TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains descriptions of sexual violence.
“Most guys get their ideas from porn.”
Jane* visited Counseling and Psychological Services just six hours after her assault.
On a form she filled out, there was a question asking the reason for her visit. She checked off the box “sexual assault.” She met with a counselor and told her she had met a man the night before at a party off campus. She said she had two or three shots at the party, but she remembered the incident and was not drunk. She exited the party with him and he took her to an apartment off campus. Once inside, he pushed her down on a couch and told her to “suck his cock.” He then proceeded to have anal and vaginal sex with her for four hours.
During the alleged assault, she said she continuously pulled up her underwear, and told him she had to go. He told her, “We’re not leaving until you make me come.”
When he finished, she said he asked her age. When she told him she was 18 years old, she said her assailant let out a sigh of relief.
She told her counselor she thought it might have been rape. “Was it rape?” she asked the counselor.
Jane said her counselor told her she was not in the position to tell her whether or not it was rape, but handed her a card with information about the Rape Treatment Center, a location in Santa Monica she could visit if she wanted to “press charges.” Jane said the counselor told her if she wanted to “report” her assault, she could speak to a CARE advocate.
The assault took place the week before finals, and Jane said she was too stressed about studying for finals to make time to file a police report.
Counselors are required to tell a student that it is not necessary to report an assault in order to receive treatment at the Santa Monica Rape Treatment Center, said Elizabeth Gong-Guy, director of UCLA Counseling and Psychological Services.
The center offers counseling services, free Plan B and HIV testing, as well as the option to collect and freeze medical evidence, more commonly known as a rape kit. Jane said she was not made aware of any of these resources.
Gong-Guy said a failure to inform a student patient of the medical resources offered at the Rape Treatment Center when he or she showed “even a hint of experiencing unwanted sexual activity” would be a violation of CAPS protocol.
Counselors are required to relay this information to the student verbally, as well as through a pamphlet with sexual assault resources, Gong-Guy said. Jane said she did not receive an information pamphlet at the time.
She was also not told that she could work with academic advising services to receive extensions on her finals. Failure to notify a student of these resources is a violation of CAPS protocol, Gong-Guy said. Failure to provide accommodation to students with mental disabilities – which includes “emotional illness” – is also a violation of federal requirements under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
If Jane had known about these resources, she said she would not have waited to seek medical treatment.
Instead, she endured three days of nonstop bleeding from her vaginal and anal orifices before she decided to seek treatment at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center emergency room.
After she arrived, hospital officials contacted the Los Angeles Police Department. She said officials told her that because her assailant was not a UCLA student, the city police – not UCPD – would handle the case.
When the police officers asked her about the incident, Jane said the officers focused heavily on how much she was drinking that night and the nature of the sexual acts performed.
“It was like … ‘How many times did he penetrate you?’ I was still in a stage of self-blame and denial, so I gave a lesser number as validation to myself that it wasn’t that bad,” she said.
She said officers did not ask her specific questions about whether or not she consented to the sex acts. She decided to hold off on filing an official police report – but never stopped thinking about it.
According to a January 2014 report issued by the White House Council on Women and Girls called “Rape and Sexual Assault: A Renewed Call to Action,” reporting rates for sexual assaults on campuses nationwide are very low. On average, only 12 percent of student survivors report the assault to law enforcement, according to the report.
Jane was one of the 12 percent of student survivors that did report to law enforcement. But she said she might not have if she had known the struggle that lay ahead.
“I had no friends that had been raped, I had no experience and, if I did, I would have been more hesitant to report because the process was just so bad,” she said.
Weeks after deciding to file a formal report, Jane said she received a phone call from a university police detective. She met with the detective, and said he was more sensitive than the previous officers with the way he worded his questions. She said he pushed for details, but explained he was only trying to do a thorough report, and that he knew it must be difficult to speak about a traumatic event.
Police officers are required to meet state-mandated requirements for ongoing training in dealing with survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, said Nancy Greenstein, a spokeswoman for UCPD.
Jane said the detective lost her trust, however, when he promised to surprise her assailant with a visit to his home, and instead called him on the phone and gave him a week’s warning to come into the detective’s office.
“He could have gotten a lawyer, he could have been thinking about his story,” she said. “It was to his advantage, he was not caught off guard.”
Greenstein declined to comment on specific university police policy regarding this incident.
Later, Jane and the detective drove around Westwood to try to locate the apartment where her assailant brought her that night. As they discussed the details of her case, the detective began to explain how it was difficult to prove cases like hers in court.
She mentioned how her assaulter had asked her how old she was after he had raped her, how he had told her he could not let her leave until he came, as potential evidence to bring up in court.
The detective’s only response, Jane said, was: “You know, guys get their ideas from porn.”
As they continued driving and talking, Jane said the detective expressed surprise that she was not crying.
“You know, you’re really composed, most other girls (with these types of cases) start crying. You can’t get anything done,” he allegedly told her.
She said the detective continued to emphasize how hard it was to prove cases like hers, or any similar rape case, unless they are “rape you in a bush” cases. She said he told her that just because her case might not make it to court, it did not mean she was not raped.
Jane said the detective’s repeated emphasis on these difficulties made her feel like there was no way to succeed in her case.
After hearing similar feedback from other survivors, Student Wellness Commissioner Savannah Badalich and her sexual assault awareness campaign team began working with university police on a project called “Every Word Counts” in winter of 2013. She worked closely with Greenstein to create a list of phrases officers can use to deliver information to survivors with greater sensitivity.
For example, Badalich said instead of saying things like “the likelihood of your case seeing a day in court is none,” an officer could say “due to the fact that there is alcohol involved in this case, it may be harder to find a district attorney that will prosecute, but I will do my best.”
Earlier this month, CARE counselors conducted an official, mandatory meeting with the UCPD detectives to discuss issues such as victim blaming, Green said. During the discussion, counselors explained to officers the dangers of perpetuating assumptions about false reporting.
“What we are trying to do (is) combat negative feelings and perceptions by supporting a culture of reporting,” Greenstein said. “Our numbers of reports are higher than many institutions and we feel this is good. Numbers need to go up before we can celebrate them going down.”
Since CARE was established at UCLA four years ago, Green said CARE advocates/managers have met with detectives in an official meeting format a total of two times. Police officers also occasionally attend on-campus CARE trainings, Green said.
Three months after Jane filed the police report, the detective emailed her to say that he had conferred with the district attorney’s office. In an email obtained by the Daily Bruin, the detective told her there was “not enough evidence” to go forward with her case, and that her case is consistent with consensual sex.
She asked her Rape Treatment Center counselor if the detective picked up her evidence from the center. Her counselor at the center told her that LAPD picked up the evidence, but did not give it to UCPD when university police took over her case.
Greenstein said that university police are required to pick up evidence from the Rape Treatment Center in every case in their jurisdiction.
When Jane’s friend at UCLA decided to file a report accusing another UCLA student of rape, Jane served as a support person and provided testimony for her friend’s university and criminal cases. Jane said she was disheartened that she continued hearing the same insensitive comments from law enforcement officials during her friend’s case.
One UCPD official allegedly asked Jane if she would ask her friend – the survivor – if she “likes to give oral sex.”
“I just don’t have school pride because I have friends and know a million other girls that they don’t help. What do you expect, that we do this alone?” Jane said. “I don’t feel like I’m taken care of; I feel like I have to do everything on my own.”
*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.