By VALERIE KALFRIN The Tampa Tribune
Published: Jan 30, 2007
TAMPA - A 21-year-old woman told police Saturday that a man grabbed her off Howard Avenue and raped her behind a building during the Gasparilla festivities.
But officers investigating the case arrested her after learning she had an outstanding warrant from her teenage years for failure to pay restitution.
She spent the next two nights in jail.
Police are reviewing their policies after the arrest, which one victim's advocate said could have "a chilling effect" on the rape investigation, the woman's well-being and the desire of future victims to contact police.
The woman's family is outraged.
"We're incensed. Everyone is just beside themselves," her mother, 47, said at 5:20 p.m. Monday, moments before escorting her daughter from Orient Road Jail.
The Tampa Tribune is not identifying the woman or her family because police are investigating a sex crime.
"You've got to make sure you throw somebody in jail on a four-year-old felony warrant after they've been brutally raped?" the mother said. "It was a failure to take the actual dynamics into play."
Her daughter did not speak to reporters.
Adding to the mother's ire is her claim that a jail nurse prevented her daughter from taking a second dose of emergency contraception prescribed by a nurse at a clinic as part of a rape examination. The jail nurse, said the mother and the victim's attorney, denied the medication for religious reasons.
Hillsborough County sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter could not comment about that allegation or anything else about the woman's medical situation because of the federal health information privacy act. However, she said all medications are confiscated from inmates upon their arrival until they are verified.
Policy Refers To Misdemeanors
The police department in 2002 issued a legal opinion under then-Police Chief Bennie Holder that advised against arresting victims of violent crime on outstanding misdemeanor warrants.
"The goal of the policy is to avoid further traumatizing the victim of a serious crime," Assistant City Attorney Kirby Rainsberger wrote at the time. Officers should use discretion to balance "the severity of the injury suffered by the victim compared to the seriousness of the crime specified in the warrant," he wrote.
The policy does not advise whether police should arrest crime victims wanted on felony charges.
"It's rare in police work that someone isn't arrested on a felony warrant, but you always want to have compassion for a victim," police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said Monday. "This may be a case where we need to revise our policy."
Police supervisors did not learn the woman's circumstances until early Monday, after inquiries from the media and the woman's attorney, Virlyn "Vic" Moore III of Venice. At that point, police worked with Circuit Judge Walter Heinrich to grant her bail: $4,585 that a Sarasota County court said was unpaid in a 2003 auto theft and burglary case, McElroy said.
Moore disputed that the money was unpaid, calling it a "technical violation." The woman thought the matter had been resolved, he said.
The woman told police she went to Gasparilla on Saturday with friends but left about 1:30 p.m. She said she was walking north on Howard Avenue, back to her car parked at the University of Tampa, when a man grabbed her near Swann Avenue, dragged her behind a building and raped her.
McElroy said the rape was reported at 3:40 p.m., once the woman had returned to her car and told a friend.
Generally, in rape cases in which a victim does not suffer extensive injuries, it is standard procedure for officers to take the victim to a clinic to be examined by a nurse, McElroy said. If the victim is not at the original scene, officers will ask the victim to accompany them there to look for additional evidence, she said.
In this case, officers took the woman to a clinic on Busch Boulevard, where a nurse examined her and provided her with the 24-hour hot line for the crisis center, McElroy said. On weekdays, victim advocates from the police department provide referrals for counseling, McElroy said.
The woman did not have the opportunity to call the hot line, her mother and attorney said. As a jail inmate, she was allowed only to make collect calls. "She did not have any crisis intervention. Zero. None," her mother said.
Routine Check Revealed Warrant
McElroy said the woman tried to show police where the rape occurred but had trouble finding the location because it was dark. While en route, police learned through a routine check that she was wanted. Jail records show that the woman was booked into Orient Road Jail on Saturday for "failure to appear" on two felony warrants: grand theft auto and burglary. In fact, McElroy said, the "failure to appear" was recorded because of the alleged nonpayment.
Unsure of how to proceed, police drove the woman to a gas station at Howard Avenue and Kennedy Boulevard to consult with an acting sergeant, who determined the woman should be arrested, McElroy said.
The woman's mother said she received a phone call about 9 p.m. Saturday from a female officer saying her daughter "was raped today at 2, but her name came up on a bulletin and I have to take her to jail."
In her opinion, the mother said, "The rape investigation has come to a screeching halt."
McElroy disagreed, saying that officers referred their report to the detective division. A detective tried to find potential witnesses Sunday but was unsuccessful, she said. The detective did not try to speak to the woman in jail Sunday because there were no "time-sensitive leads," McElroy said.
Bonnie Bucqueroux, a victims' advocate and coordinator of the Victims and the Media Program at the Michigan State University School of Journalism, said the handling of the situation could have "a chilling effect" on this case and others.
"This is one of those cases where they made the wrong call," she said. "Spending two days in jail … certainly adds to the trauma she endured. … Why would victims who had any concerns about any dealings in their past come forward?"
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