Child Rape Victim Threatens Suicide to Escape Interrogation by Rapist

In Seattle, Washington, on Thursday, a 21-year-old woman was soon to testify against the man on trial for raping her as a child. It's a traumatic experience for a rape survivor to go through under any circumstances, but this was an especially horrific situation: the person who would be cross-examining her was the very man accused of sexually abusing and threatening to kill her. Distraught at the prospect, the young woman made her way to the King County courthouse rooftop and spent three hours threatening to jump before being led to safety.

The majority of rapes already go unreported, while even more of them never see prosecution. Many rape victims don't want to go through the ordeal of criminal proceedings and having to talk about their rape over and over; victim-blaming by society and sometimes law enforcement poses a further deterrent. To force a rape survivor to submit to being interrogated by her assailant builds the barriers to justice too high — the only one benefiting is the rapist, who is again put in a position of power and control over his victim, and able to frighten her out of sending him to jail.

As Cara reports on The Curvature, the accused rapist, Salvador Aleman Cruz, is acting as his own lawyer, essentially empowered by the legal system to once again traumatize his victim through direct questioning. Actually, in this case, it's five victims who are being put under his thumb, forced to submit to his interrogation if they want any chance at putting their abuser in jail. And since this case involves child abuse, it only heightens the difficulty for the victim. The victim who attempted suicide reported seeing Cruz hold a gun to her mother's head as a child, and since the victims were already terrified by his death threats, it will be easy for him to intimidate them in an interrogation. One victim has already been driven to the brink of suicide.

This shocking situation is not the first of its kind in the area. In July 2009, less than a year-and-a-half ago, there was another rape case in King County in which the accused attacker was permitted to cross-examine his victim because he was acting as his own attorney. It's past time for something to be done about it: how many victims have to be re-traumatized before action is taken?

Earlier this year, a bill failed in the Washington state legislature that would have protected sexual abuse victims from being questioned by their alleged attackers. Too bad so many members of the Washington state legislature thinks so little of sexual assault survivors, deciding it's acceptable for rape victims to be traumatized once again, to be put under the power of their attacker. Tell Washington legislators to pass a bill protecting rape survivors from cross-examination by their assailants.

Cruz and any other alleged attacker would still receive a fair trial with a court-appointed attorney who could carry out the cross-examination of the victims on his behalf. In fact, Cruz has a defense lawyer helping him with his case. But to permit an accused rapist to conduct the questioning himself is cruel to the victims and serves no purpose for justice.

Photo credit: dreamsjung