i leave this in your ear

[seperis]

Stealing from meret, because every day is fuck up a victim day.

Via Jezebel: Police Assault Woman Who Called for Help; Sue News Station Who Exposes Them, in which Hope Steffey calls the police after being assaulted by her cousin, is then arrested (I bet you didn't see that coming), taken to jail, booked, then, as is common in jails not located in third world dictatorships, is forcibly stripped naked by male and female officers and left naked in a cell for six hours.

No, wait....

[Complete report at Shakesville. Note: video may be triggery for some.]

Granted, I have never been arrested and everything I know about arresting and booking comes from TV. So I had this weird moment of cognitive dissonance. Now this will sound crazy, people, but I'm not really sure this is okay behavior. I mean, I know, totally not law enforcement, what do I know?

Well. Here's what I'm pretty sure of. A woman is arrested for reporting her own assault, the cop-cam video mysteriously truncated, she is booked, taken to a cell, strip searched by male and female officers, then convicted of--okay, wait for it, but I bet you can guess--resisting arrest and disorderly conduct....

Do you think--this is just like, totally out there--maybe the resisting arrest and disorderly conduct are related to being stripped naked while screaming in terror? See, those of us not in the police profession call it a natural, terrified reaction to sexual assault by strangers. Then again, I have always been totally radical about bodily autonomy and the non-public property of my sexual organs, so take that as you will.

I really want to make a comment on that. Then I watch the video and forget to breathe.

Comments

[amalthia]

I'd really like to think that female officers would be more compassionate as a group....something I read in college said overall women make better police officers because there's less ego involved and more compassion...but..there are always exceptions.

[libitina]

My premise is that if you had that exact same video with only female officers doing those things, it would not be okay. Even if they were following their same sex only strip search policy, that was rough and disrespectful and probably happens fairly frequently to people whose lawyers don't have the resources to obtain the video evidence (or who aren't situated such that they lawyer option is presented as a viable one). And is not okay.

[amalthia]

Well no, this type of strip search is completely unnecessary. I'm just wondering if it were only women in the department would this situation ever even occur? I'd like to think not. I guess I'm just not comfortable with police departments mostly dominated by men.

p.s.

[amalthia]

Yeah this video regardless of the gender of the people performing the "search" makes not a bit of difference it's still wrong and there were so many other ways they could have gone about the search if a search was even necessary in the first place.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I think a lot of women who become cops or security guards have the same ego problems as men. It seems to come with the territory.

[amalthia]

that's a very good possibility...