously attempted to serve the warrant for his arrest. Williams is accused of killing his wife, Veronica Williams, 28, on Nov. 17 outside the Eastern District Court on North Avenue and is awaiting trial on charges of first-degree murder. He has pleaded not criminally responsible, the equivalent of an insanity plea.

Lioi could not be reached for comment. Viewed by many as a by-the-book up-and-comer in the department, he headed a gun task force established by Mayor Sheila Dixon before becoming deputy commander in the Eastern District, one of the city's most violent.

Here's a link to the rest of the story in The Baltimore Sun.

Why didn't she leave him, I can hear people asking.

The violence escalated when Veronica said she was leaving.  "The two had gotten into a fight when she told him she was leaving, and he had cut off all her hair."

Now does anyone still not understand why women don't always leave their abusers?  Why they're afraid to report them to the police?