When police officers arrived in Lower Queen Anne on September 25 in response to an assault call, officers were greeted by the sight of a shirtless man lying face-down, surrounded by several other men. Two of these men told officers that the face-down man had just assaulted a woman. While West Precinct Officer Bonesteel interviewed witnesses, a female officer was called in to take the victim’s testimony, as she was still “visibly shaken.”
According to the woman’s statement, half an hour before the 2:00 a.m. bar push-out on Saturday, she left a bar on East Roy Street and headed east toward home. When she decided to take a shortcut through the alleyway on the 700 block of 2nd Avenue North, she noticed a man “with his blue shirt halfway off and speed walking towards her.” She started walking faster. She noticed the man kept pace. Then she began to run.
The report goes on, according to victim testimony: “[He] caught up with her and pushed her into some nearby bushes. [She] began to scream and [he] grabbed her throat making shushing noises at her. [She] was still able to scream and [he] placed his other hand inside her mouth attempting to silence her.”
Meanwhile, two witnesses who had just left a nearby bar heard the victim’s muffled screams coming from the alley. When they walked over to investigate, they allegedly saw the suspect towered over the victim, with his hands covering her face and throat. The police report states that both witnesses demanded, “What the fuck, do you know each other?” to which they received simultaneous replies of “Yes” and “No,” from the suspect and victim, respectively. Then, they state, the suspect released his alleged victim and fled south toward Roy Street. One of the witnesses stayed with the victim while the other chased after the suspect. Fortunately, the suspect tripped over a guide wire and the witness was able to guard over him until police arrived.
Another creepy detail from the police report: While reading the suspect his Miranda rights, Officer Bonesteel noted that the suspect’s cargo shorts zipper was down. Another witness who flagged down the officers noted that earlier in the evening, she had seen “a white male with a blue shirt and cargo shorts following a brunette woman with his genitals exposed,” and that “he had his hand inside his shirt and was rubbing his penis while he followed the woman.”
Common sense advice is obvious by its very nature. Dispense it, but don’t expect anyone to think you’re amazingly wise and insightful, especially when the advice comes with a passive-aggressive dig at women who don’t act as if every walk home is a rape in progress.
#30 – Who was doing all the kidnapping in “Cold War Europe”? The Russians?? The North Koreans?? WTF are you talking about?
@49 & 50: good on you, but both of your framing of the discussion in those terms does little to recognize the on the ground realities about gender related violence, i find that your arguments actually move that discussion backwards into a safe space for them to perpetuate again and again.
#52, You’re right. Kidnapping wasn’t the primary threat, bombings were. We were stationed at a NATO base and there were explosives found in my elementary school several times. We took different tour buses to school from our houses in the surrounding area so we wouldn’t be obvious targets.
Kidnapping was explained as a threat to us and something we covered because of the unpleasantness in the Emerald isle and the smaller local political organizations for whom American children could have been useful bargaining chips. It was enough of an issue that the military thought to mention it so I trust they knew what they were talking about.
But we’re deviating into red herring territory.
Here is the truth.
We should live in a world where women can walk home nude, nude, at two AM, where they could pass out spread eagle in the street. AND NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN other than maybe a trip to the ER or a night in the drunk tank.
We can’t live in this world because men can’t keep their dick in their pants or because someone is a power tripping freak that gets off on making someone else feel helpless outside of a consenting BDSM relationship.
Blame the rape culture, not the rape victim.
Goddamit this stupid comment servce ate my comment. Oh well, tl;dr, let me summarize:
1. This happened only blocks from where I live. I walk home from work after dark, as I don’t own a car. So it’s just a *smidge* personal.
2. The bitchfest above about women’s agency and victim-blaming is nice and all, but stfu. You’re missing most of the point here running around reliving your women’s studies class.
3. The point being, any guy who’s rubbing himself and trying to rape girls in public isn’t just a Bad Man ™. He’s MENTALLY ILL for fuck’s sake. I doubt you could convict him in a court of law.
4. Somebody let this man wander free without his meds. They are responsible for this near-tragedy.
5. I have seen obviously mentally ill people wandering around this Lower Queen Anne area since at least late last year, when I moved to this neighborhood. Horrifying as this is, it really was only a matter of time.
