“They Told Me It Never Happened”

[damnedifIknow]

Lara McLeod never wanted to report her rape. In those first few hours, the 19-year-old was barely able to put what had happened to her into words. Joaquin Rams, Lara’s older sister’s fiancé, had forced Lara to have sex with him, she said — just two weeks after Lara’s sister, Hera, had given birth to Joaquin’s baby.

Joaquin warned Lara not to tell anyone, she said, because it would ruin her family’s life. Lara feared that was true, but she broke down and told her parents the next day. They rushed out the door in a panic to pick up Hera and the baby. All Lara wanted to do after that was go back to sleep.

Instead, later that evening, she got a call from a police officer in Prince William County, Virginia, the suburb of Washington, D.C., where Joaquin and Hera lived. He wanted to know whether what Lara had told her parents was true. When Lara said it was, the officer told her that she needed to come to the station immediately for a formal interview.

After a cursory investigation of the claim they compelled her to file, the police abruptly concluded Lara was lying about being raped and arrested her. Hera was charged with obstructing justice for aiding Lara’s alleged deceit, and had to spend her savings on legal fees to get them dismissed. Lara’s charges were eventually expunged, but not before her reputation was destroyed. She says she still has severe panic attacks whenever she sees a police officer.

But the worst was yet to come."

http://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/the-police-told-her-to-report-her-rape-then-arrested-her-for#.khDj8WLrvr

[darkangel218]

1. Fuking corrupted piece of shit cops!

[LiberalEsto]

2. I hope the family is suing crap out of the P.W. police

and I hope they win. This looks to me like a coverup.

What will it take to penetrate the neanderthal skulls of those idjit police and prosecutors?

[Baitball Blogger]

3. I hope she sues that police department

[1monster]

5. This is a very long article, but a must read.

Anything you say can and will be twisted to whatever purpose we please and held against you in a court of law where WE have all the credibility and you have none. Or in other words, because we can. HA HA

[Raine1967]

6. This is a serious problem, not just with this police department, but with

how victims of rape are treated all around the country.

I hope people read the entire article.

this is what women speak of when they speak of rape culture. EVERYTHING was done to make sure this man was proven innocent. Nothing was done to help the victim of the crime.

Cavender noted that Lara said, “At the point where he had sex with me, yeah at that point I was a willing participant because I wanted to get it over with.” But Lara wouldn’t “admit” that she had wanted to sleep with Joaquin, which made the detectives upset. They told her that Joaquin didn’t deserve this, she says.

“I gave Lara one last opportunity to tell me the truth and to admit if it was consensual sex and she again denied that it was consensual,” Cavender wrote in his report. He finally told her he had a tape of the two of them having sex and asked if Lara wanted to watch it.

Lara started panicking. No, she didn’t want to watch a secret video of her recent sexual assault. That’s when the police told her it was time to teach her a lesson, she said.

“Despite being contradicted on almost every part of her story from the first interview, Lara refused to admit that she lied about reporting the rape,” Cavender wrote. “She continued to assert that she was a [sic] unwilling participant.”

[riderinthestorm]

8. +10000 nt

[passiveporcupine]

12. This was definitely a travesty of justice, and the worst part is

a baby died because of it. Not only should Lara sue them, the sister Hera should as well. If there was any investigation of the perp, maybe he would not have gotten visitation rights.

[kcr]

14. Yep. Whenever anyone says courts favor women

I want to ask what planet they live on.

[Duppers]

16. Yes, the baby's death was even more horrible!

If these cops had properly investigated, that baby could have been saved!

SHAME on them and that horrible man!

[blackspade]

7. Cop being cops.

Sick fucks....

[darkangel218]

10. No shit..

[hunter]

9. Here in a nutshell is our "rape culture..."

Algeo, a former prosecutor, said he approached his decision “as if this child were mine.” He discounted Washington’s testimony because she “likes to get undressed and go on websites.” He said he gave “no moment” of consideration to Mason’s murder because Rams was never charged with it.

http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/people/the-wrong-one

Somehow in our society the words of an honest woman are less credible than the fantastic lies of a male sociopathic murderer because "she likes to get undressed and go on websites."

[A Little Weird]

11. It's really no wonder so many people hate cops

[niyad]

13. heartsick, angry k and r. but, there is NO war on women.

remember this story, the next time you hear about "false" rape allegations. remember that it is often the corrupt, woman-hating officers taking the reports who unilaterally decide that a woman is lying (and don't forget, they are also the ones who are responsible for the nearly HALF A MILLION untested rape kits, because THEY get to decide whether an investigation should proceed, if they feel like it)

[damnedifIknow]

15. A woman is raped every 2 minutes in this country

22% of victims were younger than age 12 when they were first raped, and 32% were between the ages of 12 and 17."

That's just mind boggling.

[niyad]

19. this is truly a sick, woman-hating culture.

[Liberal_in_LA]

17. Wow!

In a private meeting with the McLeods, the chief of police admitted the department bungled aspects of the investigation, calling parts “improper,” “sloppy,” and “shortcutted,” saying he was “disappointed” that the detectives “didn’t pursue every possible means to either support the allegations or the conclusions that they were reaching or disprove them.” But he stressed that women do lie about rape, so it was important for officers not to be too credulous — and that it was only his “personal opinion” that police shouldn’t have pressed charges.
“It is not uncommon for people to make false, malicious, salacious allegations of sexual assault,” he said. “That does happen.”

[niyad]

20. it happens RARELY, you sick, twisted, covering-up jerk. many of the so-called "false reports of

rape" are exactly like this story. without any evidence one way or another, a police officer decides the woman is lying. end of case. what a tool.

[mercuryblues]

18. heart breaking

When Hera asked whether it was common for the department to charge women with falsely reporting rape, Chief Hudson said that he didn’t know if he would “call it an aberration.” The department deals with about 9 or 10 charges of false reporting a year out of 80–100 reports, he said.

After reading this story I think they need to reevaluate what they are claiming to be 9 or 10 false rape reports a year. Good god, do they have no sense of morality?

[niyad]

21. to answer your last question--NO. I would almost bet that those "9 or 10" false cases are

exactly like this one.