police Archives | Page 2 of 2 | Stop Street Harassment

New Efforts in Finland, India, and New Zealand

February 29, 2016 By HKearl

Here are three new efforts about street harassment, one led by Finnish police and two others led by students in India and New Zealand.

Finland (via Sputnik News, “Finnish Cops Can Now Write Tickets for Sexual Harassment”):

“According to Hufvudstadsbladet newspaper, police in Finland have recently been given the power to issue fines for perceived sexual harassment.

‘We’ve attempted to find a quick solution to the problem. The existing threshold for sexual harassment complaints is pretty high, but perhaps we’ll be able to decrease it if police will be able to act immediately,’ Helsinki police chief Lasse Aapio said.

A patrol officer doesn’t require any special permission other than the victim’s statement in order to fine a suspect, as sexual harassment is usually pretty obvious, he added.

‘The fines would also help to more easily identify perpetrators, which can sometimes be quite problematic if a crime was reported too late. A police officer issuing a fine may also immediately suggest a victim to officially press charges,’ Aapio pointed out.”

India (via the Time of India, “Project by school kids focuses on issues of equality”):

“The classroom is dark. Plastic hands and broken bottles protruding from large stands brush your body as you walk down a winding path covered with yoga mats. Expressionless faces stuck on the mats stare at you while the cat-calling adds to the discomfort. It is similar to the harassment a woman faces when she walks through a dimly lit street. And that’s the whole aim of the exercise. For the walk through the maze ends with a short, informative slide presentation on street harassment.

The maze and presentation were part of a creative project done by class 7 and 8 students of Kids Central, Kotturpuram, to create awareness among parents about street harassment by making them ‘encounter’ it as they walked through the maze.”

New Zealand (via the New Zealand Herald, “Reign of abuse on Otago streets”):

‘Unacceptable and insidious” harassment by Dunedin students has hit breaking point and the University of Otago needs to take action, residents say.

Otago bioethics PhD candidate Emma Tumilty co-signed a letter with 10 other people who live and work in the student precinct, calling on vice-chancellor Harlene Hayne to act…

Former Otago student Jessie-Lee Robertson said she had suffered verbal abuse – including an incident last week. She was in her car with her dog on Albany St when a van load of young people pulled up next to her. “[They] opened the sliding door of their van and said, ‘If that dog wasn’t in your car, I’d rape you’.”

The most shocking part, she said, was that it happened while she was in her car. She had already begun avoiding the main streets of “studentville” for fear of abuse, but did not expect it on the road.

Mikayla Cahill, a third-year student, had also been harassed in the student quarter several times, most recently last week, Orientation Week.

Detective Senior Sergeant Kallum Croudis said there was a consistent stream of “complaints about criminal behaviour of a sexual nature” in Dunedin, and a “small spike” of those kinds of complaints during Orientation Week.

Police took the complaints seriously, especially after learning “some very poignant lessons about sexual violence”…

Professor Hayne acknowledged the importance of educating students about harassment. She responded to Mrs Tumilty, saying she had “no tolerance whatsoever for this kind of behaviour”.

The university, she wrote, was working on developing “two educational programmes for Otago students” – one for students in residential colleges that would begin next semester, and another to start next year as part of the Orientation education programme.”

USA: Five Reasons Why I didn’t Report Street Harassment

January 27, 2016 By Correspondent

Julia Tofan, Connecticut, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

I’ve experienced street harassment. The first time I did, I was 12 years old on a Girl Scout trip to New York. The most recent time, I was 16 years old hiking at a park with my mother and my sister. Both times, and every time in between, it felt wrong and it made me angry. Worst of all, however, it made me feel powerless. There have been so many incidents, and I have not reported a single one. I believe in being empowered, practicing self-confidence, standing up for my rights, and fighting for equality and justice, so I have to ask myself why I haven’t reported street harassment. These are five answers that began to explain it.

