What it actually feels like to report a sexual assault
I would like, if I may, to diverge from my typical bloviating complaints and hit you all with some realtalk. Because I have carved out this small space for myself in this series of tubes and I can do whatever I please with my niche audience of 120 people in Russia (thanks Russians, whoever you are!). I am going to walk you through what it is actually like to report a sexual assault.
I have been thinking of doing this for a while, but because it was such a divergence from what I normally do (talk about farts and complain about boys) I held back. Then I read this. And then I thought, it is OK, important even, to show that this affects a lot of people. Myself included. And I would be doing a disservice to the brave woman who faced her attacker and to the feminist sisterhood of the vaginas everywhere if I didn't add my voice to the chorus for fear of not being acerbic for two seconds. I hear/read/experience so much bullshit when it comes to sexual assault and the reporting of it. No one seems to get how fucking hard it is to actually report a sex crime, and how many obstacles get in the way. So Imma tell you so everyone can just shut the fuck up already and take out their checkbooks and support RAINN like goddamned human beings.
For real trigger warning, not holding back (as if I ever hold back)
The first time I was sexually assaulted I was 5 years old. It happened on the school bus. A classmate, an outcast, much despised by the other (somehow already assembling cliques) kindergartners put his hand between my legs and squeezed hard. I looked at him in shock, and he smiled, licked his lips, and walked away. Looking back now it seems obvious that he was being sexually assaulted at home, constantly having bathroom accidents and failing in school, but as a child I was completely unaware. It took me a year to tell my mom. As a five year old I carried the guilt and shame around for an entire year before telling my mom after bursting into tears. I knew that sex was bad and touching down there was bad. I felt dirty and bad. As a five year old consent was not a part of my vocabulary. Turns out I would not learn that word for almost another 20 years.
The second time I was sexually assaulted was also on a school bus (seriously, what is it with school buses? Look into that someone.). I was 15. A boy who taunted me relentlessly every day oddly made the choice to sit by me. Me, someone he reviled openly and with glee. I shifted nervously in my seat, one chosen all the way at the back to hide from the cruelty of the other teens who lived on my route (who, in hindsight, were probably so mean because the only place they were cooler than someone was on the school bus. They were losers everywhere else.). After we pulled out of the school parking lot he took my hand. I was so nervous the sweat was dripping down my face. Then, out of nowhere, without asking, he yanked my hand onto his penis and held it there. He had ripped a hole in his jeans enough to expose himself. "Rub it" he said. I had never seen a penis before. I didn't know about erections (other than the awkward 30 seconds spent on them in sex ed but even then we never actually saw what they looked like). I tried to pull my hand away but he held it there. "Don't move or I'll tell," he said. He continued to force me to touch his penis on the back of the bus until I turned 16 and started driving to school. This experience was confusing to me. I liked that he wasn't being mean to me anymore, but I felt the same guilt and shame at being forced to touch him when I wasn't sure that I wanted to. And since I was never asked if I wanted to I didn't know that I could say no. I felt dirty and bad.
The third time I was sexually assaulted I was raped in my dorm room. I met a boy during an innocent snowball fight. We lived in the same hall and I told him he could stop by for some wine sometime (What with being 19 and all I felt myself to be particularly sophisticated being able to offer my guests a nip of the Carlo Rossi merlot I kept in my mini-fridge). He came by with a friend a few days later. I was painting. He and the friend and my friend spent a low-key evening just hanging out, drinking a little, and I "tried" weed for the first time (aka pulled a straight Clinton and did not inhale). Later my friend and I retired to our respective rooms to make out with our respective boys and my boy took it too far. Even though I said no, told him that I was a virgin, that he was hurting me, that I wasn't ready. I still cannot articulate how I felt (though this kind of gets at it). I begged him to stay the night with me when he was through, not understanding that what had just occurred was a crime and not a misunderstanding. "I'm not staying here with you." He practically spat the words. I laid awake until morning. I took off the promise ring my parents had given me. I felt dirty and bad.
