For D.C. Victims, No Rape Kits Without the Cops' Okay

In the Washington, D.C. area, Howard University, my beloved alma mater, is in the news. Unfortunately, the historically Black university that houses many of my fondest memories isn't being heralded for scholarship or sports. A female sophomore was raped near the school's campus after Winter finals in 2006, reports Washington City Paper's gender columnist, Amanda Hess, and over three years later, the victim is seeking justice and, sadly, any sort of acknowledgment that the horrible act actually happened.

The unnamed victim (called Hannah in Hess' story) reports heading to a party less than a mile off campus with three friends on December 6. After pre-gaming in their dorm, the 19-year-olds drank a little more at the party before Hannah was taken upstairs and, while unconscious, raped. After realizing what happened (and that she may have been fed drugs), she and her friends sought immediate medical attention at Howard University Hospital (HUH), but were turned away because of her drugged state. They again sought treatment the next morning, when Hannah was sober, but were denied again because of a D.C. legal loophole: police officers have to authorize rape kits for victims and the officer tasked with helping Hannah decided to literally phone in his job.

"Though D.C. police policy requires detectives to report to the scene to interview the victim in person," wrote Hess. "[Detective] Spriggs decided to do this one by phone ... Spriggs, sitting in the Sexual Assault Unit office, determined that Hannah hadn’t been the victim of a crime." No further investigation was completed. No visits to the alleged perpetrator's home, no interviews with bystanders. Nothing. All because, according to the detective, she hadn't sounded convincing enough over the phone.

There's domination and sexism all over the officer's report, right down to the point that he called the rape kit a "sex" kit, as if the young woman had just engaged in some fun-filled tryst. What has followed in the years since this initial illegal and humiliating snub is litigation against two city hospitals (HUH and George Washington University Hospital) and their respective universities, the District of Columbia, and a round of doctors who "denied or interfered with her medical care."

The story makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. Not only because one young woman was violated who knows how many times and in who knows how many ways that night, but because it happened at my home. I'm certain that the woman resided in the underclass girls dorm, where I was also living during the 2005-06 school year. And the party she went to, in one of the Shaw neighborhood's cluster of rowhouses, sounds like the type of party my friends and I frequented on nights just like that, when we were riding on the highs of finished finals or an impending weekend of freedom or, yeah, a few drinks.

And while one victim is working to make her case, it isn't looking likely that other Howard women who may suffer the same fate are being protected by the local government. Hess spoke with Denise Snyder, executive director of the D.C. Rape Crisis Center, who said that there have been many cases in which police disregarded survivors' accounts. “For a sexual assault survivor who has already experienced an intense violation, to have your governmental system essentially say to you, ‘This didn’t happen, if it did happen it doesn’t really count,’ is devastating.”

Tell D.C. police to stop denying rape kits to victims by signing the petition here.

Photo credit: ~MVI~