Remember early this spring when up-skirt photos were ruled to be legal by the Massachusetts Supreme Court and a few days later, the legislature changed the law?
Well, yesterday it was my great honor to randomly meet the Boston transit authority detective who made that all happen. She attended my workshop on addressing harassment on public transportation at the National Sexual Assault Conference and introduced herself afterward.
She said she and another female detective periodically go undercover as “grope bait.” As they’d gotten a few reports about a man taking upskirt photos on the subway line that lots of college students ride, she and her partner went undercover to look for him. This was in 2010. They found him and he had the nerve to take video footage up their skirts. They couldn’t believe it was happening. They arrested him.
He was a lawyer named Michael Robertson and his wife is a lawyer and he chose to use the law to challenge the charges against him. And after his case took a few years to go through the various levels of appeals, he almost got away with it at the Supreme Court level. Except that when the general public found out, we were outraged and instead of him getting away with it, his lawsuit led to the Massachusetts legislature changing the law.
The detective I talked to was very modest. She downplayed her role, even though when I and another woman in our conversation asked her, “He wouldn’t have been caught without you, right?” she said right. But she still downplayed it.
I think she is a hero! Who wants to go out and be grope bait for entitled creeps? It’s a tough, rough job. She and her partner are making a big difference, as is the whole Boston transit authority. They have led the way in our country for transit agencies to take this issue seriously. Several cities – including DC – now have campaigns, but they had it first, in 2008.
And Boston isn’t the only transit system employing undercover cops to curb harassment and assault. In Bogota, 20 days ago the transit authority launched an undercover “pervert police” that has already arrested 16 men.
I wonder, will any other cities follow suit?
(I asked if I could have my photo taken with her as I was so excited to meet her, but she declined as she “doesn’t like photos of herself.”)
