Wednesday, October 21, 1998
Rest rooms site of reports on lewd conduct
PREVENTION: Campus police tries to deter men from engaging in
crime
By Ann Hawkey
Daily Bruin Contributor
For university police officers, responding to calls in campus
men’s rooms has become a regular part of their duty.
Nearly every week, and most recently Tuesday in Royce Hall, UCPD
receives calls complaining of lewd conduct in campus men’s rooms,
which can include a variety of sexual acts, a misdemeanor crime
under the California Penal Code.
These laws address disorderly conduct and forbid soliciting or
engaging in lewd conduct in public or in a rest room, as well as
loitering with the intent to solicit or engage in lewd conduct.
"To the people who are using the bathrooms and making
complaints, it can be really problematic," said Nancy Greenstein,
director of UCPD community services. "There is a legal code against
this, and people call us to enforce the law."
The calls have come from from several buildings throughout
campus, most often from Kerckhoff Hall, Royce Hall and Powell
Library. Reports have complained of individuals and groups
participating in sexual activity.
Although UCPD officers do not actively patrol the rest rooms on
campus, they do respond to all the calls they receive, regardless
of the location. But, they generally arrive after the suspects have
left, so no arrests have been made in recent cases.
In an attempt to discourage lewd conduct in campus men’s rooms,
the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Campus Resource Center
worked with UCPD to post signs last year in the rest rooms.
The signs reminded visitors to respect those who use the rest
rooms, and explained the applicable penal code violations. They
also referred visitors to the the LGBT resource center for more
information.
Despite the good intentions behind the signs, after receiving
numerous complaints about the signs, the LGBT resource center asked
that UCPD remove them.
"We realized that the signs really were homophobic," said Ronni
Sanlo, director of the center. "We were assuming that only gay
people were having sex in the bathrooms, which was not true."
"We were saying to people who were not gay that this is what the
gay community is about," she said.
The crimes have been mainly limited to men’s rest rooms, though.
No recent complaints concerning women’s rest rooms have been filed
with UCPD. Police officers are not sure why this is the case.
LAPD investigations of lewd conduct have actually shown that
many heterosexual men are involved in this type of crime.
"There is a clear difference between those who engage in the
conduct and those who identify themselves as gay," said Donn
Hoffman, chair of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Law Enforcement
Advisory Council.
"Many of these men are people who do not consider themselves to
be gay," he said.
In dealing with lewd conduct offenses, UCPD chooses to take a
very different approach than LAPD.
"We don’t want to be doing bathroom patrol," Greenstein said.
"Everybody here would rather see it solved another way."
While UCPD does not actively pursue offenders, LAPD sends
undercover police officers into rest rooms known for incidents of
lewd conduct.
"LAPD relies heavily on the use of undercover decoy officers,"
Hoffman said. "Those are police officers who are disguised as
people cruising the bathrooms looking for sex."
This approach has often become a contentious issue in court
because the nature of the crime involves the suspect knowing that
someone in the vicinity would be offended by his actions.
If the undercover officer seems interested in engaging in sexual
activity, the suspect may not be aware that he would be offending
anyone, said Hoffman.
"Our argument is that if there were uniformed officers there,
you wouldn’t have a problem," said Barry Copilow, a private
criminal defense attorney who has handled several lewd conduct
cases.
If found guilty, the penalty for such a crime can lead to
serious fines, jail time and probation.
Penalties can also involve more than just what appears on a
criminal record.
"Simply the arrest, whether or not the charges are even filed,
can trigger loss of professional licenses, and can also have
tremendous personal impact in terms of breaking up relationships
and disrupting families," Hoffman said.
For this reason, many people who are arrested on suspicion of
lewd conduct in a rest room choose not to fight the charge.
"Many men will not fight the case because many are married or in
a conservative position," Copilow said. "They may have good
arguments, but it’s a very high-profile case."
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