A woman gets sexually assaulted and police take pictures of her nude?

[RagingInMiami]

I just heard about an incident down here where a man broke into a woman's house, slipped in bed with her and fondled her breasts. She woke up, bit him and fought him off where he took off running. Police then told her they needed to take nude photos of her for evidence?

I've covered law enforcement as a newspaper reporter for many years, but I've never heard of this procedure. Usually they take the victim to a hospital and have a doctor look her over.

What is the purpose of this?

[niyad]

1. is there a link?

[RagingInMiami]

3. No link

Just word of mouth right now. Victim works at my mom's office.

[theshadow]

9. Do you think it's within the realm of possibility...

....that this third-hand information might be a little inaccurate or incomplete or just misunderstood??

[RagingInMiami]

15. No

Lady is sixty years old, scared shitless. She told my mom, my mom told me.

I'm looking into it now as a possible article because apparently there have been several assaults that have not been reported.

Why would a sixty year old lady make that up?

[theshadow]

17. Like I said, it's third hand.

And it would have been wise to talk to the person directly and find everything out before posting it as fact.

[RagingInMiami]

21. Who the hell is posting it as fact?

This is a fucking anonymous website where I posted a question, hence the question mark at the end of the subject line.

And I kept it vague on purpose. You have no idea what police agency I'm talking about.

[upi402]

52. true, it's the internet(s)

perfectly fine to ask a question to suss out a story you came across.
some pretty savvy folks here, and it's likely you'll get some good direction here from them.

[Avalux]

2. If she has marks, like bruises it's reasonable for evidence

However, I would expect the photos be taken in a hospital setting.

[Katherine Brengle]

7. exactly--the photos would be taken at the hospital, and only of the

injured areas, I believe, not the entire person (unless injuries were so extensive).

[Avalux]

8. Yes - the photos would be taken so the woman could not be indentified.

Head not included with body shots, and head shots of close-up areas only if necessary. They would probably be taken by a woman and there would be a witness present.

[bliss_eternal]

50. You are both correct--

see post #49 if you are interested. The links provided provide some details of how such evidence is collected, in a hospital setting by nurses.

:hi:

[niyad]

4. the purpose? sheer prurient interest, it seems.

[f-bush]

11. typical cops, most of them are latent nazi's and perverts!

[theshadow]

12. Are you being facetious? eom

[Little Star]

26. Watch out..

The uniform worshipers will be on ya!

[f-bush]

32. Fuck 'em!!!!

[Dogmudgeon]

34. Peace and Justice, my ass

From the profile:
"I have worked in peace and justice activities all my life..."

How about a little "peace and justice" for the cops who DON'T fit into your stereotypes?

Cops are like most other people. There are the ones who are good and honorable and noble and true, and there are the bigots who look at other people and say "fuck 'em!"

--p!
Help! Help! I'm a Uniform Worshipper™!

[f-bush]

51. Because 90% of those I have dealt with are

royal arrogant narrow minded conservative assholes.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. Bad communication?

"After we fill out this report, we'll have to take some pictures."

Shoe drops. Panic sets in.

Taking photos is S.O.P., but the process is customarily done with a medical-legal witness (usually a physician) and a forensically-trained photographer, both of whom are usually women.

It's never -- not that I've heard -- done by "one of the boys at the stationhouse."

Both of my uncles were vice cops with years of experience. Each of them said about the same things, except that before the 1960s, the photographer and witness were usually men. Still, it was always the doctor and professional legal photographer, not some leering goon from the parking-violations squad. And if the doctor and/or the photographer themselves were ever leering goons, the D.A. took an immediate and serious interest in them and their employment.

--p!

[bliss_eternal]

6. Usually the photos are taken at the hospital

by the doctor and/or nurse that performs the exam, while they attempt to retrieve any forensic evidence the perp. left behind. As far as I know, this usually isn't done by the police. Things may be different in the area where this happened, but it sounds suspect to me.

Rape/assault trauma is nothing to play with. Usually the police want nothing to do with that process, or at least leave that part of it to those trained to deal with it. There are nurses that primarily deal with rape and the process of photographing the victim's bruised or affected areas on his/her body.

