Editorials II

Tell Me About Kim

By Deanne Kearns
Editor's Note:
Kim's mother believes her spirit is still hovering about, waiting to be justified, or avenged, set to rest somehow. And, somehow, I felt I was being called to be part of that process, by telling a story of the real Kimberly Frazier, away from headlines, rap sheets and public opinion. Too often, we forget we're dealing with human beings. Too often, we forget that this person has left behind people who love and remember them. I think Kimberly Frazier may well still be here, trying to accomplish the farewell to her mother and friend that she was denied. I've felt my emotions building towards a climax from the moment I met Kim's mother, two weeks ago. For the last two weeks, I've felt like crying at the oddest times. At one point, I was nearly done writing, but had just become emotionally worn out. I had to stop. But when I tried to lie down, the story would not let me go. I'm still in something of turmoil even thinking about the issue, but the urgency is beginning to fade. I think Kim is letting me go, now. I hope I've done what I was supposed to do.

Three years after Kimberly Frazier's death, I wanted to know more about her. We've heard the record, read the headlines: Police officer kills woman; Knife wielding woman lunges at two officers…Shooting victim had arrests on 90 charges since '94….Woman had a long record…Mother sees police shoot her daughter…Victim's grandmother scrubs blood from porch.
Frank Lamere, a Native American activist, says, "You know, this whole issue of Kimberly Frazier has been reduced to one sentence descriptions; one sentence summaries by the press."
Let's face it, headlines are the lifeblood of newspapers. Headlines sell papers. And once the paper is sold, details are what hold the reader's interest. Note I use the word details, not facts. Is it any wonder, then, that one comes away with an unsatisfied feeling, simply scanning the headlines and the stories beneath them? Once the reader sees details about a rap sheet two pages long, he is no longer interested in the person behind the details. Immediately, the paper has formed an image of the victim/perpetrator for the reader. It is rarely a complete or accurate image.
It's not my intention to defend or condemn the events that occurred on March 1, 1995. What is so often lost in the aftermath is the fact that we are not dealing with rap sheets, 911 transcripts, and evidence. We are dealing with human beings, people with lives, fears, hopes and desires just like the rest of us. People who are loved and remembered by someone who remains behind.
"Tell me about Kim," I ask Kim's mother, Louisa Frazier.
She pulls out a battered album from the large canvas bag she has brought with her. We begin to look through the pictures and clippings.
"Kim was really family oriented," she says. "She had been drinking and drugging prior to a lot of this, but she went through treatment, and completed that treatment. She was just supposed to be getting a job that following Monday."
The picture that emerges as Louisa Frazier talks, and as I browse through the contents of her canvas bag, is one of a normal young woman. An active, athletic "tomboy" who attained a brown belt in Judo while in school; an intelligent student, able to quickly pick up her lessons with little to no effort; a proud member of the United States Army; and fiercely supportive and protective of her family and friends. She was 29 years old when she died. It becomes clear that there was a warmth and camaraderie between Kim and her mother. Sometimes, Louisa seems bemused at the trials and troubles her daughter found herself in. When Kim checked herself into the NAATC (Native American Alcohol Treatment Center), Louisa says "She called about three or four times within the first week, saying "Mom, I'm coming home, I can't stand this,"…one of the guys there told her they couldn't stand her, you know. She said 'Why, because I can beat you up?'" Louisa laughs and shakes her head. "He was a real wimp, I guess. I don't know, they just…clashed, I guess."
The picture the press painted of Kim Frazier is very different from the one I am meeting today. I read some poetry; look at some drawings Kim made. They seem to indicate a young woman with an introspective, sensitive side, not at all the knife wielding wild-woman depicted in press accounts. My gaze is drawn back time and again to her service picture, and pictures of Kim with her Army comrades. She is at ease, confident, upright and proud. Her mother tells me, not without some pride, that Kim was a Finance Specialist, and very good at what she did.
Kim experienced bitter rejection from her father because of her sexual orientation. As she grew up, her father was proud of her athletic ability. When it became obvious, though, that she was a lesbian, and comfortable with it, Louisa says Kim's father "just really didn't like her." "I'm not changing it, Mom," she told her mother. "And I'll never grow up and let anybody beat on me [the way you have been.]"
Through tears, Louisa tells me of a part of Kim's life that she kept secret nearly all her life. "When she was in treatment…well, she told me that she'd been sexually abused…and I couldn't for the life of me figure out who, and then after she died, I looked through her papers." Kim had named her abusers in her 4th Step and Inventory journals. Even now, still clearly shocked by the revelation, Louisa says she'd never dreamed anything like that could have happened. "[They were]real church-going person, and the kids all went to church. You didn't think things like that could happen there. She told me when she got out [of treatment]." She begins crying again, softly. "She talked about a lot of stuff that she never told anyone."
It would not take a degree in psychology to understand where some of Kim's aggressiveness came from. Her experience of being sexually abused as a child, and seeing domestic abuse as she was growing up, naturally caused her to become independent, and ready to defend herself. As the oldest of three children, she made herself family protector. "Kim was real straightforward, and tried to take care of things herself. She wanted to be a caretaker, you know, take care of us. If we cried, that was okay, but if she cried…"
Toward the end of her life, Kimberly began to seek spiritual answers. While serving a five-year sentence in prison, she talked to the chaplain, and took a bible study course. Louisa says she and Kim went to church on holidays. Louisa became involved in her Native culture, frequently attending sweat lodge ceremonies and other functions. Sometimes Kim would accompany her. "You know, people would say, 'Oh, it was her time to go.' No, it wasn't her time. I asked the medicine man 'Is it something that she did to cause this?' He said no. The night before she died, we were having pizza and cake, for some reason, and she said 'Mom, I'm going to put a plate out.' You know, whenever you're eating, you put a little plate out for the spirits, and she wanted to do that. I told that to the medicine man. You know, she never does that. Never. And here she [did] that night. The medicine man said, 'Well, she was preparing her own way.'"

Louisa believes Kimberly is not at rest yet, not until this matter is resolved. She tells me, "We were having her memorial…on that day, I went home, and my grandpa's room sat next to Kim's room, and the curtains were all tied up. Kim used to tie the curtains up like that. I said, 'Grandpa, did you tie your curtains up?' 'No, one of the girls came in here and tied them up.' I thought, 'Oh, really?' Because my other daughter, she won't go into the house, because I have a great big 180 lb. Rottweiler, and she's scared of him…I knew it wasn't her."
Our time is over, and Louisa picks up the scrapbook and clippings, and puts them slowly back into her canvas bag. The last moments of Kimberly Frazier's life reside in that bag: a newspaper photograph of a bloodstained porch, garbled accounts, angry accusations. I cannot take my eyes from that photograph.
Kimberly Frazier could be described as 'troubled' in some ways. In most ways, though, she was very much the same as the rest of us. No one will know what the turning point was that finally led Kimberly down this path, and no one will know if it could have been changed. But of one thing I am convinced, by at least two eyewitness accounts: Kimberly Frazier spent the last moments of her life on a cold, hard porch, with no one to comfort or aid her. For this reason alone, if nothing else can be proven wrong about that night, Kimberly's spirit may well continue to walk between the land of life and death until some justice is found. And, if only for this reason alone, we should remember Kimberly Frazier, in life and in death, as a human being, deserving of dignity and respect.