Posted on 04/04/2006 3:23:42 AM PDT by freepatriot32
An 18-year-old woman was kidnapped and raped early Friday morning while walking home from a traffic stop in which Upland police impounded her ride, authorities said.
Upland police allowed the woman to leave alone on foot around midnight near 14th Street and Euclid Avenue after they towed the car in which she was a passenger.
She called police from the south part of the city about two hours later and reported that a man forced her into his car at gunpoint and raped her before she made it home.
Police Capt. Jeff Mendenhall said that despite the obvious safety concerns, police followed proper procedures in letting the woman walk through the city alone in the middle of the night. It was the woman's choice to do so, he said, and officers had no authority to stop her.
"She could have been taken somewhere, but she turned it down," Mendenhall said. "If she were a juvenile we would have made arrangements to get her home. But if it's an adult we can't force them against their will."
Officers arrested the suspected assailant shortly after the woman reported she was raped.
They said the suspect, 22-year-old Seuti Magba-Kamara of Rancho Cucamonga, drove past them while they were interviewing the woman just after 2 a.m.
They pulled him over several blocks away and took him into custody without incident, Mendenhall said.
He was booked into West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga on charges of rape, kidnapping, robbery, criminal threats and forcible oral copulation. Bail was set at $1 million.
Police said the incident unfolded about 11:20 p.m. Thursday after officers stopped the car in which the woman was a passenger.
The driver of the car, who was not identified, was arrested on suspicion of possessing drug paraphernalia, and the car was impounded.
Mendenhall said the woman initially waited in the back seat of a squad car while police called a ride for her. The ride didn't show, and the woman decided to walk to a pay phone, Mendenhall said.
She didn't come back, Mendenhall said.
Police said she made it about three miles on foot before a man pulled up in a white Chevrolet Impala and offered her a ride near San Antonio Avenue and Eighth Street.
When she refused, he brandished a handgun and forced her into his car, Mendenhall said.
He then drove her to an alley, threatened her and forced her to have sex at gunpoint, police said. He stole her ID and let her out of the car afterward, police said.
She called to report the incident at about 2 a.m. from the area of Seventh Street and San Antonio.
After his arrest, the woman identified Magba-Kamara as her assailant, authorities said. Evidence was found in his car linking him to the crime, Mendenhall said. Police also recovered the gun, which they said turned out to be an air pistol.
The woman, who suffered bruises on her arm, was treated a hospital and released.
Mendenhall said police don't like to leave people stranded on the streets.
Officers will often take them to 24-hour restaurants or even allow them to wait in the police station lobby for their rides.
This woman didn't want that, he said.
"We certainly didn't leave her stranded," he said. "There were better options for her to take."
Curtis Cope, an expert in police procedure, said Friday it appears Upland police acted within the law in allowing the woman to walk home alone.
"It sounds like an offer for assistance was made, and that would be consistent with good police practice," Cope said.
In some cases, an officer can drive a person home, but that depends on how busy the officer is and how far away is the person's destination, said Cope, who spent 29 years as a policeman and now works as an instructor on proper tactics.
Normally, police will help the person call a cab or arrange transportation. If the person chooses to walk, police must let them, he said.
According to court records, Magba-Kamara has a case pending against him. He is suspected of committing a robbery at a fast-food restaurant on Holt Boulevard in Montclair.
He was out of jail on his own recognizance Thursday night.
I'm actually aware of what SCOTUS says about my duties, though that may surprise you. Further, I have a life that includes more than what SCOTUS says I can get away with. I get upset when people I'm supposed to help get hurt. It messes with my sleep and so forth. I like to see things end up with people safe and at least more or less satisfied. It doesn't float my boat to hassle people.
I say again, here at things like rock concerts and football games we arrest people, and take them to the magistrate where the paperwork gets done. The magistrate is in the same building as the jail so it's just a matter of opening a door.
WE CAN legally detain folks, and we do. Happens all the time.
"Some value" is one thing. "Enough value" is another. Your suggestion was that I use an existing form, like a ticket or a report form for the waiver. But wouldn't such a waiver need to have been written and vetted by lawyers? You're not suggesting that the officer write one out by hand every time, are you? Should he do it from memory or should he just make one up each time? Should he be able to make them up in Spanish as well as English?
Further, the punishment an officer is subject to is not limited to what happens in court at the end of a trial. Just being a defendant is a pain. Heck, when someone assaulted me and we tried that SOB being a complainant was a pain. Lawyers aren't cheap and it's the Sheriff's call whether I get to pay for my own or he will back me up. Finally, deputies serve at the pleasure of the Sheriff. He can dismiss me for no reason and it's up to me whether I want to risk the money to fight to get my job back.
In the kind of situation we are discussing, from the POV of the deputy, the contention that a concern is groundless in law is relevant but not competent to allay the concern in its entirety. I can be entirely legally right but piss off the sheriff and that's all it takes.
Have you gone on some ride-alongs? You might enjoy it and it might be educational to do a BUNCH of them.
I have done ride-alongs in New Orleans, Atlanta (Dekalb), Atlanta (Doraville), Atlanta (Gwinette), Valdosta, and Quitman.
I wish that every one of you that has had such bad things to say about cops would go sit down in the booking office of any major city's police station for just one night. When you see the lowlife vermin that they have to deal with every day, day after day and see how professionally they handle all the crap the lowlife vermin try to dish out to them, I think you would have just a little higher opinion of them.
You all sound like the liberals do when they put down our military because of a few bad apples. Just like a soldier, every day a policeman walks out the door to do his duty, he and his family don't know if he will be coming back home alive that night.
Policemen are just human beings. They have bad days, very bad days because they see more horrible things in a month than most of us will ever see in a lifetime. You see how upset we get when we just read about child abuse, rapes and senseless deaths. They see these things every day, up close and personal.
I know all of this because I worked as a booking clerk at a police station in a major city and my father was a homicide detective.
Hey, sorry if they are a little grumpy looking when they write you a ticket for speeding, but they might have just seen a couple of car loads of mangled bodies at the high speed collision accident they were called to the day before.
What about my other comments? It seems to me that your reference to what SCOTUS says about my responsibilities was sort of non-responsive. I specifically raised the possibility of accusations not related to the issue SCOTUS decided. In every interaction with the public there are plenty of hazards for the LEO beyond the hazard of losing in court. And I'm' still not clear on whether you think the cops should carry a pre-printed disclaimer form, memorize one and write it out as the situation suggests, or make one up on the spot.
There are plenty of liabilities which are more than merely legal, and do we really want police who are so hedged about with legal concerns that they do no more than what is absolutely required? Clearly not, or this discussion would be a non-starter. There do seem to be more and more damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't double binds for LEOs
And then some pajamahedin tells me I have no clue. Okay, I have no clue. Have a nice day, sir, and stay safe.
yanno, you are complaining a whole lot about an initial post which stated that, if the police had a record -on paper OR on their dashcams- of the woman refusing the lift, they are in the clear.
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