TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains descriptions of sexual violence.
“I understand you’re a freshman. … Was this your first time drinking?”
While out with a friend in Westwood during her first year of college, Sabrina met a man at a party and he offered her and a friend a glass of wine.
After a few hours, he offered to take her and her friend back to the dorms. Since it was late, Sabrina said, they both agreed to the ride. During the car ride, she said everything started to become blurry and she felt disoriented.
“By that point everything turns into a blur – it’s like time and any logic is gone,” she said. “I didn’t question that i wasn’t being taken home.”
The man did not take them back to the dorms, but to his apartment. From there, he brought Sabrina into his bedroom. He took off her clothes despite her repeatedly saying “no,” and she said he held her down while beginning to perform oral sex on her, even after she continued to say she did not want to do that. Then he put on a condom and tried to insert his penis inside of her. From that point on, she said, everything went black.
Sabrina woke up in the man’s bed, unsure of what had happened the night before, and deeply distraught.
She remembered learning at freshman orientation that you should not shower if you think you have been assaulted because the Rape Treatment Center could collect medical evidence.
UCLA mandates that all incoming students receive training about sexual assault. CARE offers educational trainings at orientation and throughout the year, including presentations for “at-risk” communities, including first-year students.
Sabrina said she did not remember learning at orientation that there was a free taxi service that could escort you to the Rape Treatment Center or that university police offered free rides, no questions asked.
So, wearing the same clothes from the night before, she boarded a bus to Santa Monica.
After receiving treatment at the Center, an employee at the Center contacted the university police. She asked if she could work with a female detective because she felt it would be easier to speak about what happened to a woman. An employee at the Center told her there were none available at the time.
University police spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein said the university does not currently have a woman on its current staff of about seven detectives.
“We emphasize the importance of having sensitive individuals, male and female, working with victims,” Greenstein said. “In looking at feedback, voiced concerns do not break down by sex.”
The detective who arrived was male. He asked her questions about how much she had been drinking at the time of the assault. She said the questions made her feel like she was being questioned, and made her start questioning herself. At one point, she said, the detective asked her: “I understand you’re a freshman at UCLA. … Was this your first time drinking?”
She said he kept emphasizing how difficult it was for a case like hers to ever see a courtroom. When she heard the questions phrased in that way, she said, she “just kind of broke.” She said she was feeling tired and weak, and could barely stand on her feet. She was desperate to go home and take a shower.
“When I presented what happened to me to (the detective) it was in a way that protected the man that assaulted me,” Sabrina said. “I put all the blame on myself. … (I said) ‘Yeah I was drunk, I actually don’t know what happened.’”
University police said they do not intend for questions about the difficulty of the case or the role of alcohol to discourage the survivor from reporting.
“Explaining a lengthy police process that goes on for days, weeks, and unfortunately months, could very easily be interpreted as, ‘I’m being discouraged.’ Hopefully we’re using a tone that’s neutral or supportive,” said UCPD Captain Manny Garza.
Sabrina said she is still not sure if a report was filed because she did not answer follow-up calls from the detective.
Currently, UCPD operates an anonymous university police tip line. Greenstein said university police are working to develop a feature on their website to allow survivors to submit anonymous reports online. Anonymous reports will be added to Clery numbers, the official annual tally of crimes on or near campus.
Sabrina took her midterm a few days after the assault, and said she failed. Her grades plummeted. Neither the police or the Center told her Academic Counseling could work with her to extend academic deadlines.
“I just kind of turned into a ghost for the rest of freshman year,” she said.
She told her best friend from high school about her assault, hoping for understanding.
She said her friend replied: “Are you sure you just didn’t regret it and want to call it rape?”
“That was just the beginning of the lack of support from people in my life, the blame that was directed at me and not at this man and how I’ve been told to regulate my behavior when he isn’t told to regulate his,” Sabrina said.
*A pseudonym was used in order to protect the identity of the survivor. It is the Daily Bruin’s policy not to publish the names of the survivors of rape or sexual assault unless specifically instructed otherwise by the survivor.