To Hell With Florida!

In general, I'm a pretty mellow guy. As an adult, I don't get mad or angry easily over the small or big things in life. I always try to look at the bigger picture, and look from the perspective of the other side. It is this very trait that makes some of my own friends think at times that I'm not 100 percent with them when they have personal conflicts. Worse yet, they would think that I'm trying to argue against their point, when I am merely suggesting to look from a broader point of view.

Well, not today. I am royally pissed. While having my routine lunch at work with my laptop, I started reading the news. Yes, I admit, I'm a news junkie. But what I read today was so upsetting that not only did it anger me, it rocked and saddened me to the core. I lost my appetite instantly. Then I wept a little. After my coworker asked what was wrong, I wiped away a tear and became furious.

What the f**king hell is wrong with Florida?!? Don't get me wrong. I have friends and coworkers who live there. But what the hell is wrong with the politicians, law enforcement agents, and those involved in public policy? SERIOUSLY?!? First, you have the public officials who don't know how to count ballots. Second, you have the judicial system screw us over with said ballot counting incident. (Remember the presidential election of 2000?) Third, you have the Terri Schiavo clusterf**k, which was a private matter turned national debacle involving religion and politicians, which eventually cost us money and time in Congress. Then you have Mark Foley, a Republican Representative from Florida who was the chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, and who also happened to be the central sexual predator on congressional pages. And finally, this.

Here is a quick rundown of events from our friendly state down there:
A young teen made some bad decisions and got involved with some felony crimes in 2003.
Due to some confusion, the bail stemming from the felony crimes were not paid, but said teenager thought the legal matter was resolved.
The justice system didn't know how to mark the case due to non-payment of bail, so the matter was recorded technically incorrectly as "failure to appear."
This past weekend, years after her felony crimes, the young woman went to a parade. While walking back to her car, a man grabbed and brutally raped her.
The young woman reported the violent crime to the police after she left the crime scene and returned to her car.
Police officers took her to a clinic to be examined. The nurse prescribed the young woman emergency contraceptive medication and provided a hotline for crisis intervention.
The police officers then asked the young woman to accompany them to assist in locating the scene of the crime to collect further evidence.
While en route, police officers learned of the young woman's past warrant.
After conferring with an acting sergeant, the police officers decided to haul the young woman to jail.
It is universally accepted that all jail inmates have to relinquish all personal artifacts, like wallet, jewelry, medicine, etc. While in jail, the jail nurse decided not to release the second dose of the emergency contraceptive medication to the rape victim, citing his/her own religious beliefs.
Because it is their policy to only allow collect calls to be made from the jail, the victim was not able to call the crisis prevention hotline for rape victims.
The rape victim remained in jail for two days, before the top brass finally learned of the situation through the media.

Let's leave religion out of this discussion. We can argue forever about the morality behind emergency contraceptives, regardless of what you and I or anybody else believe in. Let's talk about ethics here.

What infuriated me the most were three factors. One, the jail nurse overstepped his/her boundaries and forced his/her personal beliefs on others. The nurse had no right whatsoever to do so, especially when emergency contraceptive medication is not deemed illegal in the state of Florida. All he/she had to do was remove him/herself from that situation and let someone else with an objective, unbiased moral point of view do the work. This is also the very reason why I sometimes have a problem with missionaries. I don't necessarily disagree with mission work in general, but I definitely disagree with shoving one's own beliefs down others' throats while threatening eternal hell and diminishing another's culture and tradition as a good method of spreading God's Word.

Second, how stupid does one have to be to not realize that perhaps bending the rules in regards to the phone call policy when a traumatized rape victim perhaps need to seek counseling? If the jail warden did not want to be responsible for making exceptions, then all he/she had to do was voice his/her concerns to a superior, and move it up the chain. To be a police officer, you need to have a high school diploma or equivalent. Even a ninth grader has the sense to realize that a victim of a violent crime not only needs compassion, but understanding and perhaps a little bit of exception in special and extreme circumstances.

Finally, how heartless and compassionless do you have to be to throw a traumatized victim of a violent crime in jail? Whatever happened to common sense? Is any of the police officers or the acting sergeant so callous to the point that they feel like they no longer need to be concerned with the emotional and spiritual well being of the victim? For Christ's sake, the warrant was only $4,585! Chump change compared to the cost they now may face if this poor woman decides to commit suicide, or worse, if this incident sets a precedent for future victims to not report violent crimes because they have a few skeletons in their closet. Not to mention the potential amount of money the police department will want to settle should a lawsuit be filed.

My solution to Florida? Let's just start teaching our kids to draw the American flag with 49 stars. If there is no fault line between Florida and Georgia/Alabama, then let's just create an artificial earthquake to split Florida off into the ocean. Seeing how many Cubans love to go there, I wouldn't be opposed to Florida breaking and floating on to rest next to Cuba. Or we can just blow the damn place up and make Florida a nuclear wasteland. Neither option is exactly great, but I would prefer that all my friends and coworkers move out of there first, and after the Chicago Bears win the Super Bowl, before such drastic measures be implemented. I'm going to propose another possible solution should my friends not want to move out of Florida. Take away Florida's statehood, divide the land into two, and integrate the land into Georgia and Alabama respectively.

Then we won't have all these idiocies from Florida running amok in regards to public policy...