This time, though, I had evidence. I had bruises that covered terrain from my neck to my torso. They lasted 3 weeks. They were black, then blue, then brown, then yellow. At brown I showed them to an RA in my building. He told me that I could report it, if I wanted, but that there would be a long process wherein I would have to have an invasive exam by a doctor and a police officer would be in the room and would probably be a male officer so I should prepare for that, and then go in front of a board of my teachers and peers, tell them what happened, and it would be my word against his, and they probably wouldn't believe me because, after all, I had invited him in. Fearing all my teachers would know what a worthless slut I was, and fearing that I would have to tell this again and again to endless pairs of judging eyes I didn't report it. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror for weeks.
The fourth time I was sexually assaulted I was 23. I was working as an AmeriCorps volunteer. I was on a date with a man who taught art at a local university. I had arranged an art auction for a local charity and he donated a beautiful piece. We hit it off. He invited me over to have wine and watch a movie. It began innocuous enough, chatting, looking at his sculptures, drinking cheap awful wine (don't worry I grew out of that eventually). He popped the movie in but before pressing play turned to me on the couch and said he wanted to kiss me. I told him I just wanted to watch the movie. He disliked this. He shoved his hands down my dress. He tried to pin me down on the couch. He kissed my neck. I struggled, told him no, told him I wanted him to stop. He began negging me, calling me racist (he was Korean, was not a factor). I apologized profusely. I squirmed away from him (again, he was Korean, and a tiny man). I scrambled for my purse but he got it first. He told me that he was not going to let me leave. This time was different. Something told me that what was happening wasn't OK, that he was in the wrong, not me, and that of course I wasn't racist. I told him that I had been taking boxing lessons (ok YMCA group kickboxing but he didn't need to know that) and if he did not let me go I was going to punch him in the face, give him a black eye, and subsequently look up his class schedule online and go to each class to explain why he had a shiner to his students. He relinquished my purse. I left. I felt victorious in my bluff, but also, felt dirty and bad.
The fifth time I was sexually assaulted was by a friend who I was staying with in LA after a work trip. He is in his 50's. We had done community theater together when I was 17. We had stayed in touch. I was finally visiting him in LA. The night I stayed with him I woke up at 4am and he was feeling me up and trying to put his hands down my pants. I laid awake until 8am. He was my ride to the airport. I flew home. I felt dirty and bad.
After this I felt more dirty and bad than usual. I thought dark thoughts and did not recognize myself. I got therapy. It helped.
But wait, you're saying. This was supposed to be about REPORTING sexual assault. None of these were really reported. WHAT GIVES?
I needed you all to have some context. Because in the span of 24 years I was sexually assaulted to varying degrees five times. Five times before I was able to gain enough courage to actually report the next one. Yeah spoiler alert, there is a next one.
The sixth time this dumb shit happened was the infamous cab incident. Those of you who know me probably had your facebook feeds blown up with feminist rants about the patriarchy for a good few months. Basically what happened is that I got into a cab and the driver sexually harassed me the entire trip, then, at the end, got of of the cab and tried to pin me against his vehicle in what he was calling a "hug." I shoved him and ran away. When I got in to my apartment, I had a panic attack for hours. I looked at the clock when I got home and it was 10, and after hyperventilating for what I thought was a few minutes I looked again and it was 12:30AM. Then, I did something that I had not done before.
I called the police.
I called the police and told them what happened. In a brief moment of clarity in the midst of my fight or flight state in the cab it occurred to me that if I paid my fare with a credit card his medallion number would show up on my bank statement. I had the necessary information to track him down.
The woman who answered the phone told me in a completely disaffected, unsympathetic tone that they would not take my complaint over the phone. I could come in and report it or the police would come to my house. She sounded annoyed. I couldn't fathom getting in ANOTHER cab to get to the precinct on the other side of my neighborhood at 12:30 AM, and the thought of two, presumably male police officers coming to my house terrified me. The embarrassment of my neighbors seeing it, the embarrassment of being so upset when I was not physically injured. How do I explain to two strangers who deal with actual brutal crimes that because I had been assaulted five times before that this attempt (and failure) was re-traumatizing because I was working through this all in therapy? The policewoman told me I could report it at any precinct the next day. I called some friends, cried on the phone, the cried myself to sleep somewhere around 3am.
I got up at 6 for work. I didn't recognize myself in the mirror. My face was bloated and puffy and my eyes were swollen. I was pale. I put my face in a sink of cold water. I put on makeup. I put on a blazer. I pretended I was fine. My workday was going to be hectic, I needed to be there. What would I say if I called in? "Oh, sorry, I can't come in because a cab driver tried to grope me last night." Even if I were to say that I was sick, the expectation would be that I tough it out and come in.
