Women in the District of Columbia are not so lucky. And you are about to find out that their need is even more dire. From the Guardian:
Washington police accused of 'disturbing' failures to investigate rape
Human Rights Watch to publish report that shows some victims experience fresh trauma from police neglect in rape cases
Police in Washington DC frequently fail to investigate reports of rape, and treat victims so dismissively at times, that they experience fresh trauma while the chances of the perpetrator being caught are undermined, according to a comprehensive report due out next week.
Campaign group Human Rights Watch is expected to uncover "disturbing evidence of police failure" in a 200-plus page report after a two-year investigation into law enforcement practices in the US capital.
But although shocking, the situation in Washington is far from isolated. There are widespread examples across the US of the police routinely neglecting crimes of sexual violence and refusing to believe victims.
"This is a national crisis requiring federal action. We need a paradigm shift in police culture, because rapes and sexual assaults are being swept under the rug, and too many victims are being bullied," said Carol Tracy of the Women's Law Project, a legal advocacy group that specialises in sexual violence cases.
Human Rights Watch began looking into the situation in Washington after discovering evidence that the city's Metropolitan police department (MPD) were refusing even to document a significant number of reports of sexual assaults coming in from the central hospital where victims are treated.
Full details and statistics will be disclosed by HRW in its final report, due to be published on 24 January.
I suggest you read the whole thing, but I want to refer back to the story of Sara Reedy that the Guardian article directs us to as a specific example of a woman the police didn’t believe (in a different city), because it is fairly seen as a nightmare. And since we are talking about rape, it will get a little graphic again:
Sara Reedy remembers clearly the start of her ordeal, and how surprisingly painful it was to have a gun jammed to her temple. Then her attacker demanded oral sex, saying he would shoot her if she refused. She was shaking, gagging.
"I had images of my family finding me dead," she told the Observer. "I closed my eyes and just tried to get it over with."
Reedy was 19 when the man entered the petrol station near Pittsburgh where she was working to pay her way through college and pulled a gun. He emptied the till of its $606.73 takings, assaulted her and fled into the night. But the detective who interviewed Reedy in hospital didn't believe her, and accused her of stealing the money herself and inventing the story as a cover-up. Although another local woman was attacked not long after in similar fashion, the police didn't join the dots.
Following further inquiries, Reedy was arrested for theft and false reporting and, pregnant with her first child (by her now ex-husband), thrown in jail. She was subsequently released on bail, but lost her job. More than a year after attacking Reedy, the man struck again, but this time he was caught and confessed to the earlier crime.
When the charges against her were dropped, Reedy sued the police and has now won a marathon legal battle and a $1.5m (£1m) settlement against the detective who turned her from victim into accused. The payment was agreed earlier this year, but can be revealed only now because of a non-disclosure clause that was part of the settlement.
Now 27, Reedy talked exclusively to the Observer to announce the settlement and speak out about how she hopes her vindication will change the way the police investigate rape. "I'm relieved that people will be able to see now that I was telling the truth," she said. "Although mine is an extreme case, I'm not the first – and I won't be the last."
Indeed, read the whole thing. And let’s go back to that other article about the Human Rights Watch report, because it is not an isolated problem:
The Human Rights Watch report focuses solely on Washington, but in many cities across the US, the police record an alarming proportion of reported rapes as "unfounded" cases, meaning they decide the crime did not happen and the report was false or baseless.
The national average is 6%. But according to the latest internal FBI statistics, Pittsburgh shelves 34% of cases in this way, Atlanta 24% , Dallas 13%, Jersey City 18%, Lincoln, Nebraska, 19%, San Bernadino 34%, Durham, North Carolina, 31%. Chicago does not declare annual "unfounded" statistics but its average from 2000 to 2009 was 17%.
In New York City, the number of recorded rapes declined by 35.7% between 2005 and 2009. But over that period the number of sex crimes labelled as mere misdemeanors rose by 6%. Advocacy groups also expressed concern about high rates of rape cases being dropped as unfounded and reports of victims being treated dismissively. All this prompted police commissioner Ray Kelly in 2010 to form a task force to improve the investigation and victim interview procedures in sexual assault cases. Reforms are ongoing.
The New Orleans police department is under federal review for shelving 50% of sex attack cases as "non-criminal complaints".
