City (Philly)not liable for Shannon Shieber’s rape and murder, jury declar

[Mandate My Ass]

City not liable for Shannon Shieber’s rape and murder, jury declares

By Joseph A. Slobodzian

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER


A federal jury today cleared the City of Philadelphia of any liability in the 1998 murder of University of Pennsylvania graduate student Shannon Schieber at the hands of confessed serial rapist Troy Graves.

The civil jury of six women and six men returned the verdict at 12:04 p.m. after 11-1/2 hours of deliberations that began Monday afternoon.

The jury agreed with one claim of the lawsuit filed by Schieber's parents, Sylvester and Vicki Schieber, of Chevy Chase, Md., that during the late 1990s the Philadelphia police regularly downgraded rape and sexual assault complaints by classifying them as noncrimes.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/8038126.htm

Background: for over a year a serial rapist hunted women in a small section of Philadelphia near Penn's campus. Most victims weren't believed. The ones that were weren't notified that the police routinely downgraded rape to a minor charge "Investigation of person" or burglary to keep their stats looking good.

It wasn't until Wharton student Shannon Schieber was killed by this rapist that they started comparing DNA in the other rape cases in that neighborhood all with the same MO. One of victims came forward and said after the police came to her apartment, took the tape off her mouth and untied her, he told her "Honey, in the morning you'll remember your boyfriend did this to you." Another, who refused to cooperate with the investigation after her rape was downgraded said that an officer said the reason for dropping the investigation was because "She looked like someone who thought every man wanted her." Most were asked which bars they hung out in and who they were sleeping with. The list goes on and on. I'm not someone who hates and blames police for everything. But these guys lacked even a modicum of understanding of the dynamics of rape and how rape is not sex. It took an Inquirer exposee to show how routinely rapes were downgraded to noncrimes and never investigated again. This decision by the jury "vindicates" the police because their actions were deemed to be non discriminatory.


I was hoping for many reasons that the Schieber family would win against the city because they were asking for better police training.
x(

[salin]

1. what...????

But the jury also found that the downgrading practice was not "intentionally discriminatory" against women or sexual assault victims and did not increase the danger to or result in Schieber's May 7, 1998, rape and strangulation.

Excuse me? Not keeping legitimate statistics - where a pattern could have been discerned... didn't result in increased danger to the victim?

So why the heck do we pay taxes for police protection? (Okay, I know that is a hyperbolic response... but comeon... this reads like the dept turned a blind eye - and a woman likely died because of that practice.)

[Mandate My Ass]

2. There are so many more slaps in the face

to women in this whole debacle. They had the suspect in custody once and let him go because nobody had tied his rapes together by geography and MO, which was a huge aspect of this case.

When the police went to Shannon's apartment the night she was murdered, the two rookie cops basically asked the college student who lived downstairs and called them to make the decision as to whether they should break down her door or not. With everybody in the apartment building looking at him, he said no. She was most likely alive at that time.

[veganwitch]

3. colleges are notorious for misreporting rapes

to keep their stats good. or they will deal with it "on campus" (no police) so they dont have to report it.

[RobinA]

5. This Isn't a College Issue

Most of the rapes were not around the college. Scheiber's murder was kind of out of the territory this guy operated in. Plus, she didn't live on campus.

It was kind of a stretch blaming this on the police or the city. Despite the mis-classifications, there's no reason to believe they would have caught the guy before he ran into Scheiber. They didn't catch him until long after he had left the area. He was very good at not getting caught and he was kind of an oddball perp.

[Mandate My Ass]

6. It wasn't a campus issue, correct

None of them happened there.

But they had this guy in custody once before Shannon's murder for "peeping" and they let him go. This was after he had committed several rapes in that area of the city and he obviously matched the physical description provided by the victims, whose descriptions were sitting in a folder marked "Closed."

[Romulus]

4. welcome to the truth of the government/citizen relationship

As unfortunate as this murder was, it doesn't change the fact that the police had no legal duty to protect Ms. Schieber from the serial rapist/murderer.

People need to wake up and aunderstand that they alone are responsible for their own well being.

Edited to add:

Lawyers for the city argued that the theory behind the Schiebers' lawsuit was too speculative and that the city should not be held liable for the assaults of a cunning serial criminal like Graves.

[tkmorris]

7. That is inane

"As unfortunate as this murder was, it doesn't change the fact that the police had no legal duty to protect Ms. Schieber from the serial rapist/murderer."

They don't? What exactly is their role in society then?