I got through most of the day feeling nauseated, anxious, jumpy, scared. I didn't tell anyone. I was a zombie, moving through the motions. At 4pm I pulled one of the managers of my office into a conference room. A man, naturally. I told him that a cab driver tried to assault me last night and I needed to go to the police. "Oh my god," was all he said. I left him standing in the conference room and walked the few blocks to the precinct near my work.
It was Halloween. The day was overcast and beginning to get dark. People were drinking, yelling, in costumes. It felt like a David Lynch-esque nightmare. A macabre, demented walk of shame. I was terrified.
At the precinct, I approached the bulletproof glass window. "I need to report an attempted assault."
"What?" The woman behind the glass was unphased.
I repeated, tears welling, "I need to report an attempted assault."
"Hold on."
She got up and retrieved another officer, thankfully a female. She came out into the lobby.
"Can you tell me what happened?"
I opened my mouth to speak but all that came out were sobs. I stood crying in the police lobby, the other people staring at me.
"Can we please go somewhere more private?" I asked her.
"There is nowhere else." she said. "Tell me here."
I tried. I was crying so hard out of embarrassment that I couldn't get the story out beyond "A cab driver tried to assault me." Then, "Please, I am begging you, please take me somewhere else."
Imagine for a moment trying to report a crime in the lobby of a police building in front of people paying their tickets and reporting a stolen bike or whatever it is that people do in the lobbies of police buildings. Imagine having to describe in detail how he touched you, where he touched you, what he said to you, no you couldn't just jump out of the car you would have landed in the East River. Imagine the dingy blue gray walls, the buzzing fluorescent overheads, the eyes of 15 strangers glued to your tear-stained, red, blotchy face.
The officer acquiesced to my pleas and found an empty office upstairs to ask me what I can assume were not intentionally incredulous questions.
"What time did he pick you up? What did he say to you? How many times did he ask you that? How long was the ride? Why didn't you get out of the car? At what point did he become agitated? Did you answer when he asked you how many men you slept with? What was your answer? And you still did not ask to get out of the car? Where did he drop you off? How did he get into the back seat? Did you try to run away? What did you do after he tried to touch you? Did you go straight home? Why didn't you call the police?"
After answering these questions she brought me back downstairs to speak to her superior officer. She deposited me near the vending machines and away from the staring, blank faces. She told me to wait. I calmed down, tried to find solace in the fact that I was bringing a crime to the police, that finally something was being done.
Boy.Was.I.Wrong.
The officer returned to tell me that her superior officer said not only was nothing going to be done, they were refusing to even take the report.
"How? How is that possible? I am here to make a report, don't you have to take it?" The tears were back with a vengeance.
"We won't be taking a report today."
"Can I speak to this officer? Please?"
"We won't be taking a report today."
Up until this point I had received no sympathy, no comfort, no kindness from the police. I was upset and frustrated and I couldn't help but think how much worse this would be if I had been raped by this man. I remembered how I learned from my five previous assaults that the emotional trauma of trying to get help feels worse than the precipitating trauma. I wished I hadn't come at all.
"So that's it then? He just gets away? He just gets to do it again?" I could not control the sobs. They came from deep within me. I did everything right. I reported this to the police, the people who you go to when someone hurts you. And they refused to even record that I had come in.
The officer looked me in the eyes, and put a hand on my shoulder.
"Ok listen to me. Call 311. They have a taxi and limousine division that handles complaints about drivers. Just try them. OK? Will you call them?" She looked genuinely concerned and let down her guard for one moment to give me this vital piece of information. I agreed.
I went back to my office, pretended I was fine, and called 311. A man answered my call. I asked him to have a woman call me back.
Three days later a woman called me back. I told her my story. I heard her sigh on the other end of the line, occasionally punctuated with a disgusted "ugh" and once, "gross." After asking me a few questions, none of which included, "LOL why didn't u just run away?" she gave me two options.
