Our Best Work of 2007

The Little Endless Storybook. by Jill Thompson.

Dreaming of You

On New Year's Day, I asked each of the four of us to self-select our own best piece of the year.

We call ourselves a political blog. And we are, mostly. But our very best work, in terms of what we like and what you like, has a decidedly personal flavor.

We're proud of our first six months. We've genuinely enjoyed settling in. And we look forward to spending 2008 with you.

Here, alphabetically, are what we consider our best of 2007. Please feel free to tell us which posts you would have selected, and why.


Hubris Sonic
Camp Followers and PTSD Fakers

So, apparently I am faking my PTSD. Apparently the twenty fucking years its taken me to stop figuring out whether the person who is walking past me is going to try and kill and how can I kill them is all fake because my mother breast fed me or something. The years of insomnia and flared tempers to the point of violence is all faked because I am not macho enough. I guess I didnt drink enough tequila, shoot enough people or screw enough prostitutes in central America to be called 'a man' in these keyboard cowards eyes.

Jesse Wendel
“I'll Make You Love Me... Bitch.”

Warning: People triggered by stalking or cutting, this likely isn't for you.

I sent repeated drunken emails telling _____ _____ I was in my car, bleeding, both arms sliced wide fucking open with whatever I had handy -- knife, razor, multi-tool -- in the late spring/early summer of 2002, after my suicide attempt. The first month I even drove by her place a few times in traffic flow.

Lower Manhattanite
“Do you understand where you are?”

There was a note about the local nightspots. Namely, that there were none. Save for the juke joint down the road a piece across from the “Fish Shack”, and of course, the few spots some 35 minutes away in Wilmington. But one of the note's points of interest got some of the young people going. It stated, that after 8:00 P.M., NO ONE WAS TO GO DOWN ACROSS THE RAILROAD TRACKS, PAST THE GREEN HOUSE (an actual green-colored house), AS THAT WAS THE DEMARCATION LINE BETWEEN FREE-GOING COUNTRY, AND KLAN TERRITORY.

Sara Robinson
My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys

My dad, who died five years ago Wednesday, was a cowboy. A real one, complete with beat-up Stetson and muddy ropers and a Ford pickup and an ancient blanket-lined Levi's jean jacket that smelled of manure, leather, horse sweat, and tobacco -- the distinctive aroma of all cowboys, the one that's rubbed so deep into their sunburned hides that it doesn't come out no matter how long they spend in the shower or how much Old Spice they try to mask it with. Dad's been on my mind a lot this week -- well, Dad, Jefferson, and George W. Bush.

There's more...

Oh Santa, I'm So Naughty

Jake Gyllenhaal photo François Duhamel/Jarhead

Woman Charged With Groping Mall Santa:
'I Did Not Do Anything Wrong.'

Arrested several hours after she either did or did not sit on Santa's lap, and did or did not grab him in a very so-called naughty place, depending on whom you believe, a 33 year-old woman was charged with fourth-degree sexual assault.

NewsTimes

The woman accused of groping Santa at the Danbury Fair mall denies she even sat on the man's lap.

"I don't know what's going on. I don't know if he was confused, it was a false report," Sandrama Lamy, 33, said this morning.

Lamy said she was window shopping at the mall Saturday with a friend when she decided to get a picture with a man playing Santa Claus.

A woman -- apparently working with the mall Santa -- made a comment after the picture was snapped, Lamy said.

"I did not sit on his lap. A woman there said 'Be careful, that's my husband.' I said 'What does that have to do with the picture?'" Lamy said. "That's all I said, and I left."

"A couple of hours later," security officers stopped Lamy, who was still in the mall.

"Why would I do this? There were so many people there. If he (Santa) needed a few extra bucks I would have given it to him," Lamy said. "I've never been involved in a crime or anything. This is shocking to me."

Santa and the police tell a different story... when you can get them to say anything.

NewsTimes

Sandrama Lamy, 33, of Danbury, is charged with fourth-degree sexual assault, according to Danbury Detective Lt. Thomas Michael.

Two messages seeking comment were left on Lamy's answering machine.

Details leading up to the alleged fondling are sketchy.

"I don't know what the deal was. It was just bizarre," the mall Santa told a reporter, referring all other questions about the incident to Cherry Hill Photo, the company that runs the Danbury Fair mall Santa photo setup.

Cherry Hill Photo did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

According to information provided by the Danbury Police Department, officers were dispatched to the mall Saturday at 8:45 p.m.

The mall Santa told police that Lamy touched him inappropriately while sitting on his lap.

"The security officer at the mall said Santa Claus has been sexually assaulted," Michael said.

Lamy was also charged with breach of peace.

"She must have caused a commotion over there," Michael said.

Either they've got this on video or they don't.

Eyewitness testimony is the worst kind of testimony there is.

Juries in today's media-driven CSI and Law & Order world, expect a case laid out for them as if it's television. The mall ownership are fools if they don't have five or six cameras trained on Santa, up high, down low, in tight, so no matter what happens, they've got coverage.

If Santa's joint was grabbed -- given I read in comments at the NewsTimes he's a 65 year old man -- he absolutely should press charges if he wants to. That's a personal call and I'd never tell anyone what they should or shouldn't do. Me personally - probably not. But I'm not shy about telling people "No" and making it stick.

If this is a jealous wife forcing Santa to file charges about a misunderstanding of what she saw, then I hope Ms. Lamy ends up owning both half the mall and Mrs. Santa's retirement fund. Every time someone files charges or makes unfounded accusations they poison the environment for every legitimate claim for every woman and man struggling to decide if they dare trust the system to be fair with what happened to them.

I hate people who file false charges with a passion reserved for almost no one.

In the meantime, enjoy Jake as Santa from Jarhead.

There's more...

Gone.

D.R. Scott said it with one word in comments yesterday within Hubris' post below on the young woman who was apparently gang-raped by workers at a KBR work camp (Kellogg Brown & Root until April was a Halliburton subsidiary. How lucky for Halliburton to have spun the company off before this story broke), and then held prisoner in a shipping container until a sympathetic guard loaned her his cell phone, which she used to call her father 7,000 miles away stateside.

Her father called her local Congressman, and he called the State Department—to rescue an American citizen from a rogue American contractor in the middle of a war zone. They just roll so wrong off the tongue—the words. Agents were dispatched to the American mercenaries site and the abused woman worker was freed.

I'll say it again.

