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Volume 41, Issue 4
October 14, 2003
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October
14, 2003
City at forefront in helping sex victims
Daniel
Raven
Mesa Legend
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| Daniel Raven Mesa
Legend |
| Sgt. Allen Moore of the Mesa Police
Department stands in front of one of the murals at the Center Against
Family Violence. |
On Sept. 13, a female student filed a delayed police report alleging
that she had been sexually assaulted three days earlier at a location
adjacent to the MCC Red Mountain Campus.
According to the report filed, the incident occurred on the property of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints next to the campus on
Sept. 10.
The sexual assault is believed to have been perpetrated by an acquaintance
of the victim, according to information provided by Sgt. Mike Goulet of
the Mesa Police Department.
Another MCC student, Diane Bales, who allowed her name to be used, was
beaten and raped after being dragged into a spare bedroom during a party.
Bales was 16 at the time.
Bales claimed her attacker became enraged when she rejected his repeated
sexual advances.
Like many, Bales chose not to seek the prosecution of her attacker.
“I didn’t tell anyone because I believed that if I did, everyone
would think I was just mad at my boyfriend,” said Bales, explaining
why she chose not to come forward and press charges against her attacker.
“In my head, I felt I deserved getting hurt; I thought it was my
fault,” Bales elaborated.
“In a way, I do regret it, because I feel that between then and
now, he’s done it to someone else; and in a way, I don’t,
because I don’t feel I was ready to deal with it then,” Bales
said.
Regarding advice for a woman who has been sexually assaulted, Bales chose
her words carefully.
“I would tell her to do what feels right for her. I find that the
hardest part of surviving is dealing with the emotions that you don’t
want to deal with,” Bales said.
Fortunately, there are many options for those who need help managing to
deal with the aftermath of an attack.
One of the first and most important of the options available to a victim
is the Center Against Family Violence, located in Mesa.
The Center is a place where victims of sexual assaults are taken after
they report a sex crime to police, or after they seek treatment for one
in the hospital.
Opened in February of 1996 and now the longest-established police family
advocacy center in the state, the Center is essentially a police station
with forensic examination and victim services capacities.
Intentionally designed to be a non-threatening environment, the scarcely
populated first floor is replete with stuffed animals, large soft couches,
and walls painted with dolphins.
Sgt. Allen Moore led a tour of the facility, which is owned and operated
by the Mesa Police Department, and explained the significance of a more
pleasant atmosphere for victims waiting to be interviewed and examined.
Stressing sensitivity, Moore recalled a time in the past when sexual assault
victims were juggled through countless interviewers, and even public waiting
rooms in hospitals, police stations or both.
While the first floor of the building was intended to impress upon visitors
a sense of comfort and safety, the second floor is very much a police
station.
Dozens of police officers work over 150 cases a month in units ranging
from domestic violence, to sex offender notification, to child pornography.
Moore explained that the faster and easier a victim is able to move through
the justice system, the easier recovery will be.
“The idea is to get the victim out of there as soon as possible,”
said Moore.
Although solving crimes is a top priority for the Center, “We will
not lie to a victim because we want to gain their trust,” Moore
stated.
Nicky Santos, victim services administrator, said victims of sexual assault
could seek help through the police department, a hospital or even their
college as well as outside programs that are offered such as Tempe’s
EMPACT.
EMPACT’s Sexual Assault Hotline is available 24 hours a day at (480)
736-4949.
As in the recent assault, waiting is a common phenomenon among women who
come forward after being sexually assaulted, justice becomes difficult
to obtain when the situation is reduced to a “your word vs. mine”
scenario due to lack of hard evidence.
“There just won’t be a case and they would need to call EMPACT,”
Santos said, commenting on the victim’s legal options, having waited
more than 72 hours to come forward.
Waiting to come forward intensifies both the unlikely chance of prosecuting
a suspect for lack of physical evidence, and the impossibility of attaining
state-funded victim compensation as illustrated in the Crime Victim Compensation
Program Eligibility Requirements document given to sexual assault victims
by the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission.
The compensatory policy featured in the document relies on the victim’s
capacity to step forward within 72 hours.
In spite of any motivation victims may have to seek justice by accusing
their attacker, most sexual assault victims do not.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 84 percent of rape victims
know their attackers. This situation is a type of violent crime called
acquaintance rape.
In Arizona, rape falls under the classification of sexual assault, along
with other sex crimes that do not necessarily involve forced sexual intercourse.
As a result, when the U.S. Department of Justice claimed that only 36
percent of rapes, 34 percent of attempted rapes and 26 percent of sexual
assaults were reported to law enforcement officials, those numbers all
collectively reflected the rate at which sexual assaults are reported
in Arizona.
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