In 2014, Cuyahoga County, Ohio Judge Lance Mason punched his wife, Aisha Fraser Mason, 20 times, then slammed her head on his car’s dashboard five times in front of their children. Mason broke his wife’s orbital bone and scarred their children for life. He was sentenced to nine months in jail. After being released, Mason was hired by Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson as minority-business development director.
Four years later, on Nov. 17, Aisha Fraser Mason was fatally stabbed by this same man. Aisha Fraser Mason, or as I knew her, Ms. Mason, was a respected and beloved teacher at Woodbury Elementary School in Shaker Heights, Ohio. I myself attended this school. The accused, Lance Mason, a classmate of my mother, was said to not have violent tendencies. Many within the community are shocked by this event. Many say they “never saw it coming,” or “they seemed so happy.”
I first heard about the death of Ms. Mason just one week after SLU’s Purple Week, a week showing awareness of domestic violence. We hear about these events and always say how we “never saw it coming,” or “they seemed so happy.” People always wonder how they never saw the signs.
This rhetoric has to stop. Abusers will never show signs to the public, and the survivors will never tell anyone about it. Ms. Mason taught for 16 years in the Shaker Heights School District and until 2014, there was never any question about her and her husband’s home life. When Ms. Mason was assaulted by her husband in 2014, the prosecutor stated this was an example of how “sometimes good people make bad decisions.” The court administrator stated Lance Mason had “no history of violence or desire to hurt anyone.”
After the 2014 incident, authorities found about 2,300 live rounds of various calibers, nearly 500 shotgun slugs, a Mossberg 12-guage shotgun, a Winchester shotgun, a FNH P90 semi-automatic rifle still in the box, a Smith & Wesson handgun, a Springfield Armory .40 caliber handgun, a sword, four canisters of smoke grenades, a KDH bulletproof vest and a Jaguar knife.
Lance Mason could have been sentenced to three years in prison for his first crime in 2014, but with the help of Cleveland attorneys, judges and Representative Marcia Fudge, he was given a sentence of two years. He only served nine months. In a letter to the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office, Marcia Fudge stated “Lance accepts full responsibility for his actions and has assured me that something like this will never happen again.”
I read this letter from Rep. Fudge and was silenced in disbelief. How could a female representative, now a favorite to take over as Speaker of the House, defend a man after he punched his wife 20 times? She believed the displayed behavior was out of character for Lance Mason. She was wrong.
We have a system in place in our society that allows individuals to get away with this type of behavior. The system completely turned its back on Aisha Fraser Mason. Lance Mason’s behavior may have been out of character, but it does not make it any less wrong. It does not make it any less wrong because he was an attorney, a state senator, or a judge. The system has failed once again, and the outcome this time was fatal.