Gone.

As D.R. Scott elaborated, “Whatever moral authority the United States claimed to have is now gone.”

Totally. Painfully. Sadly.

Gone.

The next time you hear some half-cerebrumed fool asking with a puerile whine, “Why does the world dislike us?”, after you laugh in his face and backhand him in his drooping jaw, stand over his unconscious body and run this case down for him.

This is how we're treating our own people who've gone over there ostensibly to help “the cause”.

Imagine what in Satan's fucking name these roided-up loose cannons are doing to Iraqis who don't have a congressman to call.

Gone. Gone. Gone.

Here are some of the ugly particulars of the case—the sorts of things that evaporate all moral authority and then seeds the clouds for a rain of karmic blowback so drenching that Hell itself would steam from the deluge's leaching in.

...the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.

“Don't plan on working back in Iraq. There won't be a position here, and there won't be a position in Houston,“ Jones says she was told.

Yes. they effectively threatened her with blackballing in the industry were she to talk. Speak out and we'll destroy your livelihood. Got it? Good. Now, the fellas need a little...how do you say, entertaining...

Gone.

A spokesperson for the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security told ABCNews.com he could not comment on the matter.

Over two years later, the Justice Department has brought no criminal charges in the matter. In fact, ABC News could not confirm any federal agency was investigating the case.

Legal experts say Jones' alleged assailants will likely never face a judge and jury, due to an enormous loophole that has effectively left contractors in Iraq beyond the reach of United States law.

“It's very troubling,” said Dean John Hutson of the Franklin Pierce Law Center. “The way the law presently stands, I would say that they don't have, at least in the criminal system, the opportunity for justice.”

------------------------------------

Since no criminal charges have been filed, the only other option, according to Hutson, is the civil system, which is the approach that Jones is trying now. But Jones' former employer doesn't want this case to see the inside of a civil courtroom.

KBR has moved for Jones' claim to be heard in private arbitration, instead of a public courtroom. It says her employment contract requires it.

The Bush administration's “enforcer” arm, the Justice Department under Alberto Gonzales, and it's torture-enabling State Department actively sought to cover this whole thing up up, and to this day still is—then constructed a Rube Goldberg-ian policy contraption that works only to protect criminals who operate in the name of this government.

“Gone, baby gone.”

Hubris' post ended with this question:

“Anybody want to guess how long before we start hearing the attacks on this 22 year old girl?”

The answer? Maybe an hour. From Melanie in comments:

“One quick google reveals that there are already websites that are calling her "rape bait" because she is pretty.

And from Serving Patriot in the same thread:

...Just read the comments at the ABC news website for all their disgusting, "whe deserved it" of "invited it" glory.”

I won't link to the ugliness. You know where to go to find it. Bet you get there in under four clicks.

I'll count down. Five, four three, two, one...

Gone.

This government has taken whatever standing...whatever tenuous higher ground we may have had...and rammed it through a wood-chipper.

Then burned it to cinders with a flamethrower.

And followed that with a nice, long hydrochloric acid bath—agitating the last molecules with a vigorous cocktail-shaker move...into so much nothingness.

Gone.

You get that when the President pimps out his female Secretary of State, chuckling up his sleeve with his bought-and-paid-for pundits and weirdly-nicknamed aides de camp over disrespect of her at the hands of an arrogant, sexist head of state.

It's a by-product of humor being made at the expense of a woman running for President, where a male opponent doesn't challenge a supporter giddily calling her, a Senate colleague of his—a “bitch”.

What do you expect when the President won't subtly pressure, or even ask a question of a supposedly close fellow world leader whose government's judiciary sentences a female rape victim to 200 lashes for being in the company of men she is not related to, and then for speaking out against said court's injustice?

And all, all fades away when this government will give its mercenary army carte blanche...

...to run wild in a war theatre, and roughshod over an overtaxed and underpaid military who they are free to abuse...

...to murder meandering civilians, and punish them not...

...to rape, and imprison a fellow American—a woman, and threaten her with sanction should she seek justice for the ultimate denial of dignity.

Fades? No. Thrown away is more like it. Prestige cast aside is no longer prestige, but is like all that is gutter-tossed. Refuse.

“One can judge a civilization by the way it treats its women.”, Helen Foster Snow once said. And much to our collective chagrin, we are found wanting. Sadly, sadly wanting.

But there America stands, or rather...wobbles....with reptilian tears streaming down and a querulous “Ted Baxter” bawl erupting from its gut.

“Why, oh why, oh why, oh whyyyyyyyyyy do 'they' hate us so much? It's our freedoms! They hate us for our freedoms!”

But the truth is revealed. Ugly and gnarled, un-pretty, but real—they don't hate our freedoms. “They” scorn, mock, and laugh at our loud pretentions to them.

A well of good will, dusty now and webbed with dry, burning hypocrisy.

Every drop...

...gone.

There's more...

Seduction... Religion

Churches, internet, schools, sports teams.

Where ever the girls, the teenagers and the young adults are, they can be seduced.

As both Sara Robinson and Maggie Jochild make clear, all hell is starting to break loose among the Baptists.

I add my voices to their two, making us a trio talking of religions in trouble. Except in my case, I was raised Mormon.

(Mom... you may not want to read this post. Seriously.

But none of this was either your doing, or anything you could have stopped. It was the culture of the times, and of the church I was raised in.)

Sexualized at age seven in Amherst, Mass, about a month apart, by both a guy who was somewhere between 16 & 20, and a girl of about 10, I lost my virginity in Europe at age 12. I immediately turned around and started seducing everyone I could. I continued to do so until my suicide attempt at 43, when it became more-or-less all at once obvious to me that a life lived as I had lived it, lying to everyone, in pursuit solely of getting laid, was a life I was unwilling to live (and could see absolutely no way to do anything else.)

That was five and a half years ago. And yes, thank you; I am fine now. No, I wasn't magically cured. It was a long, hard road, and it included some rough times, relapses and some major problems along the way. It was not pretty. Eventually, slowly, I got better. And then I got well. *smiles*

How many church girls did I seduce? I don't know. Lots. How many times did I go to my Bishops and ask for their help? Many. They took names. They always asked specifically who had I been with, getting very specific as to what we had done down to details which made even me, uncomfortable. But I said to myself, "It's my Bishop, ordained by God. And they ALL ask me the same questions. 'How I touched her, where I touched her, how many times...' It must be God's will."

