VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IS THE PROBLEM, AND IT IS A BIG PROBLEM IN SAN FRANCISCO
My identity is not important. What is important is what I am trying to do.
I am a woman who has lived in San Francisco for decades. I raised my child here.
The City and County of San Francisco puts on a public face of respecting and protecting the basic human rights of women. In 1998, the City adopted CEDAW - the United Nations Women’s Treaty:
http://www.sfgov3.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx...
However, San Francisco does not follow its stated public policy. Instead, it permits members of its police department to bully and intimidate raped and abused women into silence, employing the same old gender stereotypes that have always silenced and oppressed women:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174918
More specifically, through my personal experience of being raped and bullied by a neighbor, I have learned that the City and County of San Francisco has a long-standing policy of not enforcing the laws against sexual assault unless the assault is committed by a stranger or the victim is a child. As a result, acquaintance rapes in San Francisco are rarely, if ever, investigated – despite the P.O.S.T. standards that are supposed to govern sexual assault investigations. http://lib.post.ca.gov/publications/42653792.pdf That is a problem because approximately 80% of all rapes are committed by men who know their victims.
http://www.middlebury.edu/media/view/240951/original/PredatoryNature.pdf
The reality is any man in San Francisco has permission to sexually assault any woman he knows, or claims he knows, or claims he has "dated," provided he does not severely injure her physically during the attack. Not much force is required rape a woman, so unless a man inflicts a beating or shoots or stabs his victim in addition to the rape, the woman will emerge raped, but physically unharmed. The City and County of San Francisco – like the American military – views such rapes as no big deal and nothing to complain about.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/09/opinion/sexual-violence-and-the-military.html
According to the unwritten policies and practices of the City and County of San Francisco, such rapes are “just sex” or “dating” – not crimes.
Because the City and County of San Francisco follows an unwritten policy that acquaintance rape is not a crime to be investigated and prosecuted, if a victim insists that the SFPD investigate her rapist and seek prosecution, the SFPD will instead turn on her, undermine her attempts to get justice, express sympathy for her rapist and assist her rapist in avoiding prosecution or imposition of a restraining order – all under the guise of “community policing.”
The unwritten policies and practices of the City and County of San Francisco and the SFPD toward rape victims must change.
My neighbor chose not only to rape, but to brag about the rape and stalk and harass me for years following the rape. He urged other men to call me for sex. He promised to ruin me financially if I spoke up about what he did to me. When I sought help from the police, I was treated as a nuisance and a liar. Instead of investigating and arresting my rapist and stalker, the police assisted and encouraged him – assuring him he had done nothing wrong. He falsely told the police and the courts that I had “dated” him – yet the SFPD, in violation of its own protocols, did not treat me as a domestic violence victim when I reported his crimes against me.
http://www.sf-police.org/modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=14763 My experience is not unusual. Over the years the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women has issued numerous reports detailing the ways in which the SFPD ignores violence against women, including rape, and fails to change its policies and practices. See, for example:
Ask the staff at San Francisco Women Against Rape (SFWAR) – the entity tasked with counseling San Francisco rape victims – what rape victims say about how the SFPD treats them. It may sound trite, but in San Francisco rape victims truly are re-victimized by the police.
When I obtained a restraining order against my rapist and stalker, the police refused to enforce it, incorrectly advising me that violation of a restraining order based on stalking and harassment is a misdemeanor when it is, in fact, a felony. The officers immediately contacted my rapist to tell him I had attempted to enforce my restraining order. I was treated as the perpetrator. They called his crimes against me a “feud.”
The man who raped me continues to harass me, with the blessings of the City and County of San Francisco, the SFPD, and the Office of the City Attorney.
WHAT I AM DOING
I have filed a lawsuit against the rapist, his friends who encouraged his violence against me, the police officers who corruptly helped him avoid a permanent restraining order and encouraged his violence against me, and the City and County of San Francisco for defamation and for violating my civil rights.
I have filed this lawsuit not only to try to stop the violence against myself, but in an attempt to compel San Francisco to change its policies and practices regarding sexual assaults and domestic violence in general, so that all women in San Francisco will be treated fairly by the police and the laws enforced. The City and County of San Francisco does not care about its female citizens and will do nothing to stop sexual violence against them unless it is forced to act.
Some people tell me it is impossible to fight City Hall. Some people say I should forget about the rape and move on. The rapist will not permit me to move on, so I must fight this fight. I have to stand my ground, for myself and for all the women of San Francisco. Enough is enough.
What I Need & What You Get
I NEED HELP FUNDING MY LAWSUIT AGAINST THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO
Although there are statutes intended to remedy civil rights violations against women, those remedies are difficult to enforce for several reasons.
It is nearly impossible to find representation. Before suing the City and County of San Francisco, I tried to find a lawyer to represent me. I asked everyone I could think of for a referral, but nobody knew of any lawyers willing to sue the City for refusing to enforce the laws against rape and for abusing rape victims. I asked the director of SFWAR if she could refer me to someone, but she said she did not know of any lawyers who do this kind of work. I asked her where she refers rape victims when they want to sue their rapists. She told me women do not sue their rapists because they are too traumatized to pursue their rights in court after their rapists and the police are finished with them. Lawyers do not take these cases in part because the City Attorney’s Office – while pretending to support women’s rights – instead viciously fights any woman who seeks to enforce her right to be free of gender violence.
I have had to litigate my case on my own. This fight – which I fight alone – is breaking me financially.
I need funds to pay the costs of this litigation, including deposition costs, investigators’ fees, expert witness fees, paralegal assistance, and travel costs for witnesses. If I can find a lawyer, I need money to pay attorney’s fees.
I cannot offer any “perk” other than the hope that my lawsuit will prevail and the City and County of San Francisco and the SFPD will no longer be free to ignore or abuse women who report sex crimes and domestic violence.
The Impact
San Francisco must train its police officers to stop stereotyping and blaming rape victims. San Francisco must weed out biased and corrupt police officers. San Francisco must revise its procedures for addressing rape and domestic violence, as suggested by the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women, and then it must make sure the new policies and procedures are followed rather than ignored. San Francisco needs to inform its police officers that raping a woman one knows is not "dating" - it is a crime.
I hope my lawsuit will prevail, that it will bring at least some of these changes about, and that the lives of all women who live in San Francisco will be better for it.
Other Ways You Can Help
If you cannot contribute cash, you can tell others about this campaign and what it seeks to accomplish.
If you know of an attorney who might be willing to take my case, you could give me a referral.
You can use the Indiegogo share tools to educate others.
