New Approach Taken to Help Rape Victims : Crime: A detective, a counselor, an attorney and a doctor work together on the case. This helps reduce the victim’s trauma and increases the likelihood that a suspect will be arrested.
LONG BEACH — The day after Norma Mower turned 58, two men cornered her in her North Long Beach garage. While one pinned her to the concrete floor, the other raped her.
But her ordeal did not end there. In the days that followed, Mower, who went public with her story and agreed to have her name used, relived the experience each time she had to tell her story as she searched for a counselor and anyone who might help her find the rapist.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department took Mower’s initial report. But deputies did not offer her counseling, and they did not take her to a hospital to gather evidence.
“I cried for five straight days, and finally I got mad,†Mower said. That’s when she took her story to the Long Beach City Council and its cable television audience.
Still, another day passed before Mower had tests at a hospital. Eight days after the rape, a counselor from the Sexual Assault Crisis Agency returned Mower’s calls.
In two months, Mower’s attackers have not been arrested.
Authorities offer a variety of reasons for Mower’s bad experience: from deputies having made a blatant error to having misunderstood her story. But they agree on this: The fewer times a woman is forced to tell her story, the less traumatic the experience is, and the more organized the investigation is, the more likely officials can prosecute the rapist.
To achieve both goals, the Long Beach Police Department has joined forces with several other agencies to test a team approach to solving sex crimes. It is the first of its kind in Los Angeles County.
Under the program, a rape victim is met at Pacific Hospital by a detective, a counselor, an attorney and a doctor.
The Police Department had begun the project well before Mower’s experience in June. But her outspokenness prompted the Sheriff’s Department, which patrols the part of Long Beach where Mower lives, to adopt the program as well.
“That incident brought to light that there was a service available, a good service,†said Lt. Marvin Cavanaugh, who heads the sheriff’s Long Beach deputies. “It uses all of the community’s resources.â€
In the past, rape victims talked to a police officer. The officer would take the report and pass it on to a detective, sometimes days later. Then the victims often had to tell and retell the traumatizing story to detectives, doctors and attorneys.
“Over a period of days and weeks, victims were interviewed numerous times,†said Sgt. George Fox, who heads the Police Department’s sex crimes division.
Now when a call comes in, a detective, a rape counselor and an attorney meet with the woman at Pacific Hospital, where doctors have been trained in gathering evidence and are prepared to testify in court.
“The victim is interviewed one time. And these are people that are going to follow this case,†Fox said, “so it’s a benefit to the victim to meet these people and establish a rapport with them.â€
Modeled after similar programs in San Diego and San Luis Obispo, the program received approval from Chief William C. Ellis in June. In November, the program will be evaluated, and activists hope it will be adopted permanently.
For years, women’s and children’s advocacy groups have criticized police departments for insensitivity toward rape victims and a poor record of arresting rapists.
Now, they say, the program offers them a chance to join their expertise with the Police Department’s to aid both the victim and the detective trying to solve the crime.
“It’s on the cutting edge,†said Paula Warren, who works with the Police Department as a representative for the National Organization for Women.
The program’s participants include NOW; the Long Beach Sexual Assault Crisis Agency; the Sarah Center, which works with young children; the district attorney’s office and the doctors at Pacific Hospital.
“When you roll out together and you’re all in there for the survivor, the survivor knows it,†Warren said. “A team makes a difference. It makes a difference in getting a good interview. It makes a difference in gathering evidence.â€
The Sheriff’s Department program also works with the activists, Cavanaugh said.
Although sheriff’s detectives have not caught the men who attacked her, Mower said she does not regret her decision to go public with her story. The department’s decision to change the way it investigates sex crimes has been a comfort.
“That’s why I went forward. I wanted other women to have a chance,†she said.
Other women also may be more successful in seeing the rapists prosecuted because the program aids detectives in solving the crime, Fox said. Detectives assigned to the unit are familiar with other crimes in the area and have access to a file of convicted sex offenders living in the city.
“Sex offenders are notoriously repeat offenders,†Fox said. “They have a tendency to use the same methods, to make the same statements. They will call victims by certain names. These are things we look for. They’re important in tying things together.â€
The team’s three male and three female detectives, who investigate sex crimes ranging from indecent exposure to rape, receive a 40-hour training course mandated by the state, and additional seminars on sexual assaults.
The doctors are specially trained in collecting and preserving evidence and have equipment such as scopes to photograph internal injuries that make prosecution more likely. Unlike emergency room doctors, who often are reluctant or too busy to go to court, those under contract at Pacific Hospital are prepared to help in the prosecution, Fox said.
“Each one of the participating groups has an important contribution to make to the overall picture,†Fox said. “Everybody has their own goal and everybody has a common goal.â€
Although it is too soon to provide statistics on the program’s success in prosecuting the roughly 300 rapes reported to the Police Department each year, officials say they are hopeful the program will continue after November and eventually interest other cities the way it did the Sheriff’s Department in Long Beach.
Fox declined to disclose how much the program costs the city but said it has been minimal, pointing out that each agency covers its own costs.
However, he said if a lack of money threatens to discontinue the program, his agency and others would turn to the private sector for funding.
“I see this program expanding and not fading away,†Fox said.
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