The only Bishop I never went to about these issues was the primary one I had growing up -- my best friend's father. I would have felt too weird. Now, as a full grown-up, I regret that. He was one of the few sane adults in my life, and probably would have given me straight advice.

I walked out of the Mormon church never to look back, at 22. Not that it really matters to this post, but my current religious practice is a syncretistic blend drawing from Zen Buddhism, Advaita Hinduism, and both ancient and modern religious rituals, as well as modern insights into biology, historical practices, and language. The basics are: Take care of people. Safe space. Pay attention. Communicate. Think for your self. All in daily living. (As if there were some other kind of living. *smiles*)

At least half of all Mormon girls I personally knew growing up, had sexual activity of some kind before they were 18. The whole culture was about repressed sexuality -- it was everywhere. Which I guess explains Utah's high teen birthrate. They suppress sexual education, tell the children not to do "those things", and then are all surprised when kids do what kids do. With four kids and all their friends around, I know what kids do.

After the Baptists, the next major high-SDO religion to get clobbered by these accusations Sara and Maggie speak of, may well be the Mormons.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be a much tighter nut to crack. You're either in the Mormon Church, or you're out, which makes it much, much harder for people to leave. Unlike the Baptists, where you can drift away and at least find yourself with another Christian religion. For the Mormons, they've been taught since Day 1, all other religions are wrong; theirs is the only true way. Thus the betrayal has to be especially brutal, and the Mormons are willing to forgive and cover up almost anything, in order to get their promised Eternal Glory in the Celestial Kingdom, and not be separated from their friends and family.

My own very best friends from childhood still don't know I left the Mormon Church. And even if they suspect, we simply don't talk of it. Even if they were to know, it isn't something I think any of us would ever bring up with their parents, though frankly, their parents -- my second parents -- would understand better than anyone.

Is there sexual abuse within the ranks of the Mormons? Yes. Do I know of it directly? Yes. Would I say so under oath? Yes. But that almost isn't the point. Unlike the Catholics and Southern Baptists, I don't think the Mormons have a lot of Bishops and Branch Presidents preying on their charges. Their system had way too many checks and balances for that to not be caught, early on. I think.

What the Mormons have is an enormous amount of predation of older guys on younger girls. Guys in their twenties just back from their missions hooking up with girls in their early teens and it's considered fine or at least, culturally understood because they are "Elders". But also, molestation of young girls from about 5-10 by the usual suspects: older brothers and teen friends of the family, many of whom were themselves sexualized young. It runs generation to generation and is accepted as simply the way it is.

None of it is getting reported (at least, it didn't used to be.) It was ALL managed through the Bishops. And since I've not heard a goddamn thing, not a hint of a peep of a murmur of the LDS community anywhere having any sexual scandal, I'm going to say it still isn't being reported -- at least not in any way which anyone links through the LDS connection, if indeed, it is being reported, which I strongly doubt.

This is almost off-topic, but not quite. Someone should run an analysis of how many freshman girls (17-18 years old) enter BYU or Ricks College, only to drop out after one year because they've met a returned missionary (21 - 23 years old) who has swept them off their feet and married them, taking them out of college and into the kitchen. Just curious. I'm sure it's less now than 30 years ago. But I wonder what the percentage is. MUCH greater than in the general population. These are the cultural boundaries at which I'm pointing.

Perhaps a magic sex fairy has sprinkled pixie dust over their entire culture and all of a sudden they are "pure" since I was a kid. And perhaps Tinker Bell is real and Peter Pan truly takes little boys to Neverland. Or, um, that's the Catholics. With the Mormons it would be Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, with Alice, the eternally seducible pure young girl. Who is just a bit naughty.

Read Sara & Maggie.

Then breathe. All things in time.

It's been a generation's work to deal with the Catholics. It will be perhaps half a generation to deal with the Baptists. Everything has its season. And all good things come to those who wait.


I am of two minds about the following... I wrote it just as I was about to hit the Post button. And then sat here for ten minutes deciding if I should include it. It really doesn't go with the rest of the post.

An open Mormon church, easy with its sexuality, welcoming of people truly in Christ's name, committed to social justice and the ecology, with its already existing formidable missionary skills. THEY could sweep the Western world in a wave of conversions picking up the lost souls from churches too timid to change. Just as in the late 1970's, under enormous pressure the Mormons changed their stance on blacks having the priesthood. And now, almost 30 years later, half their membership is of color. Not here in the United States of course. But around the world. Taking the jump paid off. We shall see if they have any balls.

Breathe.

There's more...

Rape Survivor Denied Care "Appeared Intoxicated"

Male Doctor, Police, Repeatedly Refuse To Give Woman Rape Test!

Every time I think I can't be shocked any more.

Rat-fucking. Goat fucking. Being told to get fucked.

THIS.IS.FUCKED.

Literally a woman, 19, a Howard University sophomore, went to Howard University Hospital in Washington, District of Columbia with two (count them, one, two, that's TWO witnesses) and said she had been fucked. Raped to be precise. By virtue of a date-rape drug at an off-campus party in December 2006 that knocked her half out. "One of the hosts then took her to a room where he allegedly anally penetrated her at around 3 a.m."

She was fucked in the ass while half-unconscious because she got slipped a mickey. Allegedly.

A mickey. A drug which knocks you out, can scramble memory and leave you unable to move or fight back, even as your assailant is doing you while you lie there in horror being penetrated.

There is no correct response to rape.

There is no correct response to rape.

There is no correct response to rape.

This Howard University sophomore (and two friends) got herself, still massively out of it due to the date-rape drug, to Howard University Hospital, to the freaking Rape Crises Center for Howard University.

She went to the rape center with two friends as fast as she possibly could, even though she was vomiting, stumbling, and her ability to think clearly was massively compromised.

She said I'VE BEEN RAPED. HELP ME.

MALE DOCTORS TURNED HER AWAY.
"SHE'S DRUNK," THEY SAID

As if drinking had shit to do with having a penis stuck in your mouth, your rectum, your vagina, without your consent.

When you've been drinking, lack of consent is MORE likely. D'oh!

The GW Hatchet

A Howard student is suing the University for negligence and medical malpractice because she said she was raped and denied proper care at GW Hospital because she allegedly appeared intoxicated, according to documents filed in D.C. Superior Court.

