First I am a witness to these unfortunate events. I guess i was lucky in not being touched.
There was an event at an art gallery. Girls were telling us this man was inappropriately touching them. We go to confront him and he starts yelling at my friend… We start to leave his room and he starts rubbing a volunteer’s back in front of me. I ask him to stop and he comes up to me like he’s gonna hug me and i hold a back pack in between us. He gets mad and slams the door.
Within the hour we hear about him shoving a girl and that he touched and kissed a 16 year old girl. The man locks himself in his gallery. We go to one of the other gallery owners for help and in turn he tells us this is not the first time this man has done this. They wanted to keep it quiet because they didn’t want people to think badly of the building. If we had known before hand we would have never held our event there.
We called the police, she gives her report. What i hear back from a volunteer is that since it wasn’t rape or murder the police won’t do anything. They do make the effort to come downstairs and knock on his gallery door. He doesn’t answer they leave. Using hi-light someone hung up a “Child Molester” sign on his gallery.
After the event, the arts guild we worked with are only worried about their galleries and not getting into trouble. They want the “Incident” kept quiet. Some stand by this man because he’s there friend and blame his alcoholism, the police are annoyed because some girls took too long to report. They didn’t know what to do. Neither did we.
That building is supposed to host a local High School Arts program and that man that went around grabbing girls will be working with them. i don’t know what to do anymore.
– Santa Ana Artists Village you’re on “CHECK”
Location: 207 n Broadway, Santa Ana, California 92701
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Megan says
When police go along with the harassment of women it is the worst. They actually have the power to strike some fear into the man. Make a complaint with the police departments Public Integrity Bureau- it might have a different name in your state or city but they handle complaints about cops from citizens. If it gets on record, when or if the molester commits one of their so-called real crimes, the police department might be up for a lawsuit. The Gallery where it took place could be liable. Especially if they have underage students there. The threat of any lawsuit tends to push people to take things more seriously. You might also want to go to the newspaper and spread the word. Possibly contact high schools that go there. Last I heard molesting was a big deal. It is horrible that girls have been victimized and no one seems to care.
delila says
look i actually got gang raped!whilst on holiday and the police in hawaii didnt want to do anything about it,except ask me if australia and n.z are the same country?i do think badly of the building!and the idiots protecting the self image of the building, hiding out child molesters..and apathetic people,but i think the building sounds abit better now that someone has decorated it with a pretty highlighter.
pen.
friday jones says
Have you tried going around the cops and calling or writing the District Attorney’s office directly? Cops are often more ignorant of the law than the people they are supposed to be protecting and serving, so if you get one of these obvious cases where the police are too ignorant to do their jobs, you can always complain to the DA.
Kelly says
Unbelievable just…I have no words sorry.
And Delila are you serious they asked you geography question instead taking down the details. Did you get anything even resembling justice or even a proper police investigation?
David B says
Since the gallery are clearly terrified of bad publicity, you should threaten to expose them if they don’t take the action required to get rid of this guy.
Amelia says
I definitely think you should report this incident again to the police. (I’m hoping you just got unusually terrible service the first time).
I might well be too ‘naive’ but I *like* to think that the majority of police officers would take sexual harassment (and touching) seriously: so I HATE hearing of incidents when they do not protect women from this.
Robin says
Thank you for sharing this story