1. Leave it as a verbal complaint and it would go on his record.
2. Proceed with a TLC court case at the end of which he may lose his license.
The prospect of a court case terrified me. I heard the words of my college RA. "Your word against his." The thought of sitting in a room full of strangers and other cab drivers and TLC people while he ardently denied any wrongdoing, called me a liar, or worse, said that I wanted it (which actually ended up being a part of his "defense") made my stomach turn. I also felt guilt. Guilt about what I could do to him. I had power now, to take away his job. What if he had a family? What if he had kids? It wasn't his hypothetical kids fault that their father was a scumbag. What if his daughter can't go to college now that I have taken away his means of survival? I was about to let him off with the verbal complaint slap on the wrist when the woman on the phone said, "Hmm. Interesting. He has had 4 other complaints against him. All the other women dropped the charges before getting to the hearing."
Something clicked. Something inside me said no. Enough. If I am not brave enough to do this for myself I am going to do it for those other 4 women, for the women that get in his car after me. For the woman who might be in his car right now.
The rest of the story is pretty dull and procedural. They expedited my case and it still took six months. I called in a favor and lawyered up with some top-shelf attorneys pro-bono. Cab driver got some sleazebag attorney who claimed I wanted it. I practiced testimony over and over. I practiced answering incredulous, infuriating questions about my sexual history, my past, that night, what I had for dinner, what I drank, how much I drank, what I was wearing, if I really remembered that well after two glasses of wine, do I always drink on weeknights? I went to TJ Maxx and bought a sensible pair of "court pants".
The day before my hearing I got a phone call. The driver had voluntarily turned in his license. After all this preparation, learning to be insulted and stay calm, meeting after meeting in my attorney's midtown office, the ass-widening court pants, and this guy did not want to face ME. He was going to wait me out. He EXPECTED me to give up. FUCK HIM.
I cried on the floor of a bathroom stall at work for a good 30 minutes and then asked if I could go home. I went home, I did yoga, I drank wine, I cried.
I spent the next year in therapy learning not to hate men, not to be afraid of every man on the subway, not to jerk away any time someone touched me. It took me nine months to feel comfortable leaving my house. To be able to try new things and go new places.
I remember the day I realized I was OK again. I rode my bike into Manhattan for the first time ever and wasn't afraid. I was on the Williamsburg bridge, cruising down toward Delancy, wind on my face, and it dawned on me that I wasn't crippled with fear, anxiety, or panic. I was out, alone, in the world. I was free.
If you or anyone you know are struggling with sexual assault you are not alone.
I have been thinking of doing this for a while, but because it was such a divergence from what I normally do (talk about farts and complain about boys) I held back. Then I read this. And then I thought, it is OK, important even, to show that this affects a lot of people. Myself included. And I would be doing a disservice to the brave woman who faced her attacker and to the feminist sisterhood of the vaginas everywhere if I didn't add my voice to the chorus for fear of not being acerbic for two seconds. I hear/read/experience so much bullshit when it comes to sexual assault and the reporting of it. No one seems to get how fucking hard it is to actually report a sex crime, and how many obstacles get in the way. So Imma tell you so everyone can just shut the fuck up already and take out their checkbooks and support RAINN like goddamned human beings.
For real trigger warning, not holding back (as if I ever hold back)
The first time I was sexually assaulted I was 5 years old. It happened on the school bus. A classmate, an outcast, much despised by the other (somehow already assembling cliques) kindergartners put his hand between my legs and squeezed hard. I looked at him in shock, and he smiled, licked his lips, and walked away. Looking back now it seems obvious that he was being sexually assaulted at home, constantly having bathroom accidents and failing in school, but as a child I was completely unaware. It took me a year to tell my mom. As a five year old I carried the guilt and shame around for an entire year before telling my mom after bursting into tears. I knew that sex was bad and touching down there was bad. I felt dirty and bad. As a five year old consent was not a part of my vocabulary. Turns out I would not learn that word for almost another 20 years.
