Paradegoer Reports Rape, Jailed On Warrant

[jmm]

This can happen yet some wonder why more women don't report being raped?

http://www.tbo.com/news/nationworld/MGB8IXMVJXE.html?farksub=1

Paradegoer Reports Rape, Jailed On Warrant
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By VALERIE KALFRIN The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jan 30, 2007


TAMPA - A 21-year-old woman told police Saturday that a man grabbed her off Howard Avenue and raped her behind a building during the Gasparilla festivities.

But officers investigating the case arrested her after learning she had an outstanding warrant from her teenage years for failure to pay restitution.

She spent the next two nights in jail.

.....

"You've got to make sure you throw somebody in jail on a four-year-old felony warrant after they've been brutally raped?" the mother said. "It was a failure to take the actual dynamics into play."

Her daughter did not speak to reporters.

Adding to the mother's ire is her claim that a jail nurse prevented her daughter from taking a second dose of emergency contraception prescribed by a nurse at a clinic as part of a rape examination. The jail nurse, said the mother and the victim's attorney, denied the medication for religious reasons.

.....

Generally, in rape cases in which a victim does not suffer extensive injuries, it is standard procedure for officers to take the victim to a clinic to be examined by a nurse, McElroy said. If the victim is not at the original scene, officers will ask the victim to accompany them there to look for additional evidence, she said.

In this case, officers took the woman to a clinic on Busch Boulevard, where a nurse examined her and provided her with the 24-hour hot line for the crisis center, McElroy said. On weekdays, victim advocates from the police department provide referrals for counseling, McElroy said.

The woman did not have the opportunity to call the hot line, her mother and attorney said. As a jail inmate, she was allowed only to make collect calls. "She did not have any crisis intervention. Zero. None," her mother said.

Routine Check Revealed Warrant
McElroy said the woman tried to show police where the rape occurred but had trouble finding the location because it was dark. While en route, police learned through a routine check that she was wanted. Jail records show that the woman was booked into Orient Road Jail on Saturday for "failure to appear" on two felony warrants: grand theft auto and burglary. In fact, McElroy said, the "failure to appear" was recorded because of the alleged nonpayment.

Unsure of how to proceed, police drove the woman to a gas station at Howard Avenue and Kennedy Boulevard to consult with an acting sergeant, who determined the woman should be arrested, McElroy said.

The woman's mother said she received a phone call about 9 p.m. Saturday from a female officer saying her daughter "was raped today at 2, but her name came up on a bulletin and I have to take her to jail."

.....

[Katherine Brengle]

1. As much as this situation truly sucks...

the more I hear about the more pissed I get about the general anti-police venom being spewed in GD.

These officers, unsure of protocol, followed the proper chain of command to figure out what they should do - unfortunately for this young woman, that meant she was arrested.

There were some for sure screw-ups here - she certainly should not have been denied medication and she should have had an opportunity to speak with a rape counselor, even if it was while she was in jail.

I'm a little disturbed that her so-concerned mother didn't bail her out as soon as she found out...

[Lars39]

2. She was the victim...why was her background pertinent?

And not everyone has bail money available at short notice.

[Katherine Brengle]

3. It's not the kind of "background" that usually gets used against rape victims -

the woman had a warrant out for her arrest. Those police officers, as much as it sucks, are required to follow the law. The law says that if a person has a warrant out for them, and they are encountered by the police, they get arrested.

Last week my husband had to arrest a woman who called the police on a domestic against her boyfriend. She had an outstanding warrant for her arrest. He didn't want to do it - but the law required him to do so. He made sure she understood the situation, made sure she was comfortable and made sure that she was able to get out as soon as possible.

The law is the law - sometimes it sucks.

[Lars39]

6. As a *juvenile* she had a warrant out for her arrest.

[Katherine Brengle]

7. How is that relevant?

[jmm]

4. From what I read in the paper today

they refused to give her a bail hearing until after the lawyer her mother contacted went to the press. I do sympathize with the officers that initially dealt with her but if they could give her a hearing soon after the story went public then I see no reason why they couldn't have sooner especially knowing what she had been through and since she only owned less than $5,000.

[Katherine Brengle]

5. That does sound like a mess,

but don't forget that those officers don't determine when she goes before a judge, when bail is set and for how much, etc.

I think a lot of people assume that individual officers have a lot more power than they do - yes, they have power, but most of the decisions are made by higher-ups, judges, bureaucrats etc, not patrolmen.

I really do feel for her - no one should have to go through that kind of hell - but I honestly think it was just a case of everyone trying to do their best to handle a horrible situation and unfortunately it didn't work out very well for her.

[melnjones]

8. She needed to be assigned a victim's advocate.

Immediately. That was a huge glaring mistake...and if that police dept doesn't have victim advocates, well, they need to fix it. Now. No, it would be wrong to blame individual police officers, but this should not have happened this way and there is no excuse for the way the system failed her.