Below is a copy of the news article as reported by Valerie Kalfrin at the Tampa Tribune for my archival purposes should they remove it after a certain period of time in the future.

Paradegoer Reports Rape, Jailed On Warrant
By VALERIE KALFRIN The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jan 30, 2007

TAMPA - A 21-year-old woman told police Saturday that a man grabbed her off Howard Avenue and raped her behind a building during the Gasparilla festivities.

But officers investigating the case arrested her after learning she had an outstanding warrant from her teenage years for failure to pay restitution.

She spent the next two nights in jail.

Police are reviewing their policies after the arrest, which one victim's advocate said could have "a chilling effect" on the rape investigation, the woman's well-being and the desire of future victims to contact police.

The woman's family is outraged.

"We're incensed. Everyone is just beside themselves," her mother, 47, said at 5:20 p.m. Monday, moments before escorting her daughter from Orient Road Jail.

The Tampa Tribune is not identifying the woman or her family because police are investigating a sex crime.

"You've got to make sure you throw somebody in jail on a four-year-old felony warrant after they've been brutally raped?" the mother said. "It was a failure to take the actual dynamics into play."

Her daughter did not speak to reporters.

Adding to the mother's ire is her claim that a jail nurse prevented her daughter from taking a second dose of emergency contraception prescribed by a nurse at a clinic as part of a rape examination. The jail nurse, said the mother and the victim's attorney, denied the medication for religious reasons.

Hillsborough County sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter could not comment about that allegation or anything else about the woman's medical situation because of the federal health information privacy act. However, she said all medications are confiscated from inmates upon their arrival until they are verified.

Policy Refers To Misdemeanors
The police department in 2002 issued a legal opinion under then-Police Chief Bennie Holder that advised against arresting victims of violent crime on outstanding misdemeanor warrants.

"The goal of the policy is to avoid further traumatizing the victim of a serious crime," Assistant City Attorney Kirby Rainsberger wrote at the time. Officers should use discretion to balance "the severity of the injury suffered by the victim compared to the seriousness of the crime specified in the warrant," he wrote.

The policy does not advise whether police should arrest crime victims wanted on felony charges.

"It's rare in police work that someone isn't arrested on a felony warrant, but you always want to have compassion for a victim," police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said Monday. "This may be a case where we need to revise our policy."

Police supervisors did not learn the woman's circumstances until early Monday, after inquiries from the media and the woman's attorney, Virlyn "Vic" Moore III of Venice. At that point, police worked with Circuit Judge Walter Heinrich to grant her bail: $4,585 that a Sarasota County court said was unpaid in a 2003 auto theft and burglary case, McElroy said.

Moore disputed that the money was unpaid, calling it a "technical violation." The woman thought the matter had been resolved, he said.

The woman told police she went to Gasparilla on Saturday with friends but left about 1:30 p.m. She said she was walking north on Howard Avenue, back to her car parked at the University of Tampa, when a man grabbed her near Swann Avenue, dragged her behind a building and raped her.

McElroy said the rape was reported at 3:40 p.m., once the woman had returned to her car and told a friend.

Generally, in rape cases in which a victim does not suffer extensive injuries, it is standard procedure for officers to take the victim to a clinic to be examined by a nurse, McElroy said. If the victim is not at the original scene, officers will ask the victim to accompany them there to look for additional evidence, she said.

In this case, officers took the woman to a clinic on Busch Boulevard, where a nurse examined her and provided her with the 24-hour hot line for the crisis center, McElroy said. On weekdays, victim advocates from the police department provide referrals for counseling, McElroy said.

The woman did not have the opportunity to call the hot line, her mother and attorney said. As a jail inmate, she was allowed only to make collect calls. "She did not have any crisis intervention. Zero. None," her mother said.

Routine Check Revealed Warrant
McElroy said the woman tried to show police where the rape occurred but had trouble finding the location because it was dark. While en route, police learned through a routine check that she was wanted. Jail records show that the woman was booked into Orient Road Jail on Saturday for "failure to appear" on two felony warrants: grand theft auto and burglary. In fact, McElroy said, the "failure to appear" was recorded because of the alleged nonpayment.

Unsure of how to proceed, police drove the woman to a gas station at Howard Avenue and Kennedy Boulevard to consult with an acting sergeant, who determined the woman should be arrested, McElroy said.

The woman's mother said she received a phone call about 9 p.m. Saturday from a female officer saying her daughter "was raped today at 2, but her name came up on a bulletin and I have to take her to jail."

In her opinion, the mother said, "The rape investigation has come to a screeching halt."

McElroy disagreed, saying that officers referred their report to the detective division. A detective tried to find potential witnesses Sunday but was unsuccessful, she said. The detective did not try to speak to the woman in jail Sunday because there were no "time-sensitive leads," McElroy said.

Bonnie Bucqueroux, a victims' advocate and coordinator of the Victims and the Media Program at the Michigan State University School of Journalism, said the handling of the situation could have "a chilling effect" on this case and others.

"This is one of those cases where they made the wrong call," she said. "Spending two days in jail … certainly adds to the trauma she endured. … Why would victims who had any concerns about any dealings in their past come forward?"

Reporter Valerie Kalfrin can be reached at vkalfrin@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7800.