A Juneau fire captain was charged with domestic violence assault in an incident involving his 12-year-old stepdaughter last summer.
Brent Clancy was convicted of that crime and will be sentenced on Thursday, August 13. He faces up to five years in prison. At the trial earlier in April witnesses testified about the abuse.
This story contains descriptions of violence against children.
Sommer Clancy testified that the assault Brent Clancy was convicted of followed a water fight he was having with the kids and their friends outside. She said she tried to put an end to the game when they had to leave for her daughter’s softball game, but her husband didn’t accept that.
“Immediately he said, ‘We will stop when I say we’re going to stop,’ and I said no, ‘we’re done. We have to leave, the game’s over.’ And then it’s like I could see in his face he wasn’t playing anymore,” she said. “And he said ‘No, we will stop when I say we’re going to stop.’”
Sommer said Clancy came inside the house and tried to lock the kids out, but they came in through another door. Sommer said he then grabbed his stepdaughter, walked her around the couch and pushed her down. She said he held her there with his body weight while she and her daughter told him to stop.
“His face was beet red, but it was like his eyes were like black, like he was not there,” she said. “And we’re face to face, and I’m screaming at him, like, ‘Bret, stop, stop, stop, what are you doing?’”
But Sommer said he didn’t stop. She tried to push him away and remove his hand from her daughter’s throat. She remembered her daughter’s eyes at that moment and she looked very scared.
Sommer testified that she was scared she was going to lose her daughter.
“All I kept thinking, is she’s going to die, she’s going to die,” she said.
Eventually, Clancy let go of his stepdaughter. Witnesses say he had her pinned for 10 to 20 seconds. Sommer said she got all the kids and their friends in the car and drove to her daughter’s softball game. Then, sitting in the car, she called the police.
Clancy’s 10-year-old stepson witnessed the incident. In a video played during the trial, he said he was very scared when Clancy attacked his sister.
“He didn’t say anything, he had, like, anger in his eyes,” the boy said. “Like I thought he was going to kill her.”
The boy said that he has seen Clancy have that look in his eyes before: in the car, at home, and once towards his baby sister while the family was at Disneyland. He testified that he doesn’t feel safe at home when Clancy is there, that Clancy would throw things around and insult his mother and his sister.
His mother, Sommer, said Clancy had called her daughter vulgar and abusive words often. And in March of last year, he threw their 2-year-old daughter in a moment of rage.
During the trial, the prosecution played clips Sommer had recorded of Clancy yelling names at her.
Brent Clancy testified during the trial as well. He said he thought Sommer was too lenient with the kids, and that they had different parenting styles. He said he had been having issues with his stepdaughter for the last two years before this incident.
Previous to that though, he said he treated her like a little princess.
“You know, in the beginning, that’s what she was, she was my little princess,” he said. “And then once the baby was born, it just changed.”
He testified that he was mad that his stepdaughter got water on him during the fight, and that’s why he pinned her to the couch.
“I just got a glass of water thrown in my face, so it was like, (a) normal reaction would be to retaliate,” he said.
Then, when he was restraining her, he said he was afraid his stepdaughter was going to hit him.
He admitted to using “colorful language” with Sommer, but denied calling his stepdaughter the same words.
And he said he remembers the incident in March with his 2-year-old differently. He said she had bit him, so he put her on the couch.
In closing arguments, Clancy’s defense attorney Andrew Miller argued that Clancy didn’t assault his stepdaughter. He said she didn’t have visible injuries after this incident.
“This is a very ugly case,” Miller said. “But what Mr. Clancy did wasn’t a crime.”
The jury deliberated and, later that day, returned guilty verdicts on all counts – including two counts of assault, two counts of assault when a child is present and violating a protective order.
Clancy no longer works for CCFR. He will be sentenced on Aug. 13. He faces up to 5 years in prison.
