This is bad. really bad. New Orleans Police Routinely Ignored Sex Crimes, Report Finds

[cali]

A scathing examination of this city’s Police Department has concluded that five detectives tasked with investigating sex crimes failed to pursue hundreds of reported cases, finding records of follow-up efforts in only 14 percent of such calls over three years.

The report, released on Wednesday and prepared by the city’s inspector general, Edouard R. Quatrevaux, found that of 1,290 sex crime “calls for service” assigned to five New Orleans police detectives from 2011 to 2013, 840 were designated as “miscellaneous,” and nothing at all was done. Of the 450 calls that led to the creation of an initial investigative report, no further documentation was found for 271 of them.

<snip>

The report described how victims’ charges of sexual assault were ignored, referrals from medical personnel were dismissed, and evidence was not processed; in some cases the detective would mark down in a report that evidence had been sent to the state laboratory, though no records could be found that the laboratory received anything.

In one case, a 2-year-old was brought to the emergency room on suspicion of having been the victim of a sexual assault and was found to have a sexually transmitted disease. The detective did no follow-up and closed the case.

In another, a nurse collected DNA evidence from a victim in a rape kit, but the detective apparently never submitted the kit for testing. In a log book, the detective explained that the kit was never submitted “because the sex was consensual.” That same detective, the report said, told at least three different people that he or she “did not believe that simple rape should be a crime.”

<snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/us/new-orleans-police-special-crimes-unit-inquiry.html?_r=0

[JonLP24]

1. Something is very wrong with that department

the whole culture of it.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/law-disorder/

It goes way back
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/law-disorder/etc/cron.html

The New Orleans Police Department has been rocked by successive scandals during the past several years: an officer was convicted in April 1996 of hiring a hit man to kill a woman who had lodged a brutality complaint against him and another officer was convicted in September 1995 for robbing a Vietnamese restaurant and shooting, execution style, a brother and sister who worked there, as well as an off-duty officer from her precinct working as security at the restaurant. In addition, at least fifty of the 1,400-member force have been arrested for felonies including homicide, rape, and robberies since 1993.1 As astutely noted by police abuse expert Prof. James Fyfe, some cities' police departments have reputations for being brutal, like Los Angeles, or corrupt, like New York, and still others are considered incompetent. New Orleans has accomplished the rare feat of leading nationally in all categories
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/journalism/cases/katrina/Human%20Rights%20Watch/uspohtml/uspo92.htm

[RandiFan1290]

2. Calling for police help when you are poor

is a completely different situation than most of you wealthy whites are use to.

There is a reason most of us avoid the police at all costs. They are not here to help US and every call is turned into an investigation of YOU and usually comes along with a complementary house search.

[easychoice]

3. Welcome to Seattle...And you might get shot in the back too!

That's why we sicced the Justice Dept. on them.Now their latest bullshit is not to respond to citizen's requests.Ya know,things like assaults, domestic violence,burglary and hit and run accidents.These are just the crimes I know about from the last month.The foot dragging started when D.O.J. stepped in and took over the Dept.

[Feral Child]

4. Incredible.

Let me guess which way these jerks vote...

[LuvNewcastle]

5. I've always loved New Orleans.

I almost moved over there when I was young. That would have been a huge mistake. I probably would have gotten killed and no one would have thought twice about it. Life is cheap over there. Many people have told me that New Orleans is cursed, and when I look at the violent history of the city and the ongoing corruption, I think it could be true. Read up on the history of New Orleans some time. Some awful shit has happened over there for the last 300 years or so. I still enjoy my occasional trips over there, but I know I'm taking my life in my hands when I do.

[mercuryblues]

6. Close your

eyes rape culture deniers.

In one case, a 2-year-old was brought to the emergency room on suspicion of having been the victim of a sexual assault and was found to have a sexually transmitted disease. The detective did no follow-up and closed the case.

A 2 year old. They couldn't even investigate the rape of a 2 year old. My God. How depraved are you if you don't believe a 2 year old with a STD was really raped?

I want to know how this departments handing and labeling of rape reports as "consensual" "miscellaneous" effects the numbers of "false rape" reports that the MRA's like to spew.

This is only from 5 detectives in 1 police department, almost 1,300 cases. How many more police department are like this?

[cali]

7. how horrific is that? and the cop who thinks "simple rape" shouldn't be a crime?

and wtf is "simple rape" anyway?

[mercuryblues]

9. Jesus Cali

IDK. It could mean raping a 2 year old who does not have the verbal capacity to say what happened to her. On average a 2 year old has about 300 words in their vocabulary. I sincerely doubt rape, penis, ding dong and vagina are any of them. At that age, many are not even potty trained or just beginning to be.

I wish it meant she was raped, it's that simple.

I realize that wanting them to be dropped into a vat of boiling oil is a visceral reaction. I would be all for it if I believed it would prevent crap like this.

[mythology]

11. If the evidence is that cop

It's what a dumb fucking calls a reason for not doing his job.

For which, if true, he should be fired, arrested, convicted, and sued into oblivion by both the victims and the city for theft since he wasn't doing his job.

[seabeyond]

8. and when the MRA'rs boost how the rapes numbers have declined to the point of non existence,

and there is no reason to discuss the issue, further we should be celebrating, this is merely one example at how hard our police across the nation keeps that number down.

[mercuryblues]

10. I was told

on another board that this was just bad humor. The guy could not see how police making light of a crime they are supposed to investigate could impact their thinking while investigating that crime. Could not or refused to connect the dots. After 3 traffic cops were arrested in OK for raping women they pulled over Chief Brown said the best advice he can give to women is to not break the law.

Transcript:

Officer 1: Look at that girl over there.

Officer 2: (blows whistle) Go ahead and call the cops. They can't unrape you. (laughter)

Officer 1: You didn't turn your camera off, did you?

Officer 2: They can't unrape you.

Combine these 3 stories, from just the past few weeks and you can not tell me there is something systematically wrong on how the police view rape cases. How this effects statistics. Just one of those cops in OK is suspected of raping 7 women. How many more fear coming forward, because you know, he is a cop.

[Sedona]

12. The same thing is going on in Arizona

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/20130215mcso-sex-crimes-report.html

Review: Sheriff Arpaio’s unit was sloppy in sex-crimes cases

Poor training, sloppy record-keeping, interpersonal conflicts, office politics and ignorant or indifferent administrators were to blame for hundreds of sex-crimes cases that were inadequately investigated by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, a review of more than 10,000 pages of records shows.

Officially, the Sheriff’s Office found no single individual or group of employees responsible for the poor investigation of sex crimes that the agency’s overburdened special-victims unit handled in the past decade.

But the internal-affairs report produced last week makes clear that a sloppy culture took root in the overburdened special-victims unit and was overlooked by key administrators.

As a result, the agency was forced to reopen more than 400 sex-crimes cases that were improperly handled between 2002 and 2008.

Much more at link