"Any figure over 10% is alarming and should be looked into," said Joanne Archambault, a retired San Diego police sergeant who runs the international pressure group End Violence Against Women and trains police across the nation in handling sexual assault.
But the picture isn’t all bad:
At the other end of the scale, some figures appear too low, in a national picture of confusion and inconsistency. Houston police department only declares 2% of its rape cases to be "unfounded".
"Women don't lie any more often in Pittsburgh than they do in Houston," said Dr Dean Kilpatrick, director of the national crime victims research and treatment centre and a professor at the Medical University of South Carolina. He said many departments' records were "outrageous".
Experts agree that an average of 5% of rapes are falsified. "This issue of investigators not believing large numbers of victims, then threatening them or arresting them is a very serious national problem," said Archambault.
So, ladies, if you want your rapists prosecuted make sure you live in Houston. And Daddies, don’t let your little girls go to Mardi Gras. If anything happens to her, I am not sure the police will take her seriously.
Sorry to joke, folks, but sometimes it is the only way to dissipate my rage.
But I don’t know how on earth anyone could claim to know how many accusations of rape are falsified. Mind you, my subjective feeling is that the 5% false report figure is probably close to correct, but that is all it is: a subjective feeling. Since most rapes only occur with two witnesses—the rapist and the victim—how can we pretend to know who is telling the truth?
Which brings me back to my point. Prosecution of rape is extremely unsteady. Even assuming that everyone believes you, it depends on the quality of the evidence. And none of that prevents a woman from being raped in the first place, except the hope that the threat of prosecution is a deterrant. And how much can it be a deterrant in New Orleans?
It is often said of keeping a gun that it is better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.* That refers to the situation where you face the danger of being killed by an attacker, and the argument is that it is better to kill in self-defense and risk being prosecuted and judged by twelve jurors, than to be killed and to have your coffin carried by six pallbearers. A flippant saying like that, while true as far as it goes, doesn’t cover this situation very well. But let me try this one out: it is better to be judged by twelve than to be raped by one.
But women in D.C. are not given that option. Exactly forty years ago today, the Supreme Court decided the case of Roe v. Wade which declared that a woman had a right to privacy, a right to control her own destiny that included a right to an abortion. “My body, my choice!” is the refrain. And even as people reasonably disagree over whether that principle extends to abortion, there is still a great national consensus that a woman should be able to choose her destiny.
We are well past the day when a woman could be denied the right to practice in the legal profession—or any other profession—because she is a woman. Gone are the days when women would find their chains fastened with flowery words that men think is filled with love, such as those written by this Supreme Court Justice said when destroying this woman’s dreams of becoming an attorney:
[T]he civil law, as well as nature herself, has always recognized a wide difference in the respective spheres and destinies of man and woman. Man is, or should be, woman's protector and defender. The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life. The constitution of the family organization, which is founded in the divine ordinance, as well as in the nature of things, indicates the domestic sphere as that which properly belongs to the domain and functions of womanhood.
Bradwell v. Illinois (Bradley, J. Concurring) (1873). Most Americans are pro-choice in most areas of life and we should not let our disagreement over one specific issue—abortion—obscure that fact.
And there can be no rational disagreement that a woman has a right to decide whom and whom she doesn’t have sex with. But if we strip a woman of any guns she might carry, the defense that right depends then on two things: how fast the cops can get there if she is under attack, and whether she can fend the man off with her bare hands in the meantime.
Now the caveats have to apply. No gun will ever guarantee that a woman won’t be raped. It is not a magic force field.
But a woman has a God-given right to withhold consent from sex. She also has a God-given right to use deadly force if necessary to repell a man who doesn’t take no for an answer (presuming it is otherwise a valid act of self-defense). And sometimes a gun is the only way to vindicate both of those rights. If we really are going to say, in most areas “her body, her choice”—even if we disagree on the specific issue of abortion, if we believe on every other subject it should be “her body, her choice”—then we should be pro-choice when it comes to gun ownership.
In the District of Columbia, they do not do nearly enough to respect a woman’s choice not to have sex with a particular man. And even as they fail to protect that woman’s bodily integrity, they equally will not give that woman the opportunity to vindicate that right herself. No, the only freedom of choice they will respect, there, is that if a woman who is raped gets pregnant, she will be allowed to abort that fetus.