The plaintiff, a 19-year-old sophomore, also filed suit against the District, Howard University Hospital and several local doctors. The complaint states she was given a date-rape drug at an off-campus party near Howard and was then denied a rape kit at several hospitals - including GW.

GW Hospital allegedly denied her treatment because doctors at Howard said she appeared intoxicated, according to court documents.

She is also suing the University and its hospital for negligent hiring.

The plaintiff is asking for compensatory damages, a court order to have her case properly investigated and revision of GW Hospital's rape treatment policies.

"There is no legitimate reason why it was handled this way," said Bruce Spiva, her attorney. "She has really been hurt by this and is reluctant to speak out publicly."

David Garofalo, a spokesperson for the Medical Faculty Associates, said the allegations against Christopher Lang, a GW physician named in the lawsuit, are "without merit."

"When a young woman comes into a sexual assault center, she ought to be given a test for date-rape drugs," Spiva said. "She ought not be denied or questioned as if she'd done something wrong."

Immediately after the alleged assault, she sought medical assistance at Howard University Hospital, accompanied by two witnesses, according to the complaint.

Court documents also add that she appeared intoxicated and was therefore denied a rape kit and sent home. It also states she was drifting in and out of consciousness and vomiting.

The plaintiff returned to Howard University Hospital the next morning and was again denied a rape kit - at which point the Metropolitan Police Department was notified, according to the complaint. They also said they felt a rape kit was unnecessary, according to court documents.

"A sexual assault kit is for police to recover evidence," said Sergeant Ronald Reid of the MPD Sex Assault Unit. "So if we don't have reason to believe a crime happened we wouldn't administer a rape kit."

The plaintiff then drove to GW Hospital, where Lang examined her according to court documents. The complaint states he also denied her a rape kit because both the police and Howard's hospital had already refused. Lang, who is listed as a defendant, did not return several calls from The Hatchet.

The complaint states "(the plaintiff) has been violated twice: first by an assailant who likely drugged and assaulted her, and then, by the defendants … which refused to take her seriously and which refused to provide her the reasonable care she was owed."

Went to one hospital. Rejected. #1.

Went back to the hospital the next morning. Rejected again. #2

Called the cops, sex crimes unit. They refused to run a rape kit. #3

Went to yet another hospital. The second hospital didn't even check her out, rejecting her because the first hospital and the cops had bounced her. #4.

What the hell do you have to do to get a guy to get between your legs in Washington, DC? Apparently, take a date-rape drug.

And just in case you didn't already know...

Howard University where the 19 year-old sophomore woman who was raped goes to school, is a historically black university, the number one producer of African American Ph.D.s in the United States.

We don't know of course what race the young lady is. But if -- if -- she is black, I'm certain white male doctor -- and again, we don't know if GW physician Christopher Lang is white -- turned away a girl wanting a rape kit because Howard University Hospital and the cops said she was drunk, because she was a "drunk black girl", because he was going off shift and wanted some rest, or maybe because he genuinely thought she didn't need one. And we may never know.

What we do know is, this was her fourth attempt at a rape kit, and GW turned her back away into the street.

Spiva said he hopes to prevent this type of treatment in the future. "The complaint speaks for itself in terms of the outrageousness of what happened," Spiva said. "We're partially doing this so that nobody else gets treated this way."

He added they hope to go to trial soon, and that the amount of potential damages will be determined by the jury.

I hope the Washington, D.C. jury opens their hearts to this young girl. And the stock-funds, bond-portfolios, real estate departments, the freaking Department of the Treasury for every single one of these entities.

Go deep-pocket on their ass, all the way down.

As for the doctors. *sighs*

People make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes.

Doctors kill people in their careers and we do not end their careers over fatal non-intentional non-recurring errors. This was fucked, not fatal. Jesse's Judgment(TM): The insurance company pays this off, the docs spend a semester each back in med school (not regular CEUs, actual med school with med students) studying medical ethics.

This was bad. This was truly fucked. It's fixable with money, and training. And someone with a nose for it, needs to sniff very carefully, because all the way from the West Coast, I smell institutionalized racism.

The only decent part of this is, at least it was in Washington, DC, where Plan B is available without bullshit.

h/t Feministing.

There's more...

Judge Screws Sex Worker In Court

The Screwing You Get For The Screwing You Got

A defendant in the Philadelphia courts was accused of raping a hooker at gunpoint, and giving three buddies a ride.

That's gang-rape at gunpoint.

That night the sex-worker -- WITH A GUN POINTED AT HER -- "gave permission" for sex. In tears.

CUT TO:

PHILADELPHIA MUNICIPAL COURT - INT. - DAY

Municipal Judge Teresa Carr Deni drops all rape and assault charges to armed robbery for "theft of services."

Yes... you heard correctly.

Philadelphia Daily News

Deni told me she based her decision on the fact that the prostitute consented to have sex with the defendant.

"She consented and she didn't get paid . . . I thought it was a robbery."

The prostitute, a 20-year-old single mother, agreed to $150 for an hour of oral and vaginal sex on Sept. 20, according to assistant district attorney Rich DeSipio. The arrangements were made through her posting on Craigslist.

She met the defendant, Dominique Gindraw, 19, at what she thought was his house, but which turned out to be an abandoned property in North Philadelphia.

He asked if she'd have sex with his friend, too, and she agreed for another $100.

The friend showed up without money, the gun was pulled and more men arrived.

When a fifth man arrived and was invited to join, DeSipio said, he asked why the girl was crying - and declined. He helped her get dressed so she could leave.

It's true the prostitute negotiated sex with the defendant - but not unprotected gang sex at gunpoint.

"The Legislature has defined sex by force as rape," said DeSipio, accusing the judge of "rewriting her own laws."

DeSipio said Judge Deni's ruling was based, not on the law, but on moral contempt.

"Certainly if a jury wants to make that judgment, they're entitled to. But for a judge to make a judgment on a human being - I've never seen that before."

Deni did seem contemptuous of the victim:

"Did she tell you she had another client before she went to report it?" Deni asked me yesterday when we met at a coffee shop.

"I thought rape was a terrible trauma."

A case like this, she said - to my astonishment - "minimizes true rape cases and demeans women who are really raped."

The defendant was charged in an identical incident involving a 23-year-old woman four days later, DeSipio said.

Neither woman knew the other and both told identical stories. The other men involved in the attack couldn't be identified.

DeSipio was so stunned by Deni's ruling in the first case that he refused to present the second one.