The second time I was sexually assaulted was also on a school bus (seriously, what is it with school buses? Look into that someone.). I was 15. A boy who taunted me relentlessly every day oddly made the choice to sit by me. Me, someone he reviled openly and with glee. I shifted nervously in my seat, one chosen all the way at the back to hide from the cruelty of the other teens who lived on my route (who, in hindsight, were probably so mean because the only place they were cooler than someone was on the school bus. They were losers everywhere else.). After we pulled out of the school parking lot he took my hand. I was so nervous the sweat was dripping down my face. Then, out of nowhere, without asking, he yanked my hand onto his penis and held it there. He had ripped a hole in his jeans enough to expose himself. "Rub it" he said. I had never seen a penis before. I didn't know about erections (other than the awkward 30 seconds spent on them in sex ed but even then we never actually saw what they looked like). I tried to pull my hand away but he held it there. "Don't move or I'll tell," he said. He continued to force me to touch his penis on the back of the bus until I turned 16 and started driving to school. This experience was confusing to me. I liked that he wasn't being mean to me anymore, but I felt the same guilt and shame at being forced to touch him when I wasn't sure that I wanted to. And since I was never asked if I wanted to I didn't know that I could say no. I felt dirty and bad.
The third time I was sexually assaulted I was raped in my dorm room. I met a boy during an innocent snowball fight. We lived in the same hall and I told him he could stop by for some wine sometime (What with being 19 and all I felt myself to be particularly sophisticated being able to offer my guests a nip of the Carlo Rossi merlot I kept in my mini-fridge). He came by with a friend a few days later. I was painting. He and the friend and my friend spent a low-key evening just hanging out, drinking a little, and I "tried" weed for the first time (aka pulled a straight Clinton and did not inhale). Later my friend and I retired to our respective rooms to make out with our respective boys and my boy took it too far. Even though I said no, told him that I was a virgin, that he was hurting me, that I wasn't ready. I still cannot articulate how I felt (though this kind of gets at it). I begged him to stay the night with me when he was through, not understanding that what had just occurred was a crime and not a misunderstanding. "I'm not staying here with you." He practically spat the words. I laid awake until morning. I took off the promise ring my parents had given me. I felt dirty and bad.
This time, though, I had evidence. I had bruises that covered terrain from my neck to my torso. They lasted 3 weeks. They were black, then blue, then brown, then yellow. At brown I showed them to an RA in my building. He told me that I could report it, if I wanted, but that there would be a long process wherein I would have to have an invasive exam by a doctor and a police officer would be in the room and would probably be a male officer so I should prepare for that, and then go in front of a board of my teachers and peers, tell them what happened, and it would be my word against his, and they probably wouldn't believe me because, after all, I had invited him in. Fearing all my teachers would know what a worthless slut I was, and fearing that I would have to tell this again and again to endless pairs of judging eyes I didn't report it. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror for weeks.
The fourth time I was sexually assaulted I was 23. I was working as an AmeriCorps volunteer. I was on a date with a man who taught art at a local university. I had arranged an art auction for a local charity and he donated a beautiful piece. We hit it off. He invited me over to have wine and watch a movie. It began innocuous enough, chatting, looking at his sculptures, drinking cheap awful wine (don't worry I grew out of that eventually). He popped the movie in but before pressing play turned to me on the couch and said he wanted to kiss me. I told him I just wanted to watch the movie. He disliked this. He shoved his hands down my dress. He tried to pin me down on the couch. He kissed my neck. I struggled, told him no, told him I wanted him to stop. He began negging me, calling me racist (he was Korean, was not a factor). I apologized profusely. I squirmed away from him (again, he was Korean, and a tiny man). I scrambled for my purse but he got it first. He told me that he was not going to let me leave. This time was different. Something told me that what was happening wasn't OK, that he was in the wrong, not me, and that of course I wasn't racist. I told him that I had been taking boxing lessons (ok YMCA group kickboxing but he didn't need to know that) and if he did not let me go I was going to punch him in the face, give him a black eye, and subsequently look up his class schedule online and go to each class to explain why he had a shiner to his students. He relinquished my purse. I left. I felt victorious in my bluff, but also, felt dirty and bad.
The fifth time I was sexually assaulted was by a friend who I was staying with in LA after a work trip. He is in his 50's. We had done community theater together when I was 17. We had stayed in touch. I was finally visiting him in LA. The night I stayed with him I woke up at 4am and he was feeling me up and trying to put his hands down my pants. I laid awake until 8am. He was my ride to the airport. I flew home. I felt dirty and bad.
After this I felt more dirty and bad than usual. I thought dark thoughts and did not recognize myself. I got therapy. It helped.
But wait, you're saying. This was supposed to be about REPORTING sexual assault. None of these were really reported. WHAT GIVES?