6. We don’t prevent this by arguing about women’s agency or ability to stagger drunk out of bars to demonstrate their American! Freedom! We prevent this by mercifully putting people this ill in places where they can’t hurt themselves or others. If their families can’t afford it, the government needs to do it.
7. Bring back the institutions now, or bring them back over the bodies of those who will die to protect whatever the hell we were protecting when we got rid of them in the first place. They should have been reformed, not abolished.
I am just this side of starting a campaign about this. FFS.
I find @56 to be mostly spot on. eom
56 is generally correct. Reagan hated mental institutions because he belonged in one. So he helped ensure they had their funding cut.
#54. Red herring or not, I think you’re full of shit. I grew up on european military bases as well and never heard of any bombs being planted in elementary schools. Who exactly would stand to gain from that kind of pr if a bomb blew up a bunch of kids? But hey, if it makes you feel like you’ve lived a dangerous life, y’know, feel free to believe it.
Good for those who got involved. Better for society to get this perv off the streets.
He’s not mentally unstable, he’s a perv and a danger, that’s it.
Also: BONESTEEL.
I feel very sad for the victim. My heart goes out to her.
Many thanks to the two brave guys who intervened and nailed the dude.
Let’s all use the Buddy System, shall we?
Stay safe.
@56: “You’re missing most of the point here running around reliving your women’s studies class.”
Thanks, I hadn’t realized life is a womens’ studies class.
@59: They were in danger like Hillary Clinton had to run away from snipers.
DANGER EVERYWHERE.
@60: “He’s not mentally unstable, he’s a perv and a danger, that’s it.”
Are you ever not full of crap? He’s all three. Mental illness isn’t all puppies and ASD.
@60
Ummm, I’m willing to wager that anybody who whips their dick out in public, tugging on it while pursuing their would be victim has more than just a couple of screws loose.
http://i1.cpcache.com/product/22412706/d…
To all the men who sympathise with @2 who said
“People round here — young female people primarily — have gotten really, really lazy about (late-night, drunken) personal safety and the need to travel in pairs for you, and each other’s, protection. I’m amazed how many pretty lil’ thinks I see stumble out of the bar and into darkened streets without a clue about what could happen.”
Don’t think we don’t know the logic of your argument. But that’s no excuse for being ignorant and then defending your ignorance on the whole long and sordid history of victim blaming. please read up on it.
And in the mean time, imagine this. Imagine 99% of rapes happened to men. (man on man). And imagine that this had been the case for millenia. And imagine that going for a walk at 2:00 am you’d see very few men walking alone, but in pairs, if at all, and that there were about 5 times as many women walking the streets as men, and many of them alone.
And now imagine that you one day say “fuck it” and take a risk walking alone, because you’re sick of living in a world where the women walk freely and men can’t and then on that night that you say “fuck it” and you get raped. And then imagine it gets posted by an intern on slog. and then imagine the second comment (after the “isn’t bonesteel an awesome name” comment, is about how men are getting lazy and thoughtless and this is why you got raped.
Imagine this was your life.
Because I think if it was the men who got raped 99% of the time, men would probably organise vigelante style and go after those rapists one by one without mercy, and not let the entire male population be terrorised by the rapists. (and yes, raping one group of people is a form of terrorism. Terrorism is something which causes one group to live in fear, after a small sample of that group have been attacked. It instills fear. That’s its aim and its achievement.
@56 “You’re missing most of the point here running around reliving your women’s studies class.”
point taken.
But as for all rapists being mentally ill, I beg to differ. What about brain damage, combined with ignorance, combined with a bad upbringing, combined with drugs and alcohol, combined with the lowest things this culture has to offer. I suspect that’s behind rapes like this.
Check out the face of this rapist in Australia:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/studen…
We don’t know if the alleged rapist is mentally ill. We don’t know if he was coked to the gills, has a TBI, was tripping balls, was drunk, or any combination of the above. We don’t know if he was stone cold sober, mentally capable, and reasonably healthy. Speculation about the above is a little pointless now.
There’s also a fallacy in the argument made elsewhere about comparing a car wreck to a rape. One is an accident; one is a purposeful assault.
Stating that women should buddy up when walking home from the bar at 2am and avoid taking shortcuts down alleyways isn’t blaming the vicitim, it’s common sense. We live in a world where rape and murder and other violent crimes exist, unfortunately. Buddying up and sticking to main streets won’t prevent most rapes from ever happening, but we need to make some effort to protect ourselves.