"I wouldn't demean her that way," he said of the second victim, calling the proceedings "a farce."

Judge Deni then threw out the second case for failure to prosecute.

Police Detective Jack Ryan, who investigated the incidents, said the victims in the two cases "were in fear for their lives. Since they saw one of the doers really well, it crossed both of their minds that they'd be killed."

Deni's decision to drop the sex charges is " frankly, appalling," he said.

DeSipio said he'll file to reinstate the charges in both cases right away - before a different judge, of course.

Wow, I just love this quote. And coming from a judge no less.

"minimizes true rape cases and demeans women who are really raped."
- Municipal Judge Teresa Carr Deni

Because being gang-raped at gunpoint isn't truly rape if you're a sex worker.

Tell me Judge Carr... Since clearly, sex workers can't be raped on your bench -- Yo, Philly -- open fucking season on hookers; for a good time, call Judge Carr, 1-800-Judge-Me -- tell me this:

How do you feel about spousal rape?

Can a husband rape his wife, or must she just lie their and take it, the disobedient little whore, least her unwillingness to spread her legs wide open on demand for her owner bring shame on all the good wives of Philadelphia?

If Philly cramps your style, may I suggest you move to Maryland? You'd fit right in on the Maryland Court of Special Appeals.

You live in a fucked up world, Judge. It's Teresa's moral world of sin, pleasure and pain.

Problem is, when you're on the bench, we count on you for the Rule of Law.

Get it right, or get the hell off the bench.

Gang rape at the point of a gun is rape. It's not possible to give consent with a gun aimed at you.

In what way is that unclear?

Asshole.

There's more...

“I'll Make You Love Me... Bitch.”

Bloody Letters, Wal-Mart T-shirt

Warning: People triggered by stalking or cutting, this likely isn't for you.

I sent repeated drunken emails telling _____ _____ I was in my car, bleeding, both arms sliced wide fucking open with whatever I had handy -- knife, razor, multi-tool -- in the late spring/early summer of 2002, after my suicide attempt. The first month I even drove by her place a few times in traffic flow.

Yeah.

I warned you. The stories I've told you till now were the tame ones.

This is still pretty much in the tame category but we're starting to get there as we build trust, you and I. There's harder to listen to come.

No one got hurt. She calmed me down by email here and there, and an occasional phone call. I stopped sending her drunken emails. Stopped cutting myself when I got my ankle tattoo at another friend's suggestion -- a tattoo would give me a permanent record, my friend said, thus no need to keep scaring myself to make sure I'd never forget. Worked.

Also, I was starting to gain some control back and cutting is all about having control. My pain then was so enormous, both physically from my injuries but especially emotionally -- not just over the loss of my girlfriend, but from all in a moment discovering the total failure of my whole life, 31 years spent single-mindedly seducing women, how utterly evil I had become claiming to do good, how many lives I'd ruined without thought. And to live with that? Insanity and death, possibly both, were much more attractive.

That I was going to hurt was a given. When, where and how I hurt -- that I kept scrabbling for control over. Once I learned how to be in control of causing hurting myself, under the guidance of my therapist I sloooowly extended control to causing not hurting myself.

She and I met in person one last time a few months later, August 2002, at a previously scheduled conference away from Puget Sound. Spent hours talking with a mutual friend, a highly trained counselor who helped both of us sort out what we wanted from each other.

I wanted her back. She wanted out out out, but was willing to talk to me occasionally if I'd get we were over and let her off the hook. I did. (For certain who I was then was in enormous pain many ways and neither sane or even "me", but that's how it went.) "Let her off the hook?" I cringe just hearing the words now. As if I had some right or she needed to ask my permission.

We emailed perhaps eight to ten times after that. Talked only once. And we were done. (I'd even burned her "special" photos.)

I healed. Have absolutely no clue -- or interest -- in how the woman I'd conned into talk of marriage is doing. I hope well. But not only isn't it my business, I no longer care.

That's called a good result. Does not always end that way.

Feministing Comments (UCLAbodyimage)

David Buss, an evolutionary psychologist, recently published a book called "The Murderer Next Door" which talks about stalking. Based on his study of 13,000 wife killings, he says:

Separation is also a powerful trigger for murder. According to a study of homicides in Chicago, 50 percent of wife killings took place within the first two months of the separation, and an astonishing 85 percent of these women were killed within the first year. In contrast, among the women who contemplated killing their mates, getting dumped accounted for only 13 percent.

Among women killed by a partner they have separated from, 88 PERCENT HAD BEEN STALKED PRIOR TO BEING KILLED” Buss said. “Although most stalkers do not kill their victims, most mate-killing men do stalk their victims. Stalking is one danger sign that women should not ignore.

“Just when women feel as though they have successfully escaped a bad marriage is precisely the time when their lives are most in danger,” he added. “It is likely that the key danger is not the length of time per se but, rather, when the man realizes she will never return to him.”

Based on existing research, Buss concluded for the few mate killings that occur a year or more after estrangement, it seems the couple actually had sexual contact during the year even though the woman had moved out. The hope that she might return, as indicated by sex, offers a protective buffer, lowering the odds the man will try to kill her. But then when the sex stops, and he realizes she will never come back, the woman’s life is in danger.

Wal-Mart's shirt makes a joke of stalking, telling teens and the uninformed stalkings' okay.

It's not.

It's not just creepy. It's scary, wrong, and it can get someone killed.

I was only a danger to me, as it turns out. Many men aren't. I never physically threatened or hurt anyone but me. Even when I was angry with her, I always knew it was all my responsibility.

Everyone involved consistently made the right call on me while I was lost (and this really is one of the tamer stories.) It doesn't always end well.

Charlotte Observer

For the past two years, this woman has been stalked until she feels like a prisoner in her own life. She has been spied upon, bullied and threatened with her life.

She has been in frequent communication with local authorities. Yet, because North Carolina has one of the most vague stalking laws in the nation (a bill is wending its way through the legislature to address that), her recourse has been limited.

So when she saw the T-shirts, clearly aimed for the teen-younger adult set, she didn't see the humor.

"It's reprehensible," said the woman, whose story is well documented but who asked not to be identified for fear that her stalker might retaliate.

"People don't realize how serious stalking is," she said. "You constantly live in fear, look over your shoulder and suffer from psychological and physical symptoms due to the stress of the stalker."

She wondered aloud: What's next?