[Vinca]

19. Usually a police officer of the same sex takes the photos.

The doctors and nurses don't usually do it because a) they're not photographers and b) it would muck up the chain of custody for the evidence. As for this particular case, who knows? There's a murder case going on in our town now. One guy at the scene claimed an injury while on the stand the other day, a crucial point in the defense of the guy charged with the crime. The police had taken photos as well as a statement from him right after the event and there were no injuries. There are all kinds of reasons to have photos taken - it's not prurient.

[bliss_eternal]

49. Apparently you've never heard of sexual assault nurses--

I've worked with assault victims, and those I've seen collect the evidence, were nurses, specially trained to do so.

Sometimes they are known as forensic nurses, sometimes they are known as 'sexual assault nurses.' Either way, they know what they are doing and usually collect such evidence, unless that particular area does not have such a program in place.


Link to article about SART the Sexual Assault team of nurses in San Jose CA.:
http://www.nursingadvocacy.org/news/2004nov/28_san_jose.html

Link to article that speaks of this in brief:
http://www.massnurses.org/News/1999/990800/dviolence.htm

Link to article about SANE nurses-Westchester County:
http://www.minoritynurse.com/features/nurse_emp/01-09-03b.html

Link to rape faq:
http://www.sexualassaultcenter.com/web_pages/faqs/survivor.htm

snip from above link:
Once at the hospital, a sexual assault nurse examiner will examine you and collect the forensic evidence from the rape. Tacoma General’s Forensic Nurse Examiner Services (FNES) employ specially trained nurses to collect the forensic evidence.

So apparently it's not 'mucking up the chain of custody' of evidence, as you said.

[PassingThrough]

10. Why post some rumor like this? What is the purpose?

[htuttle]

13. To lower our morale, of course

Ultimately, they're after our precious bodily fluids.

[RagingInMiami]

14. Who the hell are you?

Why are you accusing me of posting "rumors"?

[PassingThrough]

16. Is it not a rumor? Did you not hear it 3rd party? Do you have no

supporting information?

By the way, relax. No need for such hostility.


Peace Out

[RagingInMiami]

20. It is not a rumor

It is something that happened to a 60-year-old lady at my mom's office. My mom happened to tell me about it because she lives close to the area where these assaults are taking place, and she is scared.

The part about the photos came up in the conversation, as well as a lot of other details that made it clear to me that this is not just some fantasy. The lady felt humiliated.

I posted it out there to see what others think about that procedure because I found it strange.

When you accuse me of posting rumors, you accuse me of lying. So yeah, I will get hostile.

[PassingThrough]

23. I never accused you of lying. You would have had to post information

that you knew was incorrect. I do not think you did that nor did I accuse you of such. I merely pointed out that you posted a rumor that is 3rd party information. Its not like the victim told you directly. It just seems that before you post such damning information that some will automaticly take as fact you should seek to verify the info first. Atleast look in your local paper and see if any rapes were reported.


Peace Out

[RagingInMiami]

24. The rapes have not been reported

Which is not surprising. Cops like to be able to catch the guy without a lot of media pressure, even if he continues raping.

And this "damning information" you talk about, who does it damn?

And no, the victim didn't tell me directly, but she told my mom directly, who in turn, told me. I don't know about you and your family, but I trust my mother is not going to lie to me.

[PassingThrough]

27. Hmmm

How have the rapes not been reported if the police were involved?

It is damning because some will automaticly take this post as fact as exampled by one response above. It further fuels some people's anti-police beliefs which are often based on misinformation.

Every play that game in elementary school where people line up and the first person whispers something to the second and the next person in line is supposed to pass the information on and so on? Is the information ever the same at the end of the line???



Peace Out

[RagingInMiami]

29. They have not been reported by the media

What world do you live in where police report everything to the media?

Last time we had a serial rapist down here, the guy raped several women before police decided to tell the media.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

18. exactly. Bruising evidence is critical for the police.

If they do things right, they will have a female photographer do it.

