Grundy shooting deaths devastate families

Lisa Bryson wants people to know her daughter's father was not a monster.

He did a terrible thing, yes. But he was funny, thoughtful and loved his young child.

She remembers the day a little more than a year ago when Katelyn Crowe, her 11-year-old daughter with Kermit Bryson, saw on television that her father had shot and killed Grundy County Deputy Shane Tate.

Deputy Tate died June 5, 2008, while trying to arrest Mr. Bryson at a trailer on Monteagle Falls Road. Mr. Bryson retrieved a weapon and shot the deputy, then fled. When police surrounded him later that day, he turned the weapon on himself.

Since then Ms. Bryson has heard the whispers and seen people's faces when they recognize her name. She has learned secondhand about the taunts her daughter faces from other children at school and in the community because of her father.

She said she just wants the talk to stop and for people not to connect her or Katelyn with the mistakes of her former husband.

"Nobody knows what happened in that room except Kermit and Shane," she said.

Ms. Bryson said Katelyn had re-established a relationship with her father just months before the shootings. They met at McDonald's regularly to catch up after his five-year absence due to a stint in prison, Ms. Bryson said.

In Grundy County, Deputy Tate's mother, Telsa Turner, feels some of the same emotions as Ms. Bryson, and she worries for other children who have been affected by the violent episode.

"Well, it doesn't get any easier, not at all," Ms. Turner said. "I just try to keep busy and work. If I don't, I can't take it."

Ms. Turner said she sees changes in her grandchildren, Dylen, Skylar and Haley Tate, especially with the 6-year-old Dylen.

"He misses Shane a lot," she said. "I can tell he's restless and sometimes has nightmares."

Society often forgets about the offender's family, said Dr. Tammy Garland, a criminology professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

"There are ways to progress. We have to educate people better," Dr. Garland said. "Make people understand that there are multiple victims in a crime."

But, Dr. Garland said, people often want to see things in black and white.

"As much as we try, I'm not sure we will ever have an understanding," Dr. Garland said.

Often the media will play a role in the victimization by playing the event over and over again, she said.

Dr. Garland said that while crimes have impact across cultural lines, the effects can be even more devastating in smaller communities.

"In a rural town you know everybody, or everybody thinks they know the family," she said. "Things get misinterpreted."

Dr. Garland said people have to be careful, make sure they don't buy into stereotypes and listen to factual information rather than what came through as rumor, which could lead to unnecessary blame.