Victim blaming: That’s the typical response to street harassment, even sometimes by police. Discussions on street harassment frequently involve a discussion of the victim’s modesty, clothing choices, and the time and location of the incident. Less frequently do these discussions involve the conscious decision a street harasser made. The truth is, street harassment is experienced by individuals in all types of clothing, all types of locations, and all types of times. The only factor consistent in every single case is that someone infringed on their right to safety. The last thing any victim wants to hear is “you were asking for it,” and that’s all too common a response.
Street harassment can be dangerous, yet society doesn’t acknowledge this. A man in Queens, NY, slashed a woman’s throat for declining a date and walking away. In the news, he was referred to as a “ruthless Romeo,” equating his murder with a fictional romance of young teenage lovers. That same month, a woman on her way home from a funeral was shot after refusing to give her number to a male and explaining that she had a fiance. In the news, the criminal was described as “not fighting fair” when he fought with the woman’s fiance and pulled out a gun. The problem with this statement is that it implies fighting without a gun for a woman who did not want his advances was somehow acceptable. These situations are not unique. Victims of street harassment live in constant fear of retribution. It’s not just the cases that are featured on the news though. More than that, it’s the daily occurrences.
Police officers don’t always help. The very people victims should be able to go to for help are engaged in blaming victims, and that doesn’t give victims access to the caring and understanding support that they deserve. Finding examples isn’t difficult. Just look at the 2011 incident in which Brooklyn NY police officers stopped women in short shorts and skirts and warned them that they could become victims of street harassment and sexual harassment. An alarming number of police officers — like Daniel Holtzclaw in Oklahoma — even are harassers and sexual abusers.
Street harassment is not taken seriously. “Boys will be boys,” “it’s just a compliment,” and “lighten up” are embedded in our culture. Reporting an issue that is not taken seriously is infinitely more difficult than one that is labeled as a certain crime. To equate stalking, assaulting, catcalling, and objectifying females with the nature of boys and the nature of relationships is to erase a victim’s right to feel pain and dehumanization in a situation that is in every way painful and dehumanizing.
Women grow up with street harassment and become groomed to accept it. Studies show that 65% of women have experienced street harassment with half reporting it starting by age 17. In a survey of students in grades 7-12, 48% reported sexual harassment. Forty-four percent of individuals in the same survey who admitted to sexually harassing another individual did it because they believed it was not a big deal, and 39% were trying to be funny. These are the viewpoints children are raised with, and changing that understanding of sexual harassment, a form of which may be street harassment, does not happen overnight.

These five answers helped me come to terms with the fact that I stayed silent. I hope to feel safe and supported next time I experience street harassment, and to feel comfortable enough to speak up and make myself heard, but I am not blaming myself for not reporting what happened. I am not displacing the blame from an adult to a minor, someone powerful to someone intimidated, and most importantly, a criminal to a victim.

Julia is a student in a rural town in Connecticut. She writes for Givology, a nonprofit dedicated to improving access to education, and Dreams That Could Be, an organization telling the stories of students facing great challenges but persevering in their education. Read her blog posts on Givology and Dreams That Could Be and follow her on Twitter @Julia_Tofan!

How To Deal With Street Harassment On Campus?

April 15, 2015 By BPurdy

I’ve been experiencing street harassment since the age of twelve, but when I started college it suddenly became something that happened to me several times a week – even though my college was nearly 75% female. I was harassed both on-campus and in neighboring residential areas. I was harassed walking to and from class, the library, friends apartments, downtown on a Friday night…while it became a “normal” thing that I learned to more or less deal with, it never stopped making me feel uncomfortable.

One incident stands out in particular. It was a warm night, still early in the fall semester of my senior year. It was 10pm on a Monday night, and I was walking back from an on-campus club meeting to my off-campus apartment.

“Hey! Hey you!”

I ignored the calls, assuming they weren’t for me. Though there were few people around, I was on a well-lit main path on campus where I had always felt safe.

“Girl with the ponytail!”

Ok, that was definitely meant for me. Someone was yelling at me. Someone I didn’t know. I started to walk a little faster.

“Hey! Girls shouldn’t be walking out here alone. Where are you going? Let me walk you to your apartment. Where you live? I could walk you right up to your door, you know.”

He was following me. I was walking straight back to my empty apartment, and this stranger was following me. My thoughts started racing, and I pulled out my cell phone.

“Why you grabbing your phone?” my harasser yelled, now angry. “Who you calling? Girl, this is a private party!”

My heart immediately started pounding, my vision went blurry with fear. I made a split-second decision to run into the nearest academic building, where I hide in furthest stall of the women’s bathroom, feet up on the toilet seat, praying he wouldn’t follow me in.

I called my boyfriend. Luckily he was nearby and able to run over and get me. I went back to his apartment rather than mine, and once my hands and voice stopped shaking I decided to call campus police.

“I’m fine now,” I told the dispatcher when she picked up, giving the best description of the event that I could. “But I wanted to let you know that a strange man just tried to follow me back from my apartment, and I’m worried he might do the same thing to someone else tonight.”

“Well, you should have called while it was happening,” she replied curtly. “There’s nothing we can do now.”

I thanked her, for some reason, and numbly hung up, feeling a dull anger inside of me. Call while it was happening? I tried. It had only made the situation worse.

While the police dispatcher’s reply made sense, logically, it also displayed a basic misunderstanding of how to deal with victims of sexual harassment. I had been followed and threatened. I had been forced to hide in a bathroom out of fear. And when, out of concern for my fellow classmates, I reported it to the police, I was basically scolded for not acting sooner. I felt like I had done something wrong, rather than having been wronged. And for the rest of the year I refused to walk back from nighttime club meetings without my boyfriend accompanying me.

Colleges, we need a little help here. What do we, as students, do when we are threatened on campus? When our activities and movements are restricted due to gender-based harassment? When we begin to fear walking on our own campuses? When we are made to feel ashamed for having been harassed in the first place?