"Some say it's rape, I call it hot sex"? Or: "Some call it domestic violence, I say I'm just teaching her a lesson"?

The question now is how the world's largest retailer will respond. Tara Stewart, a spokeswoman for the company, forwarded me information about Wal-Mart partnering with the attorney general's office in South Carolina on a public education campaign to combat domestic violence.

"We work hard on this issue and do a great deal to bring awareness and help families in need," she wrote in an e-mail message.

And the T-shirts fit into that public education campaign how?

Repeated calls and e-mail messages elicited promises of answers -- but no answer. No explanation.

Wal-Mart.

What the fuck are they doing?

Stalking isn't something to screw with. People on the edge are explosive.

Why would Wal-Mart possibly contribute to a space already filled with messages of violence, hatred, and coercion in race, between the sexes, and in relationships? Could it be because Wal-Mart itself as a company is violent, coercive, and hated?

Just your friendly all-American anti-woman anti-gay anti-labor anti-health-benefits anti-competition anti-made-in-America pro-Republican pro-domestic-violence pro-stalking neighborhood store.

Rah Team go. Gooooo Wal-Mart!

Hat tip Feministing.

There's more...

10 Seconds in Maryland

Baby v. Maryland -- When No May Not Mean No

Tuesday, the Maryland Court of Appeals heard arguments in Baby v. Maryland to determine if consensual sex becomes rape if a woman says no in the middle of the sex act.

In October 2006, The Court of Special Appeals overturned a 2003 rape conviction, holding there is no rape under Maryland law if the woman consents to sex prior to penetration and then withdraws the consent after penetration.

This is what the reaction was almost a year ago to the Court of Special Appeals ruling:

The Happy Feminist

The court insists that since Battle provides the only indication of Maryland law on the issue, that the dicta in Battle must carry the day.

The court further admits that the law as stated in Battle is predicated on utterly antiquated, outdated, and grotesque notions of the status and personhood (or lack thereof) of women. As the court stated:

The concept, undergirding the Battle holding, rooted in ancient laws and adopted by the English common-law, views the initial "de-flowering" of a woman as the real harm or insult which must be redressed by compensating, in legal contemplation, the injured party -- the father or husband . . .

. . . [I]t was the act of penetration that was the essence of the crime of rape; after this initial infringement upon the responsible male's interest in a woman's sexual and reproductive functions, any further injury was considered to be less consequential. The damage was done. It was this view that the moment of penetration was the point in time, after which a woman could never be "re-flowered," that gave rise to the principle that, if a woman consents prior to penetration and withdraws consent following penetration, there is no rape. Maryland adheres to this tenet, having adopted the common law, which remains the law of the Land until and unless changed by the State's highest court or by statute . . .

The court elucidates further the reasons for the law in effect TODAY in Maryland in footnote 6 of the opinion:

The cultural mores undergirding the notion that the crime of rape was complete upon penetration may be traced to Biblical and Middle, Assyrian Laws: Under MAL, the rape of a virgin was presumed to be an illegal trespass upon the father's property with the rapist required to "give the (extra) third in silver to her father as the value of a virgin (and) her ravisher shall marry her (and) not cast her off." The woman was required to marry her rapist without hope of divorce. If the rapist was married, the virgin still had to marry her rapist; however, the rapist's property, his wife, was also factored into the compensation. The rapist's wife was to be given to the father "to be ravished . . .not to return her to her husband (but) to take her."

This approach to rape developed because a virgin was considered a valuable asset, the value residing in men's ability to gain absolute ownership of the totality of her sexual and reproductive functions. Any infringement upon this totality through premarital sexual relations rendered the asset less valuable and might even turn it into a liability.

(Emphasis added).

Feel free to read the entire decision (have your barf bag handy.)

Now we'll see what the highest court in Maryland has to say.

Baltimore Sun

Arguing for the state before the Court of Appeals, State's Attorney Sarah Page Pritzlaff said that when there is force, the act qualifies as rape.

"You clearly have the element of force, you have the resistance by the victim, the victim was quite clear that it was hurting, that she wanted him to stop."

Defense attorney Michael R. Malloy argued that if intercourse is consensual under existing common law it can't be rape. He argued that the jury that convicted had faulty instructions from the judge.

The Maryland attorney general's office asked the court to take up the case after a court of special appeals overturned a 2003 rape conviction. That conviction dates to the trial of a boy who was 16 when accused of raping an 18-year-old community college student in her car on Dec. 13, 2003. Maouloud Baby was convicted a year later in Montgomery County of first-degree rape and other crimes -- some from helping his 15-year-old friend assault the young woman first -- and sentenced to 15 years in prison, with all but five of those years suspended.

The victim, who had met Baby that night, testified at the trial that she told him that "as long as he stops when I tell him to" she would have sex with him.

As he began, she told him to stop because he was hurting her, but he kept going for five or 10 seconds, she said.

Certainly any person has the right to withdraw consent during sex.

I read the decision of the Court of Special Appeals when it came out.

They are full of shit.

Courts have to follow the rule of law; that's why we have courts. What this court did however wasn't following the rule of law. It was legal horse-shit, a bunch of men following each other over a cliff rushing to uphold a man's privilege to treat women as chattel. It is simply wrong as a matter of law. I am cautiously optimistic the Maryland Court of Appeals will get it right.

If that fails, it is up to the legislature (and public pressure) to change the law. Which is precisely how the system is designed to work. (The legislature hasn't done a damn thing in the year this has been on their plate. Not a good sign. It's a man's privilege to fuck a woman any damn time he wants in Maryland. Always has been, always will be.)

As for the 10 seconds. In the throes of passion, I think 10 seconds is about the time a reasonable man -- one who perhaps was near la petite mort -- could reasonably take (5 to 10 seconds) to hear her saying "No" or "Stop", come back to earth, understand what she's saying, and indeed, get the fuck out of her. Including possibly double-checking she's saying "No" instead of "Oh, no, oh..." Sure, we'd hope he's not so damn selfishly focused on his own pleasure he isn't noticing how she's doing, but obviously that's not always so.

Ten seconds... as a rule? Bright-line rules don't work here. It's got to be a totality of the circumstances. Change your mind in the middle? Absolutely and always.

This specific case? You bet your ass it was rape. She didn't want to be with him to start and only gave grudging consent to begin with. Then the little bastard didn't stop when she said to, even though she was clearly crying out in pain. This was, without question, rape.

