Note to NYPD: Handcuffed and Under Arrest Means No!
Note: This story originally appeared on October 30, 2017.
Earlier today, two NYPD police officers turned themselves in for arraignment to face rape charges after being indicted on Friday. The two detectives, who have been demoted, stripped of their guns, and assigned to desk duty, have also been charged with bribery. The charges stem from a September 15th incident in which an eighteen-year-old woman alleges that she was forced to perform sex acts on the officers in the back of a police wagon. The police officers claimed that the sexual encounter was consensual.
WTF???
Newsflash to NYPD! There is no such thing as consensual sex with a handcuffed suspect!
For that matter, there is no such thing as a consensual sexual encounter with anyone who is unable to refuse sex for any reason.
And make no mistake, the accuser could not refuse. While a martial arts master like Bruce Lee may have been able to fight two armed men with both hands tied behind his back, a “petite” eighteen-year-old girl in handcuffs would not have been.
Leaving was not an option that the accuser could exercise, either. She was in the back of a moving motor vehicle; jumping out would have been dangerous. And resisting arrest is a crime — an offense that got Eric Garner of Staten Island killed by a member of the NYPD in 2014. If the accuser was familiar with the stories of Ramarley Graham, Laquan McDonald, Walter Scott, or Patrick Harmon, she would have been aware of the risks involved in fleeing the police, too.
Screaming for help wasn’t an option, either. Who would have heard the woman’s cries for help from inside a moving police vehicle?
If fighting back, leaving of her own volition, or yelling for help were not viable options for the accuser, then she absolutely could not consent to sex with those cops.
Unfortunately, this is not the only time that NYPD officers have had sexual contact with a woman who was unable to consent. In 2008, two police officers were accused of raping a woman in her apartment; the police had been originally called to the scene after a cab driver reported that the woman was too drunk to get out of his cab unassisted. The officers, who also claimed that their encounter with the woman was consensual, were eventually acquitted.
While the Coney Island’s officers’ claim could be a hamfisted attempt to explain away the DNA evidence and surveillance camera footage that corroborate the victim’s story, it may be a cynical ploy to trigger victim-blaming in the part of potential jurors. Because rape culture is still “a thing,” many people reflexively disbelief rape victims, no matter how believable their stories are.
Whatever their motivations, these cops should be immediately terminated for their actions. And the folks down at One Police Plaza better give their officers a crash course on the meaning of consensual sex
.