This situation is a scandal in our nation’s capital. Residents of D.C. might protest their perpetual territorial status with license plates that read “Taxation Without Representation” (recently Obama has decided to add those plates to his motorcade, although his intent might be aspirational rather than to protest), but for better or worse, the District of Columbia has long been seen by members of Congress as an opportunity for the Federal Government to show its ideal of how the states should do things. For instance, before the Fifteenth Amendment, black people were granted the right to vote in D.C. And in 1958, when Richard Loving, a white man, wanted to marry his sweetheart Mildred Jeter, a black woman, at time when their home state of Virginia forbade such marriages, they stole away to Washington D.C. to get married, sparking off a series of events that saw so-called miscegenation laws struck down as unconstititonal in the most perfectly named case in Supreme Court history: Loving v. Virginia. Hopefully the Human Rights Watch and other voices will shame people into changing their culture to more exactly pick out which victims should be believed and which should not, particularly in our nation’s capital. But in the meantime, having failed to protect so many women, the least the District of Columbia could do is allow those women to protect themselves.
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* In his classic essay An Englishman’s Home is His Dungeon, Mark Steyn argues that the adage “it is better to be judged by twelve than carried by six” is exactly reversed in England. Due to aggressive prosecutions of ordinary citizens who claimed they were defending themselves against crime, many in the nation have adopted learned helplessness:
In America, it's called a "hot" burglary - a burglary that takes place when the homeowners are present - or a "home invasion", which is a much more accurate term. Just over 10 per cent of US burglaries are "hot" burglaries, and in my part of the world it's statistically insignificant: there is virtually zero chance of a New Hampshire home being broken into while the family are present. But in England and Wales it's more than 50 per cent and climbing. Which is hardly surprising given the police's petty, well-publicised pursuit of those citizens who have the impertinence to resist criminals.
These days, even as he or she is being clobbered, the more thoughtful British subject is usually keeping an eye (the one that hasn't been poked out) on potential liability. Four years ago, Shirley Best, proprietor of the Rolander Fashion emporium, whose clients include Zara Phillips, was ironing some clothes when the proverbial two youths showed up. They pressed the hot iron into her flesh, burning her badly, and then stole her watch. "I was frightened to defend myself," said Miss Best. "I thought if I did anything I would be arrested." There speaks the modern British crime victim.
Not every person who wants gun control wants to reduce us to that pathetic state. But there are some voices who demonstratethey are utterly opposed to any kind of self-defense, not just guns in general. And that is where those kinds of people would lead us, if we let them.
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My wife and I have lost our jobs due to the harassment of convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin, including an attempt to get us killed and to frame me for a crime carrying a sentence of up to ten years. I know that claim sounds fantastic, but if you read starting here, you will see absolute proof of these claims using documentary and video evidence. If you would like to help in the fight to hold Mr. Kimberlin accountable, please hit the Blogger’s Defense Team button on the right. And thank you.
Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates. And you can purchase my book (or borrow it for free if you have Amazon Prime), Archangel: A Novel of Alternate, Recent History here. And you can read a little more about my novel, here.
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Disclaimer:
I have accused some people, particularly Brett Kimberlin, of reprehensible conduct. In some cases, the conduct is even criminal. In all cases, the only justice I want is through the appropriate legal process—such as the criminal justice system. I do not want to see vigilante violence against any person or any threat of such violence. This kind of conduct is not only morally wrong, but it is counter-productive.
In the particular case of Brett Kimberlin, I do not want you to even contact him. Do not call him. Do not write him a letter. Do not write him an email. Do not text-message him. Do not engage in any kind of directed communication. I say this in part because under Maryland law, that can quickly become harassment and I don’t want that to happen to him.
And for that matter, don’t go on his property. Don’t sneak around and try to photograph him. Frankly try not to even be within his field of vision. Your behavior could quickly cross the line into harassment in that way too (not to mention trespass and other concerns).
And do not contact his organizations, either. And most of all, leave his family alone.
The only exception to all that is that if you are reporting on this, there is of course nothing wrong with contacting him for things like his official response to any stories you might report. And even then if he tells you to stop contacting him, obey that request. That this is a key element in making out a harassment claim under Maryland law—that a person asks you to stop and you refuse.
And let me say something else. In my heart of hearts, I don’t believe that any person supporting me has done any of the above. But if any of you have, stop it, and if you haven’t don’t start.
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