[DanCa]

22. Do you think it has something to do with the anti choicers?

Thats the only thing I can fathom why someone would do this . That if she wants to get an abortion that the anti-choice movement will try to use the photos against? A modern scarlet letter if you will.

[RagingInMiami]

25. you're kidding, right?

[Tulum_Moon]

30. I didn't think you were posting a rumor

After all it was your own Mom. That told you about her.
I saw it as you were asking if is a "normal" procedure.
That sheriff in Fl. was just caught with all young girls on his dash cam. The big perv.

[DanCa]

36. No, I am being dead serious.

I was kicked out of the RC church were I live because I refused to take pics of woman entering abortion clinics. They wanted to run pics of these women in the local paper along with their names and home phone numbers. When I said no that's when they kicked me out. This was in the early part of October.

[RagingInMiami]

38. I don't think that's the case here

The woman was sixty so she probably won't be getting pregnant soon. And the intruder never raped her, he just fondled her breasts. Besides, Miami is not really overrun by anti-abortionists, thankfully.

[niyad]

48. did you happen to catch the part about the woman being 60?

[alittlelark]

28. It's normal, but only done at the hospital, or at a police station..

[Little Star]

33. I've never heard of nude pictures being taken at the station.

Where did you hear that?

[newswolf56]

31. As a fellow member of the working press, I think your inquiry is...

both justified and legitimate -- and, more importantly, I think you've stumbled on a helluva story -- that is, if your paper doesn't suppress it.

I've been off the police beat for many years now, but it was one of my main assignments during the 1970s, the years the feminist movement finally managed to curtail the brutality and sneering that characterized how cops handled rape cases.

Indeed what happened to your mother's friend sounds like one of the (innumerable) horror stories that prompted (a very few) bold newspapers to publicize the feminists' more-than-legitimate (and often legitimately embittered) grievances -- thereby providing the political horsepower to compel the long-overdue humanitarian reforms.

As other posters have said, such photographs are vital for evidentary purposes, but in every jurisdiction of which I am aware, they are always made in clinical surroundings. The photographer is either a policewoman or a member of the emergency room staff trained to make forensic photographs as part of rape-kit fulfillment, an evidence-collection procedure intended to ensure conviction of the perpetrator.

But given today's political realities -- especially the venomous hatred of womankind at the heart of Christian fundamentalism and therefore at the heart of Republicanism itself -- I am not at all surprised to see the formerly suppressed practices of male-supremacist savagery brazenly resurrected, especially by older cops.

It's no exaggeration to say these cops probably feel they have been given carte blanche by George Bush himself. Restructuring the civil rights division of the Justice Department, the Bush Administration signaled long ago it would ignore such outrages, a signal resoundingly confirmed by the notable absence of the FBI from the recent manhunt for the axe-wielding gunman who attacked a saloonful of homosexual men and women in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Thus if I were in your shoes I'd pursue this not as an isolated outrage but rather as an example of the kinds of horrors increasingly characteristic of Bush America: from the systematic agitation of homophobic hatred to incidents of the New Bedford sort is but a single short step, and from there to resurrecting the methodical brutalization of women is hardly a footfall.

[RagingInMiami]

35. It's definitely something I'm looking into

If anything, just for the fact that there is another rapist out there and police haven't said anything about it yet. I'm a freelancer (after seven years working for dailies) so I'll probably pitch this to the local alternative weekly, but before that, I need to confirm the story with PD.

[newswolf56]

42. Suggest you check with feminist sources too --

rape relief, women's resource centers, that sort of thing. They're often superb sources on this sort of story and will give you information you can then take to the cops, demand confirmation and still publish even if the cops deny it.

(I've been in harness a little longer than you: off and on -- mostly the latter -- for about 45 years: long stints as a reporter, a few editorships I couldn't wait to get out of -- city editor, assistant telegraph editor, that sort of rim-rat thing -- but mostly years of public-affairs and investigative reporting, which even at age 65 I still love.)

[RagingInMiami]

44. Unfortunately, I came in at the tail end of when newspapers

were owned by individual families who really cared about the communities they covered rather than corporate conglomerates. It got so it wasn't fun anymore.