@2 — Calling a woman lazy after she’s been attacked and nearly raped in an alleyway, or accusing all women of being lazy, doesn’t help. It hurts. We need to look at her case and learn from it, yes. We don’t need to name call.
There’s an awful lot of college age kvetching going on here, and all of it bullshit. Every word of it.
What matters here, is BONESTEEL.
I hope the victim is OK and feeling better and getting help, if she wants it. This was not her fault. I walk and ride my bike at night by myself—it could have just as easily been me—and years ago I was attacked by two men as I walked 15 feet from the cab to the front door of my apartment (the cab driver pulled away as soon as I shut the door).
It would be wonderful if we lived in a world where women and men could walk anywhere they want and not get jumped, robbed, raped, attacked, etc, but we don’t and never will. This shit has been going on for millennia. The fact is that women are more at risk in this world than men are: We are usually less skilled at defending ourselves and weaker. This isn’t victim blaming; it’s just reality. This is why Home Alive was the most awesome organization ever. It understood that women need to learn to fight back, because some men are never, ever going to stop hurting us. It’s not victim blaming; it’s common sense.
There are many, many things we do every day to avoid being victims. We shut our windows, lock our homes, cars and bikes (and if you don’t, and you get robbed, many people would not sympathize with you). Some people learn self defense; others carry weapons, etc. For better or worse, in the world we live in, we can’t simply live and not be bothered. So learn defense; take precautions; walk in groups; be prepared.
People angry at #2 are seriously fucking retarded and have taken their college-learned identity politics way too far. You people need to chill out and understand good advice when it’s given. Fucking self-serious, over-sensitive morons.
I’m glad for all these men letting us know know what is best for women when we go out drinking. Next time I want to go out alone, I’ll stay inside so I don’t get raped in the bushes. Because if none of my friends are available to walk me the three blocks to my house, I know it would be my fault if I went home at two am like every other single fucking bar patron in the city, and along the way some deranged fuck raped me. Thanks for the advice fellows!
By the way, what articles about rape to you post advice to guys about how they shouldn’t engage in sexual assaults against us? If you want to call us lazy and offer your sage advice to grown women about how they need a buddy system every fucking time they venture outdoors after dark, surely you have some equivalent advice to menfolk who are roaming the streets stroking their dick, right? Or is that behavior just par for the course in this world, whereas women living their lives not bothering these assholes is cause for a whole host of tips about how to best work around it?
75: You have issues that go far deeper than what anyone on this forum can possibly address. Do you honestly believe men go around encouraging their buddies to go stroke their dicks and sexually assault people? As a human being with a modicum of intelligence I will freely give women advice. At 2 am I’m sure as fuck not going to allow a female friend of mine to walk down a dark alley alone. I’m sorry that offends your feminism, but it’s fucking common sense. Stop being such a pedantic idiot.
And what if there weren’t people there to intervene? Then what? Was it condescending to help her? She’s obviously the victim and shouldn’t be blamed for the actions of some sexual predator, but she would have been safer with friends. And it’s not sexist to say that.
Let’s be intelligent here, not anti-male. @2 may not have stated his case with sensitivity, but the gist is this: Be careful, use common sense, watch out for yourselves and your friends. This is not victim blaming; this is smart. The world is cruel and unjust; that’s a fact of life and it is never going to change. Focus on solutions, not on nitpicking someone’s poor choice of words.
A MASSIVE THANK YOU!!! To the heroes in this story! You are truly heroic!
My heart goes out to the victim. If you read this, I want you to know that you are not alone in this world. People can help you, and to this extent, I urge you not to underestimate the potentially crippling power of this horrific event and find someone professional to talk to. The sooner the better. I hate thinking of you carrying around this horrible weight for years and years. You have been through a significant ordeal, which is putting it lightly. I strongly encourage you to seek therapy. My prayers will be with you. I wish you good luck.
@77,
Seattle is one of the safest cities in the country. Walking home alone in a very safe neighborhood (I’ve lived and/or worked in the Queen Anne area for nearly eight years) at night is an acceptable risk. The victim in this case had her wits about her to identify a threat, run away from it, and fight back, so she wasn’t staggering home drunk like the condescending asshole @2 implied.
@2,
Go fuck yourself.
