Politic?

This is a blog dedicated to a personal interpretation of political news of the day. I attempt to be as knowledgeable as possible before commenting and committing my thoughts to a day's communication.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Failure to Warn

Seems like a really good reason to bring a criminal suit against police. That those whose mission as professionals is to protect the public and when they so spectacularly failed to do just that, then they should be held to account, seems fair enough.

Laurie Massicotte suffered through a truly atrocious experience. A murderer, who is also a sexual pervert and a threat to women and girls had held her a fearful, threatened prisoner, forcing her to please his contorted sense of sexual tastes. While he is securely locked away in prison and will remain there for a long time to protect society against his demented fantasies being acted out in real time, she has been irremediably traumatized. Twice over.

When she was finally able to plea for help after the departure of Col. Russell Williams, and the Ontario Provincial Police arrived they failed to free her from the constraints that her attacker had used to immobilize her and victimize her. They, using their better judgement, felt she had somehow manufactured her explanation, that she victimized herself in a bid for notice and notoriety.

She would have to wait, she was informed, until a police photographer showed up. To document the condition she was found in, bound into a harness. The restraint would stay, and it did for an intolerable five hours. "Five hours, no medical attention. I was in total shock. I didn't know what the heck was going on."

Isn't the plight of women who have been sexually assaulted, lay charges against their attacker, then suffer the further indignity of being insinuatingly questioned by the defense in a court of law often cited as women suffering doubly? One an echo of the initial attack; the court presence and the probing and suggestive questioning laying seed to the idea that the woman somehow precipitated the attack by her demeanor, her suggestive mode of attire, culminating in a second attack; one physical, the second psychological.

"I was left for five hours, still in my harness, still tied up, naked, lying under a comforter."

In the early hours of the investigation she had suffered the dreadful indignity and physical discomfort of being treated like the offender, not the victim. She was informed by one officer that the impression they had was that she was attempting to 'copycat' what had occurred elsewhere. Had she been informed prior to her own attack that such an assault had occurred close by, she would surely have taken steps to protect herself, for forewarned is forearmed.

In 1998 a Toronto woman who had been raped in her apartment in 1986 by a serial rapist sued the Police Services for not having informed her and other vulnerable area women that a number of women had been raped and a serial rapist was suspected. Jane Doe won her civil suit and it was generally assumed afterward that most police forces would henceforth release information to the public warning of a repeat serial rapist on the loose.

Obviously, this security nod to the responsibility to protect women did not reach the notice of the OPP, for they failed to notify women in the area to empower them with the critical knowledge that might have them taking self-protective steps. Ms. Masicotte lived alone in a house three doors over from the one owned by Col. Williams and his wife, north of Belleville.

Russell Williams broke into her house, blindfolded and bound her, slashed her clothing loose from her body, and forced her to pose while he took souvenir photos to enjoy at his leisure. She suffered for three and a half hours until he finally left her in the straitjacket he had devised. She managed in any event, to dial 911. And when help finally arrived her torment continued for an additional five hours.

After the photographer finally arrived, she was forced to wait outside her home for another three hours while forensic detectives combed the interior for evidence of the crime that had been perpetrated. She was permitted to wear a bathrobe during this agonizing wait, and then underwent a lengthy interrogation before being informed that a similar situation had occurred nearby less than two weeks earlier.

"I'm basically now a prisoner in my own home. I'm afraid to go outside." This result is not what law-abiding, trusting people believe occurs with the intervention of a police force whose purpose is to serve and protect. Law suit? Seems self-evident.

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