I needed you all to have some context. Because in the span of 24 years I was sexually assaulted to varying degrees five times. Five times before I was able to gain enough courage to actually report the next one. Yeah spoiler alert, there is a next one.
The sixth time this dumb shit happened was the infamous cab incident. Those of you who know me probably had your facebook feeds blown up with feminist rants about the patriarchy for a good few months. Basically what happened is that I got into a cab and the driver sexually harassed me the entire trip, then, at the end, got of of the cab and tried to pin me against his vehicle in what he was calling a "hug." I shoved him and ran away. When I got in to my apartment, I had a panic attack for hours. I looked at the clock when I got home and it was 10, and after hyperventilating for what I thought was a few minutes I looked again and it was 12:30AM. Then, I did something that I had not done before.
I called the police.
I called the police and told them what happened. In a brief moment of clarity in the midst of my fight or flight state in the cab it occurred to me that if I paid my fare with a credit card his medallion number would show up on my bank statement. I had the necessary information to track him down.
The woman who answered the phone told me in a completely disaffected, unsympathetic tone that they would not take my complaint over the phone. I could come in and report it or the police would come to my house. She sounded annoyed. I couldn't fathom getting in ANOTHER cab to get to the precinct on the other side of my neighborhood at 12:30 AM, and the thought of two, presumably male police officers coming to my house terrified me. The embarrassment of my neighbors seeing it, the embarrassment of being so upset when I was not physically injured. How do I explain to two strangers who deal with actual brutal crimes that because I had been assaulted five times before that this attempt (and failure) was re-traumatizing because I was working through this all in therapy? The policewoman told me I could report it at any precinct the next day. I called some friends, cried on the phone, the cried myself to sleep somewhere around 3am.
I got up at 6 for work. I didn't recognize myself in the mirror. My face was bloated and puffy and my eyes were swollen. I was pale. I put my face in a sink of cold water. I put on makeup. I put on a blazer. I pretended I was fine. My workday was going to be hectic, I needed to be there. What would I say if I called in? "Oh, sorry, I can't come in because a cab driver tried to grope me last night." Even if I were to say that I was sick, the expectation would be that I tough it out and come in.
I got through most of the day feeling nauseated, anxious, jumpy, scared. I didn't tell anyone. I was a zombie, moving through the motions. At 4pm I pulled one of the managers of my office into a conference room. A man, naturally. I told him that a cab driver tried to assault me last night and I needed to go to the police. "Oh my god," was all he said. I left him standing in the conference room and walked the few blocks to the precinct near my work.
It was Halloween. The day was overcast and beginning to get dark. People were drinking, yelling, in costumes. It felt like a David Lynch-esque nightmare. A macabre, demented walk of shame. I was terrified.
At the precinct, I approached the bulletproof glass window. "I need to report an attempted assault."
"What?" The woman behind the glass was unphased.
I repeated, tears welling, "I need to report an attempted assault."
"Hold on."
She got up and retrieved another officer, thankfully a female. She came out into the lobby.
"Can you tell me what happened?"
I opened my mouth to speak but all that came out were sobs. I stood crying in the police lobby, the other people staring at me.
"Can we please go somewhere more private?" I asked her.
"There is nowhere else." she said. "Tell me here."
I tried. I was crying so hard out of embarrassment that I couldn't get the story out beyond "A cab driver tried to assault me." Then, "Please, I am begging you, please take me somewhere else."
Imagine for a moment trying to report a crime in the lobby of a police building in front of people paying their tickets and reporting a stolen bike or whatever it is that people do in the lobbies of police buildings. Imagine having to describe in detail how he touched you, where he touched you, what he said to you, no you couldn't just jump out of the car you would have landed in the East River. Imagine the dingy blue gray walls, the buzzing fluorescent overheads, the eyes of 15 strangers glued to your tear-stained, red, blotchy face.
The officer acquiesced to my pleas and found an empty office upstairs to ask me what I can assume were not intentionally incredulous questions.
"What time did he pick you up? What did he say to you? How many times did he ask you that? How long was the ride? Why didn't you get out of the car? At what point did he become agitated? Did you answer when he asked you how many men you slept with? What was your answer? And you still did not ask to get out of the car? Where did he drop you off? How did he get into the back seat? Did you try to run away? What did you do after he tried to touch you? Did you go straight home? Why didn't you call the police?"
