mediaofthemovement:

anticapitalist:

Crime victims who call 911 often discover that while the police can’t offer help, they can always make the situation significantly worse – as a single mother from Milwaukee learned when she was raped by one of the cops who responded to her call, then arrested for “assaulting an officer.”

Police Officer Ladmarald Cates was one of two Milwaukee cops who responded to a 911 call from the anxious single mother after someone had pitched a brick through her bathroom window.  He arranged to be alone with the woman, then raped her.

As recounted by the Daily Beast:

One [police officer] took her 15-year-old brother outside to speak to him. The other cop, Police Officer Ladmarald Cates, gave her boyfriend $10 and told him to go the store and get some water. She told him that he was welcome to chilled water from her refrigerator.

“I only drink bottled water,” Cates said.

Her boyfriend has a pronounced limp and set off with no promise of returning soon.  Cates asked to see the broken window and she led him down a narrow hallway to a bathroom in the back….

She now stood on a floor littered with broken glass and pointed to the brick. The cop she had summoned to protect her instead chose this moment to grab the back of her head by her hair and sodomize her. Then he raped her.

Her revulsion in the aftermath was so visceral that she vomited as she ran outside. The cop’s partner had become concerned when he did not immediately see Cates and called for back-up. Other cops began arriving and saw a woman screaming incoherently about being raped.

Cates, the rapist, hurried out of the house and grabbed the victim by the waist, causing her feet to strike his partner. This gave the officers an excuse to arrest the battered and traumatized woman for “assaulting an officer.” She was taken to jail and held for 12 hours before receiving medical aid. After the hospital visit, she was sent back to jail for four days before being released without charges.

Although the victim’s accusation was substantiated by medical evidence, the DA refused to prosecute. The department’s Internal Affairs section confronted Cates – a repeat offender – with DNA evidence, and arranged to fire him for “idling and loafing” on duty. If the victim hadn’t persisted long enough to see Cates convicted on civil rights charges, he would have found employment in another police department.

FUCK.

Cops are scum.

1. One in three women die or are seriously injured as a result of gender-based violence. Violence against women results in more deaths among women ages 15 to 44 than the total number of women who die because of war, malaria, and cancer.

2. An estimated four million women and girls are bought and sold worldwide each year, either into marriage, prostitution or slavery.

3. One out of every six American women have been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime. An estimated 60 percent of all rapes are not reported to the police.

4. Approximately 96 million young women in developing countries still cannot read or write. Globally, girls account for 55 percent of children not in school.

5. Nearly 75 percent of those displaced by violent conflict are women. Displacement leaves women without access to health care, proper nutrition or education. Displaced women face a higher threat of gender-based terrorism and violence.

6. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda resulted in hundreds of thousands of violent sexual assaults, resulting in an estimated 250,000 women falling victim to HIV/AIDS. While many women awaiting treatment died, their perpetrators receive antiretroviral therapies in prison.

7. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that actually denies women the right to vote by law. In other parts of the world, where women are legally allowed to vote, many women still struggle to exercise their rights. For example, in Afghanistan, some women were denied the right to vote in 2009 because the country lacked the necessary amount of female staff members to provide enough polls for women.

8. With its rate of violence, sexual assault and inadequate health care, Afghanistan remains the most dangerous place in the world for women to live.

9. In 1974, Isabel Peron became the world’s first woman president, when she was elected President of Argentina. Around the world, 68 women have served as head of state in their country (not including monarchies). Currently, 38 women serve as head of government around the world. In 1997, Ireland became the first country to succeed power from one female president to another.

10. African nations have more women in parliament than most western nations. Rwanda ranks number one in world rankings for the highest representation of women at 49 percent. 

(Source: confessionsofcunts, via ikenbot)

letterstomycountry:

Retired Police Chief Stephen Downing says that when resources of Forensic Labs are diverted to drug analysis, they are often taken away from other cases involving victims of violent felonies, including rape kit analysis:

This follows on the heels of another…