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.
They could have let her use their phone.
On the other, your legitimate beef is with the prosecutor and the dopes (and the dopes who voted for them) who wrote that law, not with the cops.
Amen. Forfeiture laws have made them more akin to bounty hunters.
So, another form for us to carry around. People like to complain about the expense of fitting out cruisers with all the latest doo-dads. Wait until we start asking for a little trailer for our file cabinet....
"Excuse me, mister Bad Guy, I mean, uh, Mister or Miz Morally Challenged Individual, just hold on while I get this form. Now, if you want to shoot at me, please sign here and initial here, here, and here. If you only want to stab or slug me, then put an 'X' here,and initial and date HERE. Okay, now, where were we? Oh, yeah, Freeze, person habitually engaging in genital sexual behavior with a parental unit of the same or some other sex (not that there's anything wrong with that)!"
While I normally do not trash the police, this is ridiculous. These officers were so gung-ho they took those actions against a "user" but were unable to protect this young woman from kidnapping and rape.....it is sad. The action against the owner of that car was excessive, while rape and kidnapping happens right under their noses. As an 18 year old girl, I am sure she had every right to fear the police as well as the streets. Is common sense not taught to CA police? What a sad, sad situation. What a shame.
If you are in SE MI, then I can relate. The area is filled with revenue enhancers working on behalf of the state. If you make a good income, expect the State to do everything in their power to dessimate you. If you were poor with no money to steal, your case would have been dismissed already.
There's no way I'd take someone home unless I had my recorder going the whole time. This chick doesn't sound very art-smay, and all she has to do is make a sexual harassment charge and his life is hell on earth for the next six months.
WTF ?
I'm poor with no money to steal.... (((crickets))) This is going to cost me $4,000. The cheapest I have found to date. I am currently 15 days late on my house payment....how more broke do I have to be?
'preciate it!
Mad Dawg,
Think about it a second: Do you *really* want to empower the police to make decisions for sober adult citizens "for their own good"?
No?
Didn't think so.
On the other hand, do you *really* want to leave police open to frivolous "wrongful release on own recognizance" lawsuits? In THIS ludicrously litigious society?
No?
Didn't think so.
Police *ALREADY* tote around a report case and a ticket case. Use one or the other form, probably the report form, as a simple proof that the civilian was offered a lift, refused the lift, and signed the paperwork proving refusal of the lift.
geesh - it isn't so damned hard, is it?
ping
I'm not an 18-year-old girl, but given the choice of walking or riding with the police, I'll take my chances walking every time.
Actually it does sound nasty. But HOW did it turn into a search?
Maybe I'm just lucky where I work. We don't get our jollies busting people here, and our Commonwealth Attorneys seem pretty decent about distinguishing between people who want to make trouble and people who end up on the wrong side of some silly ass law.
Also, it seems to me you gloss over the tricky part, namely determining the sobriety and competence of a citizen. In the real world, especially when the weird behavior does not seem alcohol related, leaving aside little things like questions of right or wrong, the guy on the spot (or at least, THIS guy on the spot) is mostly aware that WHATEVER he decides he's opening himself to all sorts of difficulties, up to and including losing his job and losing in court type difficulties.
Do I bust this seemingly disoriented but absolutely gorgeous blonde just to get her off the streets and out of harm's way for the next few hours, only to find out in court that I am a sexual predator and that "disoriented" is a very subjective judgment and she passed all the drug screens and so now I get to pay a huge settlement, or do I leave her out there to be taken advantage of?
And what if I'm on foot? I don't have either a ticket case or a report form with me, since the situation I'm thinking of required me to cuff the citizen, wait for a van to take her and me to the magistrate, and do the paperwork there?
Or, while I'm being paranoid, she signs, gets raped, and then says I SHOULD have known that she had no clue what she was signing.
In general, what I note about this thread is (a)cops are guilty until proven innocent; (b) one bad encounter is proof that there are no good cops; (c) cops are responsible for lousy prosecutors and judges and stupid laws; (d) not too many of the critics have much of a clue abut what cops do.
Complaining is always simpler than fixing, and the less you know the easier it is to find fault -- and fault finding is always pleasant and recreational, but rarely useful.
Bake me a cake with a file in it...as of today, it don't look good...
your objections are understandable, but groundless in law.
1. the SCOTUS has ruled that police are actually under no obligation whatsoever to prevent a crime.
2. police are required to let SUSPECTS go free unless they formally arrest them
3. police are not permitted to violate the civil rights of non-suspects by informally detaining or transporting them involuntarily - that is called kidnapping and false imprisonment
4. a signed contract or waiver still retains some value, even in the curent litigious climate.
so: police are protected by the limitations of their responsibilities, by the limits on their authority, and by the (debased, but still extant) power of contract.
so what exactly are you bitching about?
That sucks in a very big way. It makes me think somebody is running for re-election or something. I'm going to go study my file-in-cake recipes. Please let me know by private mail how things shake out.
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