My last full-time newspaper job was at The Arizona Republic, which had been owned by a family when they hired me, but then ended up selling out to Gannett, which is the worst newspaper company in the world. For journalism that is, for they are also one of the most profitable.

[newswolf56]

45. Gannett has always been top trollop in the media monopoly:

They'll do anything to please their advertisers, even -- this is a true story -- fire a top-notch investigative reporter (a woman I was becoming involved with) for discovering a major regional electric company was scheming to build a nuclear reactor atop an active fault line.

As a parting gesture of defiance my friend gave the story to an acquaintance at another paper, which tripled the payback by getting it on the state AP and UPI wires. Then she happily went back to the inland daily from which Gannett had hired her.

That was late '70s and I've lost track of the woman since. (Too bad, because she was exceptionally bright, formidably talented and to my eyes genuinely beautiful: not shopping-mall American prom-queen pretty, which to me isn't attractive at all, but Juliet-Greco-with-auburn-hair understated European beautiful, which I can look at forever.)

These days I'm freelance myself, typically writing for advocacy journals. Those of us who experience the political equivalent of Zen enlightenment -- that is, awaken to the fact the resurrected savagery of American capitalism has made Karl Marx more relevant than ever -- usually end up blacklisted.

The Republic used to be a damn fine paper -- maybe the best in the Southwest -- so I'm more than sorry to hear Gannett ate it.

[RagingInMiami]

46. And you know what really sucks

Is that Gannett is trying to buy the Miami Herald, which is my hometown paper and where I live right now. Not that I had ever planned on applying for them, but I just to think that Gannett is buying the paper I grew up reading.

[theshadow]

37. Maybe you should wait for the story to be verified.....

....before jumping to all of these conclusions about what the cops felt and how it's an example of something.

[RagingInMiami]

39. Maybe you should allow free discussion

Before jumping all over another poster for expressing his views, opinions and thoughts.

[theshadow]

41. You didn't post a view, opinion, or thought.

You presented a third-hand account from your mother. I'm sure she's a very fine woman, but if you are a reporter or journalist, you should have known to verify the story before posting it. That is all I have been posting. I haven't called you a liar or anything else. I've just said what is a fact: you have an unverified third-hand story.

[RagingInMiami]

43. Did I post the story as fact?

Did I say, "You guys are going to be outraged about what happened."?

No, I just posted a very vague and general scenario to get feedback as to what is standard police procedure.

I did that because I trusted I would get some honest and constructive answers, as I always do on DU.

I just tend to forget that there is always that pesky nitpicker who misses the whole point, only to obsess about some irrelevant detail.

[theshadow]

47. That's me, a pesky nitpicker. eom

[pitohui]

40. i thought they did take photographs if they WANTED to convict

maybe it depends on the location but the photograph is physical evidence of the extent of your injury and i don't know how you can get out of it if you seriously want something done abt yr attacker

i tried to get photos taken and when they refused that's when i knew they would not do anything but that was in the 70s

i think they've advanced since then and they actually do occasionally try to get evidence that will piss off the jury and cause them to convict?

[TheWraith]

53. Evidence.

To press assault charges (as opposed to just breaking and entering, for instance), they would need evidence of an attack. For that, it's not unreasonable that they would have the hospital take photographs of any injuries, cuts, bruises, or scrapes that she had sustained. Some of the more advanced places use UV photography which can bring out much more subtle bruising than normal photography could. It's not uncommon.

Of course, now by asking a simple and straightforward question, you've stumbled into the middle of a warzone between the "Cops are pigs" faction and the "Cops are Gods" faction. Don't feel too bad, some people here are just crazy.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

54. If she bit and fought him off as you indicate in your account, there might

be some bruising or injury from the struggle, or from the "fondling", that could be documented in photos for trial.

If there is any injury to document, I think photographing it is standard practice. I don't know that the victim is required to submit to this, but it might lessen the chances of conviction if they didn't.

I also don't know if a rape victim is legally required to submit to a "rape kit" and exam (swab etc) if they report a rape.