I hope the Maryland Court of Appeals gets it right, not just because of the case, but so that women of Maryland will know the law in their State no longer considers rape to be --

The initial "de-flowering" of a woman as the real harm or insult which must be redressed by compensating, in legal contemplation, the injured party -- the father or husband . . .

. . . [I]t was the act of penetration that was the essence of the crime of rape; after this initial infringement upon the responsible male's interest in a woman's sexual and reproductive functions, any further injury was considered to be less consequential.

Gah!!!

There's more...

Hail Mary

Connecticut's Roman Catholic bishops Allow Plan B

"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for our sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen"

In a rosary-fingering frenzy, the Bishops of Connecticut reluctantly agreed to comply with Connecticut's new law just days before it went into effect.

boston.com

The church, which runs four of the state's 30 hospitals, has been fighting the legislation for the past two years, arguing that lawmakers were forcing medical personnel to violate their religious beliefs and perform chemical abortions by providing emergency contraception, sold as Plan B, to women who are ovulating.

But Catholic Bishops of Connecticut and leaders of the Catholic hospitals said in a joint statement Thursday that "since the teaching authority of the church has not definitively resolved this matter and since there is serious doubt about how Plan B pills work," the hospitals will be allowed to provide Plan B to rape victims without first requiring ovulation tests.

"To administer Plan B without an ovulation test is not an intrinsically evil act," the statement reads.

Rape crisis counselors in Connecticut said there have been unclear and inconsistent policies for supplying Plan B to victims who seek treatment in emergency rooms across the state, including some in nonreligious hospitals.

According to Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services Inc., 40 percent of rape victims were not offered or did not receive the full dose of emergency contraception at the hospitals where they were treated during the first half of 2006."

Feministing

Okay, so they were forced to comply. Whatevs. At least women in Connecticut can rest a little easier. But here's an interesting tidbit. Apparently, state church officials wanted to mandate an ovulation test for women seeking emergency contraception before they would dispense it. The idea being if a woman was ovulating there was a better chance of conception having taken place--and then they wouldn't give her EC.

And people have the nerve to argue that anti-choice shit isn't about controlling women's bodies?

If a church can get you to beg permission to control your own body -- to screw, to get off, to have periods & children, to be married, to live and to die -- but most especially if a church convinces you you must plead for the right from them for you to have ANY control of ANYTHING having ANYTHING AT ALL to do with sexuality, your fundamental biological drive to survive. Once they've got an entire culture believing that sick bloodless shit and you inside the culture nodding along with it.

Once a church has your ass wrapped up tighter than a tick needing blood, desperate for God's Holy Blessing because you just have got to have the Priest's permission to GET LAID and He Ain't. Giving. You.None. ...YOU FILTHY FUCKING SCUM... None. No permission for you. You're a sinner who has lusted in your heart and probably in your body too, your rich, ripe, tight sinner's body, just step into this room and tell me your lustful thoughts, tell me what you do alone in your room at night, what the two of you did out in the bleachers after the ballgame, just whisper it all quietly right here... Then it's --

Lord Have Mercy On Me, A Sinner, because you're DAMNED TO HELL. So you pray and pray and you pray some more. You beg for forgiveness, but forgiveness ain't never, ever coming for you once they got you by the ovaries and balls, 'cause they absolutely own yo ass and now, sucka, it's time for you to earn your keep... keeping the marks in line.

The grip of a church when they grab you by your sexuality is damn near impossible to break free from.

Breaking free from the early indoctrination that human sexuality is sinful by most of the Children of the Book, which gives male religious leaders -- male priests -- such a hold over his congregation, is an enormously difficult undertaking, requiring breaking out of an entire world-view and eventually acquiring a completely new ontology for living. Managing it usually requires a big breakdown with the Church, a strong sense of Self, determination, enough smarts to make sense of it all, friends and family to support the transition, and enormous good fortune to have everything come together correctly. Absent any of these, it's usually just easier to fall back into the Church life you've always known, or into a similar church.

I am encouraged that today in at least one more state, the law now protects poor people and the Catholic people who by necessity go to these hospitals. Religion be damned. This is medicine, not mummery.

The actual Jesus & Mary would be happy. It's a start.

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Hurray for Facts

DNA Catches Rape-Murderer

Usually we hear the opposite story. How an Innocence Project has freed a guilty man from prison using DNA. Here's the opposite...

Twenty-five years a family has waited, waited and suffered, wondering if there wasn't possibly something they might have done differently to have prevented their child from dying. A rookie cop, now a senior investigator, finally solved the case a quarter of a century later.

Hit the link for a video of her father... I don't know what to say.

Chicago Tribune

Paul Echols was a rookie patrolman the night police were called to the apartment of 23-year-old Southern Illinois University student Deborah Sheppard. Her front door was ajar and her nude body lay inside.

Although he wasn't working the case that night, April 8, 1982, he soon became familiar with the murder of the senior marketing major from Olympia Fields. In February, Echols -- now the Downstate Police Department's head of investigations -- sought permission to take another look at the case.

His hope was that DNA technology might provide a break. Evidence from the murder scene was retested. A match was made, and on Thursday, Echols traveled to the Big Muddy Correctional Facility in rural Johnson County to arrest Timothy Krajcir, 62, in Sheppard's sexual assault and strangulation.

Krajcir, a serial sex offender with a rap sheet dating to the early 1960s, is charged with four felony counts related to Sheppard's slaying.

The charges end 25 years of frustration for Sheppard's family, which had long ago stopped talking much about the murder.

"I owe Paul Echols a debt of gratitude that I can never repay," Bernie Sheppard, Deborah's father, said Friday. "I know that he and others have spent countless hours on Deborah's case over the years, and there's no way my family could ever repay them."

For 25 years, Bernie Sheppard said, he has regretted not being with his daughter to protect her. The weekend his daughter was murdered, he and his wife along with their other two daughters had planned to visit her for the Easter holiday, he said. If they had left earlier, he always thought, perhaps she would still be alive.

"You always have second thoughts, 'What would have happened if,' " he said. "You don't ever heal. You just go on."

Krajcir, an Allentown, Pa., native who has been in prison in his home state and Illinois since 1983, faces 20 years to life in prison if convicted of Sheppard's murder, said Jackson County State's Atty. Michael Wepsiec. He said it was premature to talk about whether the office would seek the death penalty.

