Posted on 11/24/2006 6:38:13 PM PST by Dubya
Rape is a four-letter word. When police get a report of one, it flies to the top of their priority list.
Even, police say, when that reaction is exploited.
Sexual assaults, like other crimes, are sometimes falsely reported. People pretend to have been raped for reasons ranging from a cry for attention to hiding an infidelity.
In a recent Grapevine case, police believe a woman who reported being raped in her apartment may have been looking for an excuse to break her lease. After committing more than a week of resources to the investigation, Grapevine officers concluded that the evidence at the scene didn’t match her story.
But officers would rather waste time and money to check out a fake report of sexual assault than be wrong, Grapevine Sgt. Bob Murphy said.
“We can’t ever have a woman doubt that we will investigate her case,” he said. “For that reason, detectives have to do whatever they can until the case runs into a dead end. It winds up hurting the other women who were really sexually assaulted.”
According to the FBI, false accusations account for 2 percent or 3 percent of all reported sexual assaults. Victim advocates say sexual assaults are falsely reported no more than other crimes are. They hesitate to talk about false reports because they never want true victims to be afraid to come forward, said Deborah Caddy, director of the rape-crisis and victim-services program of the Tarrant County Women’s Center.
“We want to convey to the public that this is a community that is open to hearing about sexual assault and there are support and services available,” she said. “The most important message is that when this does happen, there is help.” The penalty
Making a false report is a state jail felony. But Fort Worth and Hurst police say they rarely prosecute those who make false reports, including sexual assaults.
The district attorney’s office decides whether to file charges.
“Fortunately, we do not receive that many false reports and have filed even fewer, ” Fort Worth police Lt. Dean Sullivan said. “But every case is investigated on its face value, which is actually the purpose of conducting an investigation — ‘to attempt to determine what occurred and whether a crime/violation has taken place.’ ”
Grapevine police rarely prosecute false reporters because the department would have to invest even more investigation time and because it is difficult to prove that an assault didn’t occur, Murphy said. Red flags
In the Grapevine incident, a woman reported that a man broke into her apartment about 1 a.m. Sept. 26 as she slept on the living-room floor. The man spoke to her in Spanish, and she told police what he said, though she doesn’t know Spanish, records show.
The woman said the man raped her, stole two CDs and left, reports show. She said she was too afraid to leave the apartment and didn’t have a phone connection to call for help.
But a neighbor later told investigators that the woman came home drunk about 3 a.m., reports show. The woman said that she had been assaulted and that she could no longer afford her rent, reports show.
Later that morning, the woman went to the apartment manager, told her about the assault, slammed down her keys and said she was moving out of the apartment because it was unsafe, reports show. A friend finally persuaded her to call police about 5 p.m., reports show.
While Grapevine police said they didn’t want to reveal too much about how they investigate sexual assaults, they did say several details in this case raised red flags: The woman didn’t want to undergo a rape exam, deal with the stress of an investigation or cooperate with police.
After seven days of investigating, two detectives could not find evidence to support her story and closed the case after the woman wouldn’t speak with them. The detectives’ conclusions: She had fabricated the story.
“We can’t say with absolute certainty that she flat-out lied, but we are pretty sure she did,” Murphy said. Community stigma
Grapevine police say they get eight to 10 possibly fake reports of sexual assault a year. Such cases can eat up thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours spent sifting through evidence, obtaining a search warrant and presenting the case to a grand jury.
No one indicator points to a fake report, but a story that doesn’t match the evidence is often a giveaway, Grapevine Detective Larry Hallmark said.
If police are convinced the report is false, they usually give the accuser a chance to add details, Murphy said.
Aside from the obvious cost to police, there is a cost to the community, Hurst police Sgt. Craig Teague said. After reports of a sexual assault spread through a neighborhood, residents may not learn that the assault never really occurred and may believe the case was unsolved. Residents are left with a sense that there is still a danger in their community.
“Everybody looks at crime reports, and a community is labeled with that sexual assault unjustly,” Teague said. “If you can’t clear it up as unfounded, it will show that it was uncleared by an arrest. The statistics indicate that it happened even though all sorts of flags say it didn’t.” Melissa Vargas, 817-685-3888 msanchez@star-telegram.com
They should be treated like anyone else that files a false report.
"Making a false report is a state jail felony. But Fort Worth and Hurst police say they rarely prosecute those who make false reports, including sexual assaults."
But let them find a marijuana seed in your trash, and it's off to the hoosegow.
Sorry. It's a no-knock SWAT busting down your door in the middle of the night, THEN it's off to the hoosegow.
More likely the morgue.
Unless your name is Juanita Broderick, then ya better just put some ice on it.
Sometimes a prosecution happens and even then, justice does not.
In Orange County, Six college-age men only escaped a potential lifetime in prison because their orgy with the accuser was video taped. She only got jail time (less than a year) because she took $1800 in victim's assistance.
Frightening.
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