Since the alleged sexual assault charge on Oct. 23 on the campus of Spring Arbor University (SAU), the charges have been dropped. An SAU student, 22, made the claim, which was then investigated by Thomas Fiero and the Jackson County police.
The student claimed a man knocked on her door, forced his way into her room and raped her. According to a recent article in the Jackson Citizen Patriot, after interviewing the suspect, the police discovered he was away that weekend at a wedding. The claim was then disproved.
The student was jailed Thursday, Dec. 1 in Jackson and charged with a felony. She was arraigned Friday, Dec. 2.
“[The student is] out on a personal recognisance bond,” said Fiero, director of Campus Safety at SAU. This means she does not have to pay anything unless she doesn’t show up for next court date, which is Friday, Dec. 9.
Due to the alleged sexual assault reports, Fiero along with three directors of SAU Student Development, Kim Hayworth, Bobby Pratt, and Dan Vander Hill have made the decision to keep outer doors of campus dormitories locked 24/7.
Link: http://www.saupulse.com/2011/12/08/alleged/
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
7 comments:
I don't understand the last line. How will locking the doors prevent future false accusations?
Any update available of what happened at the December 9th Court date?
AL
Anonymous - ”I don't understand the last line. How will locking the doors prevent future false accusations?”
The idea is based on the assumption that (some) attacks are “opportunistic” and occur because the perp happened to find an easy way in, and decided to commit the crime. It’s undoubtedly true for certain crimes, especially thefts. But, for more serious crimes, the connection is obviously more dubious.
In the case above, the woman clearly named some one with whom she was acquainted (not well enough to know that he was out of town), and implied that it was because she knew him that she would have let him in her door.
For the case of argument, supposing her story had been true, then the same familiarity that compelled her to open her room door would likely have also compelled her to let him in a main door (say, if he had phoned her from outside the building, asking to be let in).
And, really, the tendency for people to just let other people typically compromises security doors on both dorms and apartment buildings. And, while it might happen that a person who would be an opportunistic rapist might be let in by mistake, the reality is that it is far, far more likely that the person let in by mistake would turn out to be just a thief.
Thus, the measure of locking residence hall external doors (which was common practice back when I was in college in the early 80’s) is just ‘window dressing”, intended to give the appearance of addressing a problem - which doesn’t actually exist, anyway. So, it’s likely to be wildly successful.
The downside of such measures will be that women who decide that making a false rape/sexual assault claim will get them attention, or give them an alibi are going to have to go to more effort to stage those attacks in a location outside of the dorms.
Anon,
That's the problem. They shifted the focus to a completely different crime, and in the process, minimized the true victim of a false rape/sexual assault accusation.... the person accused. But that does seem to occur in most of the stories we run here. There is always a quote from someone in the SGI (Sexual Greivance Industry), that this will affect victims of rape the most.
It's disgusting.
@Anon 1:06PM...
You just made my day - now that was funny....
"How will locking the doors prevent future false accusations"...
If only they posted signs on campus that 'this is a campus-free rape zone' it would then stop all rapes. In the name of equality they should then post signs that read 'this is a false-rape-allegation free zone' it would end all false rape allegations.
AL
I wonder if they'd let a rapist out on "personal recognisance bond"?-Never in a million years i say!
Post a Comment