TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains descriptions of sexual violence.
“Are you sure want to report? I can call him and tell him to knock it off.”
When Emily Tice was sexually assaulted, she only told a few friends about the assault, which took place at the UCLA cooperative housing complex.
Her friends warned fellow building residents to be wary of her assailant. They said he had raped another tenant in the building. Word spread quickly. Then, the accused began to respond to the accusations. He started saying “I didn’t rape Emily.” But no one in the building had accused the man of raping Tice specifically.
People encouraged Tice to report the assault, but she said all she wanted to do was move on. She finally decided to report it, she said, when she accepted that it had become “too real to forget.”
She reported the assault to university police in June 2013, six months after the assault occurred.
The first university police officer she met with asked her if she wanted to make a statement or file a report.
Tice told the female officer that she wanted to file a report. Tice said the officer then asked her again whether she was sure she wanted to file a report. Tice repeated her answer: yes.
Before filing the report, the officer offered to call the accused instead and tell him to “knock it off.”
Tice told her no, that she wanted to file a report. She said she started crying soon after, and began to apologize for making it difficult for the officer to file the report.
Tice said the officer told her not to worry, that she believed her story, and it was clear that “something happened.”
Tice said what she wanted at that time was an officer who was not reluctant to file an official report. She said she never imagined her believability was an issue.
The last time Tice heard from university police was in August. A detective called her to tell her he had not started investigating, but would be in touch about the case.
Tice never heard from the officer again. As of press deadline, Tice had not received any further correspondence with university police since August. Tice left UCLA in September.
Student status does not affect the ability of university police to proceed forward with a case, said university police spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein.
Tice said she knows her case is difficult to prosecute because more than six months have passed since the assault. Her assailant also moved away. But she wanted the information to be in police records in case her assailant ever assaults anyone else.
She reported her assault to the Dean of Students in July, but because her assailant did not enroll the following quarter, he is no longer considered a student and UCLA cannot hold a non-student responsible for allegations.
If the accused decides to return to UCLA, he must apply for re-admission and respond to the allegations, said Debra Geller, executive director of community standards in the Office of the Dean of Students. Geller said in such cases they would notify the complainant if the accused submits a request to the university for re-admission.
Tice had not yet been notified. She said she currently feels like she is in a kind of “rape purgatory.”
“I’m equally willing to go through with it, despite the time that’s passed, but really what it cost me is the ability to think of myself as more than a rape victim,” Tice said. “The longer this goes on, the more this feels like part of my identity, and of course I want to be so much more than that.”
Part of her healing process, she said, would be to see her assailant punished.
“It’s not that I feel personally vengeful, although I did for a long time,” Tice said. “But I want to live in a society that does not condone sexual violence.”
She said she once imagined that when something terrible happens to you, you expect the world to rally to your defense. But she said she quickly learned it was much more complicated than that.
“The reality is, victims of sexual violence aren’t incredibly willing to come forward,” Tice said. “Understanding that, extra care has to be taken to encourage victims of sexual crimes to come forward and discuss what happened.”