Yeah it’s really sad about rape victims. I don’t think the attitude of some members of the public “If you’re telling the truth, you wouldn’t wait to bring a claim” helps either. What people don’t realise is the trauma such victims have undergone and the therapy to work on their mental health is their first priority.
Also, you may think you’d handle it a certain way, but how would you know until/unless you experience such yourself? And, we should bear in mind we all react to and process traumatic events differently, and we need to be respectful of these differences.
What differences am I talking about? Some may quickly want to being legal claims to ensure the perpetrator is held accountable. This is how they cope to restore their sense of justice. While others may need time to process their trauma.
The same reasons I don’t believe in time limits for bringing legal claims for any kinda physical abuse; I am aware this has sparked such controversy I constantly hear about in the news.
@Black Angel what are your views on time limits ?
I 100% agree. There should NOT be a statute of limitations in cases of rape, or physical abuse just as there isn't with murder. The damage done to the victims is lifelong and as such, so should be the time limit on the consequences.
Putting a clock on consequences, only gives cover to the perpetrators. It is why whenever there is an accusation, the first thing the alleged perp says is "why come forward now?" It is never a denial, but always a question of
timing.
And I forgot to address this earlier when you mentioned about cops that don't take rape or domestic violence seriously, you are absolutely right, they don't and that is because birds of a feather stick together. What I mean is, the reason they don't take these things seriously is because they do the same things themselves.. and they protect each other courtesy of the
blue wall. There have been cases where the rape victims ended up being sexually harassed or raped by the same cop that they
reported their initial rape to. This is just one example, but there are many, and much like other abuses of authority, they either intentionally don't report them, or they underreport them just like with brutality and excessive and/or lethal force.
And just recently there was a major scandal involving West Virginia police that had hidden cameras placed in the academy to spy on women where they had to change out of their clothes. Many of the victims were minors.
And regarding domestic violence, this 2014 Atlantic article states that dv is worse in law enforcement than it is in the NFL.. which is saying something, because in the NFL, (not that I am defending them) those cases involved CTE at some point. Which wouldn't be the case with the police. Former GA SEN candidate Herschel Walker is a prime example.
Research suggests that family violence is two to four times higher in the law-enforcement community than in the general population. So where's the public outrage?
www.theatlantic.com
This has been the reason that many of the cops in my family left the force after they did their 20 years. As a cop, you are expected to stay silent for your own protection if you know first-hand how fucked up your fellow officers, sergeants and detectives are. The reason the bad cops aren't held accountable is because they go after the good cops who
try to do so. This is just a meme regarding the most notable cops that lost their jobs and more because they did the right thing. But they are in no way the only ones who did so.
I am not sure about what happened with the rest of the cops in the pic, but I do know that Cariole Horne just recently got her pension reinstated because she was fired for having stopping her partner from being someone to death. And Joe Crystal settled with the city of Baltimore for reporting on his fellow officers for assaulting their victim. And as for the other 4, I dont remember if they got justice either, but another notable example would be Frank Serpico who was fired for exposing the corruption within the NYPD, and they even made a movie about it with Al Pacino.
Daniel Holtzclaw is an example of a bad cop protected by his fellow officers and police culture. He raped 13 women and children, and he admitted during his interrogation that he targetted Black women and children w/ records because he knew that if they ever came forward, that no one would believe them. He looked into his victims records and if they had a drug or prostitution history, then he would target them.
Police found thirteen women who accused Daniel Holtzclaw of sexual assault.
abcnews.go.com
What ended up getting him caught was that he raped a grandmother who had no record, and
she came forward. And when she did, they still kept him on the streets until more victims came forward, they previously dismissed the other complaints against him until the grandmother came forward. He was later convicted on 13 of the 36 charges against him and sentenced to 263 years.
Police say Daniel Holtzclaw targeted his victims while patrolling neighborhoods.
abcnews.go.com
At trial, his jury was all White, containing 8 men and 4 women (I have asked the cops and detectives in my family why there is usually a majority of White people on the jury for police brutality cases, and they said, that the reason they do this, is because White men are not only more likely to trust the cops (due to being treated with
more respect than anyone else) but that they are most likely to identify with them on some level, and when they do so, they are more likely to beat the charges. This was the same reasoning in the 60s in prior when you had similar cases like Emmitt Till and the White men who lynched him.) In other words, one hand washes the other.
But thankfully, that wasn't the case this time.
There have been cases of cops that basically kidnapped their victims off the street under the guise of "police business" and then they end up raping their victim and doing everything they can to not only destroy the evidence, but then have their support groups bully the victim and then they end up getting off scot-free.
This teen vogue article says that this is extremely common.. it also mentions in near-explicit detail of the case I mentioned above.
Police are perpetrators more often than we talk about.
www.teenvogue.com
This incident occured at the same precinct that responded to my neighborhood's calls, not that they did much when they got there. I once called the cops at around 11p.m. to report my neighbor being beaten by her husband, to the point there he was slamming her head against the wall and threatening to kill her and their children, and the police didn't show up until 7 a.m. in certain neighborhoods like my old one, the cops just wait long enough for you to die before they show up and they have done this with the shootings that took place as well.
And there are documentaries about the police corruption as well. One of them was about the corruption within the 75th Precinct during the 1980s. I think it was called the 75 or something like that.
Anyway, you are right that it is the culture, abusers often surround themselves with those who do the same things they do, I think it is more of an insurance policy to keep each other in check, or from "growing a conscience" and coming forward rather than comeraderie. Basically it's a "if I go down, then I'm taking everyone down with me" sorta thing.
For example, Jeffrey Epstein kept a record of his fellow abusers like Trump, and many celebs, politicians, monarchs, etc. And even if the people he associated with weren't all abusers, they were still very well aware of what he was doing and as long as he kept flying them out, to his island, they didn't care. Even the FBI knew this for years and did nothing. These people knew in the same way that the fellow cops in Holtzclaw's precinct knew. And the unions are just as bad because they do the same. In Opa Locka, Florida, there was a cop who was fired 7 times, and his union made sure that he kept getting reinstated.
At any rate, this is why the "bad apple" narrative regarding the police always bothered me. This is designed to shut down legitimate discourse regarding police reform, brutality and the inherent racial biases (that stem from their origins as Slave Patrol in this country) and radicalization within the force. And because the average person doesn't really know anything about these things, let alone the history, anymore than they know about their rights, and so when this is given as a response to valid concerns about the police, they don't pushback on it.
Even though, they know deep down that a bad apple will
literally spoil the bunch. (Seriously.. apples disperse gases that accelerate ripening and causes the rest of the apples to quickly spoil as a result.. it is why its recommended to place them with green bananas if you want them to ripen faster..)
So, literally keeping a bad cop who abuses their power is a bad look on the entire force, and the profession itself and it is all the more reason for that cop to be fired in order to retain the trust of the people. But, because most people don't know anything about the police anymore than they know the rest of the "bad apple" saying, they just nod along, even though deep down they themselves would go and throw out that rotten apple they saw in their fruit bowl to prevent it from spoiling the good apples near by.
For some reason, it just never clicks with them.
Nebulous
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