@77, I’m not anti-male. But words are most of what we have, and I think we should be careful with them. The first post here rightly acknowledged the inherent awesomeness of Officer Bonesteel’s surname. We did not then get a comment about how pervy jerks shouldn’t go around assaulting women, or an Atta Boy for the fine gents who caught and held him. No, we got someone saying that women shouldn’t do things that men are allowed to do.
Rape is a cultural artifact. It is not biological; it is not genetic. It is not true that men in all cultures commit rape. We can change culture. It is no longer *as* acceptable to commit domestic violence; it is no longer *as* acceptable to drive while intoxicated. These things do still happen, but how our culture views it has changed. We can do the same with rape, if we have the will.
@ 80: ::Heart::
@77: As with everything in life, it’s not what you say, but how you say it.
Advice is fine, victim-shaming is not. If you can’t see the difference between the two, you should probably stop being “helpful” until you can suss it out.
If one thing watching hours of COPS while fucked up at night for years taught me – the guy out in the street without a shirt is probably guilty.
Ahem. Seriously. In all seriousness, I have a couple things I want to point out here –
1) – There is no excuse, no justification, no blame to be placed on a victim EVER in the case of rape. No tongue-clucking or finger-pointing is ever justified in the case of rape, or any other heinous human rights abuse. No rape victim ever “lets it happen” or “puts herself in a bad situation.” Even thinking this way is leads us down the wrong path.
2) – That being said, it’s not bad advice for people to be on guard at night but it’s not as though women walking down the street “need an escort.” I feel that #2 meant well but came across in a condescending, bro-ish way. Which of course, diluted the message.
3) – Rather than rehash the after-school-special messages here (we’re all adults here) I’d like to focus on something else in this story. I’m pretty sure we can agree that society has a collective responsibility to help prevent them from occurring. Instead of focusing on “what the potential victim can do to protect herself”, we really need to make it clear that we all have some measure of collective responsibility as part of society to keep these sorts of things from happening.
Male, female, it doesn’t matter, keep your eyes open. Not just for your own safety but look out for the other person walking down the street at night. I’ve been a victim of random street crime in this town and have a permanent injury as a result, and the one witness I saw didn’t do so much as offer me a fucking towel to mop up the blood. Kudos to the two guys who intervened rather than just “minding their own business.” As a society, we can help make our streets safer by looking out for each others’ well-being. Oh, yeah, and don’t be a rapist. I guess I should bring that up too. But if you’re reading this, chances are you already figured out that part.
4) Bonesteel will be the name of a cop on the edge in my upcoming, unproduced noir thriller.
Also, Bonesteel.
WOHOO! +5 FAITH IN HUMANITY! [/level up music]
As a male, I will do my part to stop rape by NOT FUCKING RAPING PEOPLE and I expect all of my friends of any gender to NOT FUCKING RAPE PEOPLE as well. Oh, and Bonesteel.
if women have to wear “less sexy clothing” as people are encouraging, perhaps we should just pre-emptively arrest all men who wear cargo shorts
People here who think rape is some sort of human condition that has always been here need to go read Christopher Ryan’s Sex At Dawn.
Rape isn’t about the sex, people who think it’s somehow the woman’s fault, it’s about power tripping, ego, abuse. Anyone who is capable of rape is just evil, they are willing to destroy another person’s trust in others just to feel powerful … which is abuse in it’s most basic form. Rationalize it all you want, rapists are not hormonally driven or even driven by instincts, they are drive by a lust for power. The mixing of the two is pretty much just a societal coincidence, by sexualizing everything the lines get blurred. Not society’s fault though, again, the rapist is the problem.
Kitten Koder, please go re-read my post at 80.
@90 So …. we agree. Then my post wasn’t toward you, was it? 😉
Actually, not quite. While the rapist is in charge of his actions, he is also shaped by the culture around him. Stating that a person is evil is simplistic and reductive. It implies that he would be evil in any society, at any point in history. This is not true.
Our culture (and others throughout history) teaches us to desire power, and that if we do not have power over others, this is a bad thing. It teaches that especially well to men. Other cultures don’t do this. There are societies in which rape is unknown, or known as something that happens out *there*, not here.
I agree with you in that victim-blaming is not acceptable. But where the impulse to rape comes from is kinda complex; simply saying ‘evil’ doesn’t get us very far.