Grieving wife now champion for police families

In spring 2003, Renee Van Keulen Maher, a young, aggressive deputy prosecutor in Honolulu, gave up her professional identity for a domestic one when she moved to Federal Way to become a stay-at-home mom.

But four months after moving to the mainland, a new identity was thrust on her.

She became Renee Maher, police widow.

Maher's husband, Federal Way police Officer Patrick Maher, was fatally shot on Aug. 2, 2003, while trying to arrest a theft suspect.

His killer, Jason Roberts, later pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and is serving a 30-year prison sentence.

Maher hates the label "widow," hates having her life forever associated with her husband's death. But she's found a way to use it to her political advantage, becoming a lobbyist for law enforcement and an advocate for the families of fallen officers.

Since January, she's been a frequent presence in Olympia, pushing for new laws on behalf of cops, firefighters and their loved ones.

"I'm learning that I'm a very untraditional lobbyist," said Maher.

She said the intense grief of losing her husband is never far from the surface, which is why she's able to tap into those emotions and represent the realities facing law-enforcement families to those who make laws that impact officers' work responsibilities and home lives.

Rebuilding her life

After her husband died, it took Maher two years before she could begin to rebuild her life.

She passed the Washington state bar exam and helped get legislation passed to secure medical benefits for families of officers killed in the line of duty.

In 2006, Maher unsuccessfully ran for a state Senate seat and later worked on Republican Dino Rossi's second failed campaign for governor.

In September, she was hired as the first executive director of the Coalition of Metropolitan Police and Sheriffs (COMPAS) to represent the political interests of roughly 2,000 sworn members of the Seattle Police Department and King County Sheriff's Office in Olympia.

Maher expected her first legislative session to be a quiet one. There weren't any new laws on the horizon of particular interest to those in law enforcement.

That all changed with the ambush-slaying of Seattle police Officer Tim Brenton Oct. 31 in Seattle's Leschi neighborhood, and the Nov. 29 fatal shootings of four Lakewood police officers in a Parkland coffee shop.

"Especially after Lakewood, I knew what those families were feeling. You relive it and can tap into that level of grief," said Maher, 37. "You can move on but, that becomes part of the fabric of your life."

Bills introduced

Within weeks of the Lakewood shootings, lawmakers drafted a handful of bills — aimed at keeping repeat, violent offenders locked up and improving support for the families of officers and firefighters killed or catastrophically injured in the line of duty — before the January session began.

Since then, Maher has made countless trips to Olympia, offering testimony and following each bill through the political process.

With the session winding down, two of those new law-enforcement bills are awaiting final House approval before being sent to the governor.

One, the Jason McKissack Act, named after a Seattle police officer, would provide medical coverage for officers and firefighters catastrophically injured in the line of the duty and their families.

The other is a constitutional amendment that would give judges the authority to deny bail to criminal defendants who pose a serious threat of violence.

But the one proposed change to state law closest to Maher's heart is in danger of defeat.

Under current law, the spouse of an officer killed in the line of duty receives 60 percent of the officer's salary as a pension from the state Department of Labor & Industries — but those payments end if the spouse remarries.

Early in the session, the House approved language allowing spouses to continue receiving the death benefit even after remarrying, but a Senate committee amended the legislation, reverting to the status quo.

Gov. Chris Gregoire supports the original measure and "can't understand why the Senate" took it out, said her spokesman, Viet Shelton.

"It's not a done deal, so we'll have to see what the two chambers end up sending to the governor's desk," he added.

About half of the state's police agencies don't pay into Social Security, Maher said. And many police widows don't receive pensions from the state Law Enforcement Officer and Firefighter (LOEFF) Plan II pension system, which covers all officers and firefighters hired after October 1977, with the exception of State Patrol troopers.

Under the LOEFF II system, an officer is eligible for a pension after 10 years of service. But in many cases, officers were killed before serving 10 years, so their spouses only received an automatic lump sum reimbursing them for their husbands' pension contributions.

In Maher's case, that amount was about $2,000.

Few of the state's law-enforcement widows worked outside the home when their husbands were killed, so their L&I pensions have been their main source of income, Maher said.

She noted the L&I pension is the only one in the state that does not allow payments to continue after remarriage.

Before Brenton's death, there were 19 widows in the LOEFF II system, plus five State Patrol widows, said Maher, citing data from the state Department of Retirement Services.

Only five have remarried, though most were in their 20s or 30s when their husbands died.

Numbers grow

Since October, five widows and one widower have been added to the tally, with the deaths of Brenton; the Lakewood officers; a Pierce County sheriff's deputy who was fatally shot in December; and a Grant County sheriff's deputy killed in a car crash in January.

"We've created a generation of women who can't remarry because they can't afford to," Maher said. "We're forcing women to give up the opportunity to be happy again."

Maher, who has an 11-year-old son from a previous marriage, doesn't know if she'll remarry or have more children. "But I want the option," she said.

Maher earned her law degree from William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn. She began her career in the Hawaii Attorney General's Office, later becoming a deputy prosecutor for the city and county of Honolulu.

Not easily intimidated

"She certainly wasn't a wallflower. ... She was not somebody who was easily intimidated," said her former boss, Honolulu Prosecutor Peter Carlisle.

Though much has changed in Maher's life since the death of her husband — a Honolulu cop she met while prosecuting an assault case he'd investigated — the qualities that made her a good attorney remain, according to those who've since worked with her.

"She just doesn't quit," said Rossi, the former gubernatorial candidate. "She can see roadblocks ahead of time and figure out a way around them."

Before Maher was hired by COMPAS in September, the 10-year-old organization employed two part-time attorney-lobbyists, said Sgt. Rich O'Neill, president of the Seattle Police Officers' Guild and a past president of COMPAS.

When COMPAS board members proposed changes to laws important to law-enforcement officers, "we never saw a lot of traction and were told 'The time's not right' or ' Wait till next year,' " he said.

"We felt we needed to make a change" and began interviewing candidates for a new position of executive director, O'Neill said.

Maher, he said, was by far the most impressive applicant.

He credited her with pushing state lawmakers to approve the Jason McKissack Act, named for a Seattle police officer who survived a brutal beating and brain injury in summer 2008, and was later terminated by the Seattle Police Department.

Despite a sympathetic public, O'Neill said plenty of Olympia insiders didn't think the bill had a shot.

But Maher helped educate legislators, making them understand officers and firefighters like McKissack "were on their own for medical" coverage after a catastrophic, on-the-job injury that barred them from returning to work, O'Neill said.

The Jason McKissack Act unanimously passed the Senate on Thursday.

Maher "is incredibly intelligent and very politically savvy. She knows how Olympia works, how to deal with politicians and ... she doesn't take 'no' for an answer very easily," O'Neill said.

"For cops and cops' issues, there's nobody I'd rather have representing my interests down there."

Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com