College is a time when we learn to embrace our own mobility and freedom. Harassment and the threat of sexual assault more than puts a damper on that, but there doesn’t seem to be much we can do. So colleges, I’m imploring you: help us learn what to report and how to report. Show us you’ll listen, and show us you’ll care. Remember back to the time when you were first learning to be free, yet constantly being told by society to be scared, and choose compassion rather than curtness. Teach us to be safe; but more importantly, teach us all not to put others in danger.

Britnae Purdy, Anti-Street Harassment Week Online Manager

NYC Harasser with Badge and Authority

July 1, 2009 By HKearl

When serious street harassment and assault occurs, it’d be nice to think we can call the cops or run and find an officer to help. I can recall about a dozen or so people whose stories I’ve read who have asked for help from cops and they’ve found responses to be mixed, from hearing “what do you expect” to complete indifference to concern to receiving active help in trying to catch the perpetrator. So the (unsurprising) lesson I take away is there’s a chance you’ll get the help you need and there’s a chance you won’t (so we need to educate cops and hold them responsible for helping so that the chances of getting help improve)!

In this context, the following story caught my eye because it shows the kind of luck you may have if you approach a cop in NYC for help with a street harasser. Via Gothamist:

“Greenpoint resident Chrissie Brodigan says she was riding on the L train between Bedford and First Avenue when her pug, who has health problems, overheated and began vomiting in the tote bag she was carrying him in. As she was leaving the subway station with the dog in her arms, she says a police officer’s attempt to issue her a ticket turned ugly, and when she became upset the cop began saying, “If you’re going to act like a woman I’m going to treat you like a woman.”

[In a second article, Gothamist reports witness Jason Wagner said the officer told her, “Do you wanna talk like a woman? Do you wanna get knocked around like a woman?”]

According to Brodigan, the arresting officer’s name is Witriol (badge number 942838). After seeing a photo, she identified him to us as Joel Witriol, who in 2006 became New York’s first Hasidic cop. Brodigan, 32, says Witriol would not accept her explanation that she was carrying the pug because it was sick, and she believes that the disturbed crowd that gathered to witness the arrest only made him angrier. She tells us, “He punched me in the back (there are bruises), he handcuffed me, and in the scuffle grabbed my breasts and pinched them.”

: Via Gothamist. Photos from the subway are on the link too

Melissa Randazzo, a speech language pathologist who lives in Williamsburg, witnessed the arrest and tells us, “something about it seemed very wrong. The cop’s tone seemed really inappropriate and he kept saying things like, ‘Are you going to act like a woman?’ She tried to walk away, and then he grabbed her and pushed her against the wall outside the turnstile.” Randazzo ran up to the street level to call 911 to, as she says, “call the cops” on Witriol, and soon some 20 officers had descended into the Bedford station. They then ordered the witnesses to disperse.”

Brodigan was arrested, handcuffed and jailed and the cops threatened to take her dog to the pound to be put down. She received three tickets for failing to produce ID, disorderly conduct, and failing to have dog in a container. When she was released she asked for a pen to write down their badge numbers but they refused. They did return her pug.

The New York Post printed a similar story, though it says one witness claims Brodigan made anti-Semitic insults to the officer, however, other witnesses and Brodigan deny this. Hopefully this is untrue, but even if it was, would it justify physically harming her?

On the other hand, no one denies that the officer spewed misogynistic filth or that he left bruises on her body. It’s quite chilling for women to realize there are men with these attitudes out there who are supposed to be “protecting” us from harassers, but in reality, they are harassers too, just with badges and authority.

Joggers in Delaware Report Harassers

April 8, 2009 By HKearl

In Delaware, two different women joggers reported men who were following them in their vehicles. The latest man was caught:

“A Wilmington man was charged with harassment Tuesday after he followed a woman jogger in his truck in the Rockford Park area.

Teofilo Burrell, 29, of the 2700 block of N. Jefferson St., was released on $1,000 unsecured bail on one misdemeanor count of harassment, Wilmington police Master Sgt. Steven Barnes said.

According to court records, the 23-year-old victim flagged down an officer about 6:30 a.m. in the 2100 block of W. 17th St. She said she was jogging near North Union Street and Kentmere Parkway when an older silver Mitsubishi pickup, driven by a man with a scruffy beard and dark complexion, passed her and stopped in the middle of the street.

The woman said she was alarmed and ran the opposite way. The truck made a U-turn and began to follow her while driving the wrong way on the street. The woman sprinted to her boyfriend’s house. Officers located the truck near Delaware Avenue and North Union Street.”

The article says police are urging joggers who have had a similar experience to call Detective Ron Mullin at 576-3634 or Delaware Crime Stoppers at (800) TIP-3333.

I have a special appreciation for this story as a dedicated runner of 13 years who has been harassed while running more times than I could ever try to count. But I’ve never reported a harasser before. The times I was followed it never occurred to me, I had never been told I could report it and I was in flight mode. If I’m ever followed again though, I will report it!!

To conclude: I’m very heartened by the police in Delaware on this issue and proud the jogger had the presence of mind to stay safe and report the guy following her.

(thanks to hollaback dc for the story tip)

« Previous Page