After answering these questions she brought me back downstairs to speak to her superior officer. She deposited me near the vending machines and away from the staring, blank faces. She told me to wait. I calmed down, tried to find solace in the fact that I was bringing a crime to the police, that finally something was being done.
Boy.Was.I.Wrong.
The officer returned to tell me that her superior officer said not only was nothing going to be done, they were refusing to even take the report.
"How? How is that possible? I am here to make a report, don't you have to take it?" The tears were back with a vengeance.
"We won't be taking a report today."
"Can I speak to this officer? Please?"
"We won't be taking a report today."
Up until this point I had received no sympathy, no comfort, no kindness from the police. I was upset and frustrated and I couldn't help but think how much worse this would be if I had been raped by this man. I remembered how I learned from my five previous assaults that the emotional trauma of trying to get help feels worse than the precipitating trauma. I wished I hadn't come at all.
"So that's it then? He just gets away? He just gets to do it again?" I could not control the sobs. They came from deep within me. I did everything right. I reported this to the police, the people who you go to when someone hurts you. And they refused to even record that I had come in.
The officer looked me in the eyes, and put a hand on my shoulder.
"Ok listen to me. Call 311. They have a taxi and limousine division that handles complaints about drivers. Just try them. OK? Will you call them?" She looked genuinely concerned and let down her guard for one moment to give me this vital piece of information. I agreed.
I went back to my office, pretended I was fine, and called 311. A man answered my call. I asked him to have a woman call me back.
Three days later a woman called me back. I told her my story. I heard her sigh on the other end of the line, occasionally punctuated with a disgusted "ugh" and once, "gross." After asking me a few questions, none of which included, "LOL why didn't u just run away?" she gave me two options.
1. Leave it as a verbal complaint and it would go on his record.
2. Proceed with a TLC court case at the end of which he may lose his license.
The prospect of a court case terrified me. I heard the words of my college RA. "Your word against his." The thought of sitting in a room full of strangers and other cab drivers and TLC people while he ardently denied any wrongdoing, called me a liar, or worse, said that I wanted it (which actually ended up being a part of his "defense") made my stomach turn. I also felt guilt. Guilt about what I could do to him. I had power now, to take away his job. What if he had a family? What if he had kids? It wasn't his hypothetical kids fault that their father was a scumbag. What if his daughter can't go to college now that I have taken away his means of survival? I was about to let him off with the verbal complaint slap on the wrist when the woman on the phone said, "Hmm. Interesting. He has had 4 other complaints against him. All the other women dropped the charges before getting to the hearing."
Something clicked. Something inside me said no. Enough. If I am not brave enough to do this for myself I am going to do it for those other 4 women, for the women that get in his car after me. For the woman who might be in his car right now.
The rest of the story is pretty dull and procedural. They expedited my case and it still took six months. I called in a favor and lawyered up with some top-shelf attorneys pro-bono. Cab driver got some sleazebag attorney who claimed I wanted it. I practiced testimony over and over. I practiced answering incredulous, infuriating questions about my sexual history, my past, that night, what I had for dinner, what I drank, how much I drank, what I was wearing, if I really remembered that well after two glasses of wine, do I always drink on weeknights? I went to TJ Maxx and bought a sensible pair of "court pants".
The day before my hearing I got a phone call. The driver had voluntarily turned in his license. After all this preparation, learning to be insulted and stay calm, meeting after meeting in my attorney's midtown office, the ass-widening court pants, and this guy did not want to face ME. He was going to wait me out. He EXPECTED me to give up. FUCK HIM.
I cried on the floor of a bathroom stall at work for a good 30 minutes and then asked if I could go home. I went home, I did yoga, I drank wine, I cried.
I spent the next year in therapy learning not to hate men, not to be afraid of every man on the subway, not to jerk away any time someone touched me. It took me nine months to feel comfortable leaving my house. To be able to try new things and go new places.
I remember the day I realized I was OK again. I rode my bike into Manhattan for the first time ever and wasn't afraid. I was on the Williamsburg bridge, cruising down toward Delancy, wind on my face, and it dawned on me that I wasn't crippled with fear, anxiety, or panic. I was out, alone, in the world. I was free.
If you or anyone you know are struggling with sexual assault you are not alone.
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