I am aware, as you obviously are, that the police cannot be expected to protect the citizenry at all times from all things. In fact, that is what concerns me about the Patriot Act etc. People seem to believe that 100% protection from terrorism is desirable or even possible, when in fact neither is true.

No sir, the point is that the police were willfully negligent in what they did do. They acted in a way which made them appear to be doing their jobs but which in fact was detrimental to the society they were supposed to serve. They did so knowingly and callously, and still are attempting to shirk their culpability in this matter.

[salin]

9. this seems to be the crux of the matter (negligence)

it was their own practice - downgrading rape cases ... that played a big role in not being able to catch... a serial rapist.

I was living in the Palo Alto in the mid nineties. There were a series of rapes. They were not "downgraded", nor "downplayed". The police and media gave the public information (e.g., the perps MO (when and where he tended to strike), the timing and places where the rapes occurred). This information gave the public more awareness (and possibly prevented a few attacks).... and while in the days/weeks before the guy was caught it felt like a long time... he was apprehended relatively quickly.

I lived and worked very close to one of the attack sites. Had the case been handled as in the current story, that easily could have been me or anyone one of my friends or colleagues who could have been raped and killed.

Why have police and detectives - if the point is to downgrade serious, violent offenses, pretend they don't occur and close them so no "pattern" can be found to that would assist in catching the guy.

Sounds like negligence to me.

Ah - but like domestic violence.. it is just to easy to downplay and downgrade rape.

[tkulesa]

14. Law and Order

They protect powerful people with with the force of law (while not enforcing the law against those powerful people), and keep everyone else in line to preserve order.

Protecting people is a very small part of what cops do, unless you are wealthy, powerful or well connected.

[veganwitch]

8. about cunning

he obviously left dna on them. if the police had done their job, they could have easily figured who the guy was.

quote:

But the jury also found that the downgrading practice was not "intentionally discriminatory" against women or sexual assault victims and did not increase the danger to or result in Schieber's May 7, 1998, rape and strangulation.

and misnaming the crimes would have made it very difficult for someone to see a pattern in the attacks. so yes the faulty police did infact enable this person to continue raping woman by hiding and misreporting his crimes. and considering 90% of rapes happen to women, this is discrimination. were the police downgrading burglaries? vandalism? other less gender-specific crimes?

ugh!

edit: to add more ire.

[Mushroom]

11. and you're the host? n/t

[saigon68]

12. People need to wake up and aunderstand that they alone are responsible for

People need to wake up and aunderstand that they alone are responsible for their own well being.

Get a gun

As unfortunate as this murder was, it doesn't change the fact that the police had no legal duty to protect Ms. Schieber from the serial rapist/murderer.

[salin]

13. if there is a serial rapist in my community

and instead of keeping records, the police department that I pay for changes reports so there is no record of rapes - even when they have responded to previous rapes (same rapist)... in a way that they have made it unlikely that they will catch the serial rapist... then why the heck am I paying taxes for said police department?

Now we are for laisezz faire public safety?

Bigger truth - in some places, rape isn't seen as a violent crime.

Think about this - they had information on the serial rapist... but because they 'scaled down' the reports and recategorized the crims... there was no information available to look across several recent cases and say "aha! It looks like we might have a serial rapist"

[Mandate My Ass]

15. They had to reopen *thousands*

of rape cases after Ms. Scheiber's murder. This serial rapist preyed on women in this neighborhood with impunity for *years.* It wasn't until Shannon's death that they re-opened the half dozen or so reported rapes in that area, finally did DNA analysis, and then connected him to even more assaults. No other crime except rape was downgraded to noncriminal codes in this manner. If that's not discrimination then I don't know what is.

The negligence didn't stem from them merely declining to break down Scheiber's door that night, it stemmed from the police department's encouragement of officers to downgrade rapes as often as possible to keep their stats looking good.

[RobinA]

16. Granted....

this crap - "encouragement of officers to downgrade rapes as often as possible to keep their stats looking good" - has to go in every walk of life where numbers determine so-called success. It's often disguised as "results-based" or "outcomes-based" and it's a creeping crud thats taking over everywhere. Areas that were previously understood to be unquantifiable suddenly have to come up with numbers to show that they are doing a good job. It's an invitation for all kinds of fancy footwork with numbers, and it doesn't do anything at all to produce actual better outcomes. Number crunchers are taking over the world.

[salin]

10. this story... even more the police behavior than the court ruling

really gets under my skin.