At the time of his eldest daughter's death, Bernie Sheppard told the Tribune he did not care "how much effort, money, time or heartache" it would take to arrest, convict and jail her killer. After police initially issued a statement saying "this incident does not indicate foul play," Sheppard's family had flown her body to Chicago for an autopsy by then Cook County Medical Examiner Robert Stein.

Stein found Deborah Sheppard was strangled and suffered blows to the head, and determined the death a homicide.

Illinois and Pennsylvania records show Krajcir enlisted in the Navy in February 1962 and was stationed at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. He was 18-year-old cook when he was arrested for the rape and attempted murder of a Lake County woman.

Krajcir admitted to attacking or trying to attack 16 other women in Illinois and the burglaries of seven homes in Pennsylvania before he joined the Navy. He was sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison in 1963.

His release date could not be determined, but according to Illinois Department of Corrections records, he was imprisoned on another rape charge in 1972. Again, a release date could not be determined.

In 1979, Krajcir was jailed in Illinois and deemed a "sexually dangerous person." He was paroled two years later over the objections of the Jackson County prosecutor's office. Police say he murdered Deborah Sheppard shortly after being released, before returning to Pennsylvania. At the time of the slaying, Krajcir was taking justice administration classes at SIU.

In July 1982, Allentown police said Krajcir sexually assaulted three women in two incidents. Krajcir spent five years in prison for the assaults and an unsuccessful attempt to escape the Lehigh County Prison with another inmate on May 1, 1983. During his August 1983 sentencing, a Lehigh County judge ordered that Krajcir needed continued psychiatric care. In 1988 he was transferred back to Illinois for violating parole, and has been in custody ever since.

What are the facts? Ugly cases make for ugly opinions. Facts place people at scenes and clear people from having been involved. DNA tests give us facts.

I'm always stunned when I read a DA or state opposes DNA tests because the time for appeals has elapsed, or wants to destroy trial evidence once the appeals are expired.

We don't know what technologies will be invented which give us facts, but if the evidence to test is destroyed, no technology can test what isn't there anymore. Anyone with a genuine commitment to the facts would want to know what truly happened, regardless of who is set free. They'd have a commitment to the facts.

DNA is a test which provides facts. Facts are used by judges and juries to free and convict. Good. People should be convicted on true facts and freed on true facts.

Today, based on DNA evidence after twenty-five years, a family finally starts putting their daughter to rest.

Hurray for facts. And cops who care about getting them right.

There's more...

Innocent

DNA Frees Man After 18 Years

International Herald Tribune

GOLDSBORO, North Carolina A man who remained in prison for 18 years after being wrongly convicted of child rape was released Tuesday after new DNA testing cleared him of the crime.

Dwayne Allen Dail, now 39, hugged his attorney as Wayne County Superior Court Judge Jack Hooks Jr. set aside his conviction.

District Attorney Branny Vickory had asked the judge to dismiss the original charges against Dail based on the new test results. The tests showed that DNA found on the 12-year-old victim's nightgown matched another man already in prison. The results also excluded Dail as the rapist.

"I'm a blessed man," Dail said, hugging his mother as other crying family members stood nearby. He said he never thought the conviction would be set aside.

The girl was raped in 1987 by an intruder who entered an apartment window, and the victim later identified Dail as the attacker.

What can you possibly say?



Two life sentences plus 18 years. He never gave up hope. Never stopped proclaiming he was innocent. The North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence -- one of many similar projects around the country -- believed him. But it all would have been for nothing if the victim's nightgown hadn't been accidently saved, accidently found. DNA testing was done and today Mr. Dail is a free man. Compensation? Sure... he'll likely get $20 grand per year.

The State can lock you up for two life sentences plus 18 years on the word of a single 12 year old eye-witness with a compelling story and circumstantial evidence. Because someone has to pay. Shit. You bet I'm a believer in making damn sure the State meets its burden of proof. Every single goddamn time.

Welcome home Dwayne Allen Dail.

There's more...

Woman Raped; Screams Ignored

Kitty Genovese Redux

I love Feministing. Been one of my personal top-ten blogs for a long time. Today Ann reports a case I consider possibly more horrific than Kitty Genovese. As always, we need to wait for the facts to come in; all I've got is the one news report everyone else has.

The news report -- when you hit the jump below -- goes into greater detail about the cultural issues the community of Somali face, mostly living in the apartment complex where the attack reportedly occurred, specifically how they may have a known cultural basis about reporting attacks to authority. It shouldn't need to be said that cultural basis' don't excuse rape, violence against women, or failing to learn enough about the culture you are living in in order to understand the rules and not violate them. Not to mention the whole inalienable human rights thing.

The StarTribune of Minneapolis-St Paul reports:

A man beat a woman, removed his pants and sexually assaulted her in a hall, and five to 10 people saw at least part of the attack but did nothing to intervene or help.

It was only after police were summoned on a report of two drunk people lying in the hall that they learned there had been a rape. Rage Ibrahim, 25, of St. Paul, was charged Thursday with first-degree and third-degree criminal sexual conduct.

The criminal complaint filed in Ramsey County District Court said the surveillance video showed the woman lying in the hall as early as 1:20 a.m. Tuesday. Police weren't dispatched until almost 90 minutes later.

According to the complaint, officers found Ibrahim and the woman lying in the hall. Her clothes had been pushed above her waist. He wasn't wearing pants or underwear.

The woman told officers that she didn't know Ibrahim and that he had drugged her and raped her. She was taken to Regions Hospital in St. Paul.

Ibrahim told officers that he and the woman, whom he said was his girlfriend, were drunk and messed up. He maintains that the incident was a misunderstanding, according to Omar Jamal, the executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center who spoke Thursday on Ibrahim's behalf.

"He did not rape her," Jamal said.

According to a search warrant affidavit, investigators talked to one resident in the building who said that a woman had knocked on his door in the middle of the night yelling "call the police!" The man said he didn't open the door or look out. He said he called police, but police said there is no record of that call.

The affidavit also said the surveillance video shows an unknown man approaching Ibrahim and the woman. Ibrahim, who wasn't wearing pants, confronts the man and chases him down the hall.

The question of why so many people who must have been aware of the disturbance would not call Tuesday morning has yet to be easily answered.

Anshoor recognized a man on the video who was walking toward the man and woman and then turned around. Anshoor said he asked the man Tuesday why he did not report what he saw. The man replied: "I thought they were drunk. And I left."

*sighs*

What to do?

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