In an interview last month, former Mayoral candidate Greg Brockhouse revealed that he systematically misled the public when he 1) denied multiple times that police were called to his home to investigate an alleged domestic violence episode in December 2009, 2) implied that the police report filed at the time might have been fabricated, perhaps by a reporter for the daily newspaper, which he stated was “the communications arm” of his opponent’s campaign, 3) denied any knowledge of how the report disappeared from police records and 4) suggested that his wife’s denial in a written statement was proof that no incident ever took place and that to not accept that as a reason to drop the issue would be disrespectful to women.
Last month he did an about face and admitted that police were called to his home on the night in question, that yes a report was made and that yes the report had been legally removed from the record at the behest of the Brockhouses in 2011. If we are to believe him THIS go-around, he intentionally covered up evidence of the incident NOT because it might damage his chances of becoming mayor….but rather, to protect his wife, who had provoked the argument and called the police due to her postpartum depression. Interestingly, according to Brockhouse, his wife wanted to “clear the air” from the outset of the campaign, but he overruled her in an attempt to save her dignity. How dignified is it to tell your wife she can’t tell the whole truth but instead should issue a formal written statement obfuscating it? Where, please tell us, is the dignity in that?
Now Brockhouse comes to us, hoping his wife’s emotional outpouring will generate sufficient sympathy for him to restore his political viability. It’s the height of arrogance to continue to try and manipulate public opinion and worse, to continue to hide behind and blame his wife.
Though he claims to have nothing to gain and nothing to lose at this point, that isn’t really true. One could definitely be forgiven for suspecting that it has something to do with the pending outcomes of the formal investigations requested by the domestic violence advocacy group Mē Tú, of SAPD Internal Affairs and the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office into the police report’s “ inexplicable” disappearance. Sooner or later, those investigations would have reached the conclusion that the record had been expunged. So in political media parlance, Brockhouse needed to “get ahead of the story”. Not to do so would put an irrevocable end to a political career already languishing from self-inflicted wounds.
When people invite public scrutiny by seeking public office, they should expect to deal honestly with the public. Domestic violence has reached epidemic proportions in San Antonio. Post-partum depression takes a devastating toll on many women and families. Avoiding or suppressing frank discussions about these and other issues because you deem them “undignified” or embarrassing or because they cause discomfort or could cost some votes, is not helpful to our community or to the other people who suffer with these issues and are trying to summon the courage to bring them out into the light of day.
It’s a fact that the Brockhouses had the record expunged. It’s also a fact that Greg Brockhouse tried to hide that expunction from the public over and over again by playing a shell game with the truth. Beyond that, we may never know how much validity was in his “confession”. We do know that one thing was conspicuously absent: the apology he owes the people of San Antonio.
Ellen Riojas Clark, Ph.D, Co-Chair, Mētú
Dorinda Rolle, Ph.D, Co-Chair, Mētú
Gina Galaviz Eisenberg, Co-Chair, Mētú
Kathy Sosa, Member, Organizing Committee, Mētú