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Senate Subcommittee Holds Hearing on Uninvestigated Rape Cases
It was July 14, 2004, when Sara Reedy's life changed forever.
The then 19-year-old was working her usual 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. shift at a gas station in Cranberry Township, Penn. She was by herself, when, near the end of her shift, a man walked in, pulled a gun, told her to sit in the corner and took all the cash in the store. He then put the gun to her head and sexually assaulted her.
For Reedy, the attack was just the beginning of a long nightmare. When she reported the incident to the police, the detective assigned to her case refused to believe her. Instead, he accused her of taking drugs, stealing money from the store and then fabricating the sexual assault story as a cover.
The detective pressured Reedy to confess and when she didn't, he got an arrest warrant and put her in jail for theft, receiving stolen property and filing a false police report. Reedy was four months pregnant with her first child.
Reedy's serial rapist, however, struck again and was caught. It was only after he confessed to raping Reedy, that she was released.
According to The Women's Law Project, Reedy's story is not unique.
Today, Reedy will tell her emotional story to a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, which is holding a hearing on uninvestigated rape cases and whether police departments in major cities are underestimating and ignoring such rape cases.
On Monday, the FBI said that violent crimes reported to the police were down for a third straight year, dropping 5.3 percent in 2009. Reported cases of rape dropped by 2.6 percent.
Attorney General Eric Holder said that smarter policing practices and investments in law enforcement played a significant role in reducing violent and property crime, according to the Associated Press. But not everyone believes those figures, and media investigations in several different cities have shown the situation to be in stark contrast.
Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Penn., who is chairing today's hearing, has questions about some of those figures too.
"Studies have established that the annual rate of rapes has not decreased in the last 20 years and the lifetime prevalence of rape, in fact, has increased by more than 25 percent. These statistics conflict with official government data that show annual decreases in the rape rate," said a press release about the hearing.
Senate to Hold Hearing on Rape Cases
Last July, a lengthy investigation by The Baltimore Sun revealed that police in that city were ignoring rape claims and refusing to pass them on to investigators.
Before the newspaper's exhaustive investigation in June, reported rape cases in Baltimore were down by 15 percent for the year. But a headline in this morning's Baltimore Sun reads that reports of rapes in the city are actually up by 20 percent this year, a sharp increase since new police procedures were sparked by the Baltimore Sun investigation.
A similar investigation by the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2000 revealed that the police department in that city "downgraded" rapes and secretly dumped thousands of cases of rape with hardly any investigation.
Carol E. Tracy, the executive director of the Philadelphia-based Women's Law Project, will tell Senators today that police departments in several big cities, including St. Louis, New Orleans, Milwaukee, Cleveland and New York are employing similar tactics "to sweep reports of rape under the rug."
Sexual assault is one of the most under reported crimes, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, even though one out of every six American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime.
The Women's Law Project and other groups helped uncover 681 cases that were misclassified by the Philadelphia Police Department, and 1,700 other cases that should have been investigated as other sex crimes. Today, the organization will request that the FBI do a nationwide audit to investigate what they see as discrepancy in their statistics.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey is among the ten witnesses who will testify today.
Today's hearing will be one of the last chaired by Specter before he leaves office at the end of the year.
Senate Hearing: Are Police Departments Underestimating Rape Cases? - ABC News
It was July 14, 2004, when Sara Reedy's life changed forever.
The then 19-year-old was working her usual 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. shift at a gas station in Cranberry Township, Penn. She was by herself, when, near the end of her shift, a man walked in, pulled a gun, told her to sit in the corner and took all the cash in the store. He then put the gun to her head and sexually assaulted her.
For Reedy, the attack was just the beginning of a long nightmare. When she reported the incident to the police, the detective assigned to her case refused to believe her. Instead, he accused her of taking drugs, stealing money from the store and then fabricating the sexual assault story as a cover.
The detective pressured Reedy to confess and when she didn't, he got an arrest warrant and put her in jail for theft, receiving stolen property and filing a false police report. Reedy was four months pregnant with her first child.
Reedy's serial rapist, however, struck again and was caught. It was only after he confessed to raping Reedy, that she was released.
According to The Women's Law Project, Reedy's story is not unique.
Today, Reedy will tell her emotional story to a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, which is holding a hearing on uninvestigated rape cases and whether police departments in major cities are underestimating and ignoring such rape cases.
On Monday, the FBI said that violent crimes reported to the police were down for a third straight year, dropping 5.3 percent in 2009. Reported cases of rape dropped by 2.6 percent.
Attorney General Eric Holder said that smarter policing practices and investments in law enforcement played a significant role in reducing violent and property crime, according to the Associated Press. But not everyone believes those figures, and media investigations in several different cities have shown the situation to be in stark contrast.
Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Penn., who is chairing today's hearing, has questions about some of those figures too.
"Studies have established that the annual rate of rapes has not decreased in the last 20 years and the lifetime prevalence of rape, in fact, has increased by more than 25 percent. These statistics conflict with official government data that show annual decreases in the rape rate," said a press release about the hearing.
Senate to Hold Hearing on Rape Cases
Last July, a lengthy investigation by The Baltimore Sun revealed that police in that city were ignoring rape claims and refusing to pass them on to investigators.
Before the newspaper's exhaustive investigation in June, reported rape cases in Baltimore were down by 15 percent for the year. But a headline in this morning's Baltimore Sun reads that reports of rapes in the city are actually up by 20 percent this year, a sharp increase since new police procedures were sparked by the Baltimore Sun investigation.
A similar investigation by the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2000 revealed that the police department in that city "downgraded" rapes and secretly dumped thousands of cases of rape with hardly any investigation.
Carol E. Tracy, the executive director of the Philadelphia-based Women's Law Project, will tell Senators today that police departments in several big cities, including St. Louis, New Orleans, Milwaukee, Cleveland and New York are employing similar tactics "to sweep reports of rape under the rug."
Sexual assault is one of the most under reported crimes, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, even though one out of every six American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime.
The Women's Law Project and other groups helped uncover 681 cases that were misclassified by the Philadelphia Police Department, and 1,700 other cases that should have been investigated as other sex crimes. Today, the organization will request that the FBI do a nationwide audit to investigate what they see as discrepancy in their statistics.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey is among the ten witnesses who will testify today.
Today's hearing will be one of the last chaired by Specter before he leaves office at the end of the year.
Senate Hearing: Are Police Departments Underestimating Rape Cases? - ABC News
