EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first in a weeklong series explaining how sexual assault cases are handled in Southeast Ohio and the resources available to assist survivors.
Following a sexual assault, survivors are pressed to move at a rapid pace.
The 96-hour window to collect evidence is just the beginning of a long investigation that might never see a prosecution.
So when a survivor of sexual assault arrives at the emergency waiting room of OhioHealth O’Bleness Memorial Hospital, the only hospital in Athens County that can perform a sexual assault examination, he or she tends to be quiet.
Chessie Rymer, manager for the emergency department, said he or she either has already exhausted themselves of tears or hasn’t yet started to grieve.
But before last October, O’Bleness did not provide the service 24/7, as not every nurse was trained in what is called the SAFE, or Sexual Assault Forensic Examination, program.
Due to Attorney General Mike DeWine’s growing sexual assault services expansion program, it was made sure O’Bleness received that training.
Now, there are roughly 26 nurses available to perform the free procedure 24/7 at the hospital, but Rymer said out of the 30 cases she’s seen in the year the hospital has been running the program full-force, some survivors arrived too late.
“We try not to keep them waiting for too long, because they’ve been through a lot already,” Rymer said.
She added while survivors of sexual assault are waiting for a doctor, nurses will give a run-down of the services they can offer based on how recently the assault occurred.
Usually, a patient arrives with a friend or an advocate from the Ohio University Survivor Advocacy Program, Rymer said, which will drive a student to the hospital 24/7. If the patient arrives without one, one of the nurses will call an advocate to wait outside the examination room, which was formerly a doctor’s lounge. It was decided that, since the lounge was one of the more private areas of the hospital, staff would conduct the procedure there.
If a survivor so chooses, police officers from the jurisdiction where the assault occurred will take down information and compile an official report. Officers are required to ask questions regarding place and time of their sexual assault, if survivors have an idea of a suspect and if they were inebriated at the time, among other inquiries.
“When sexual assault cases do involve alcohol, it exacerbates our ability to prosecute...,” Athens Police Chief Tom Pyle said. “That’s a key element of sexual assault. It definitely is troublesome, to say the least.”
Often, the Athens Police Department will see survivors weeks after an assault occurred, who have either gone to O’Bleness and had the sexual assault examination kit procedure done anonymously, or never had it done at all.
APD provides a registered social worker, Molly Burchfield, who can speak with the survivor about their possible resources and care, outside of the legal advice an investigator might provide.
“It’s normally an in-depth investigation, it takes weeks, months before it can move toward an arrest,” Jeff McCall, Athens Police Lt., said.
He added there are currently six to 10 kits under investigation in the city.
“When you’re talking about prosecution as opposed to arrest, you’re going to need more (evidence),” he said.
Not every sexual assault case is sent to the prosecutor’s office, Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn said, but of the ones that are — more than 90 percent go to a grand jury, where it will be determined whether the state will prosecute the case.
But, if the rape kit examination was never conducted at all, it becomes more difficult to carry that case to indictment.
However, just because a case is taken to grand jury, doesn’t mean it’s going to be determined a first-degree felony of sexual assault.
Because many cases featuring college students involve alcohol, the case can be determined sexual battery instead, which carries a maximum jail sentence of five years.
Blackburn said this is one part of the Ohio Revised Code that could change for the better.
“We want to make sure that everyone is only engaging in sexual conduct that they are consenting to, and the revised code is a little outdated in terms of rape and sexual battery,” Blackburn said. “We need to go back and address felony levels for some of the sexual crimes.”
That is where survivor complaints begin to stem from — either the law isn’t strict enough, or local police aren’t doing enough to make sure that sexual assault cases see a close.
F--kRapeCulture recently posted a public spreadsheet to their Facebook page, where users could anonymously describe how APD handled their sexual assault case. Five people logged in to tell their stories.
One survivor reported that O’Bleness tried to be understanding of their assault, which occurred in 2012, but nearly turned he or she away because he or she waited more than 48 hours to have a sexual assault examination.
The survivor said the APD officer who took their report was extremely sympathetic, but said the investigator pressed he or she to reveal whether alcohol was involved in the assault.
It was later determined there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute.
According to APD’s 2013 annual report, there were 11 incident reports written for rape. Blackburn said that they didn’t all reach his desk — though he wasn’t able to comment on the ones that did, as a number of those cases are still open for investigation.
Blackburn said survivors can meet with him personally if they have questions about the status of their case.
Emily Harper, a 2014 OU graduate, said she was a survivor of sexual assault in 2012, and her case did not come to an ideal conclusion.
She was at an uptown bar when an employee sat on her lap and grinded his genitals into her face. After telling him to get off, and his refusing, she slapped him. Later that night, when he was making “kissy faces” at her, she threw a drink in his face.
Harper reported the incident to APD, where she was told she might want to avoid reporting because she had assaulted him, too. The employee was later removed from the bar by an APD officer, following a request by OUSAP.
The bar owner was unavailable for comment as of press time.
“What would have happened if a girl was walking alone on Palmer Street and she was sexually assaulted and punched the guy and broke his nose and ran away?” Harper said. “Would she get in trouble?”
She mentioned that of her friends who had experienced sexual assault, however, most had ideal experiences with their officers and felt they were treated fairly.
“We are just part of the larger addressing of a victim’s crisis,” APD Captain Ralph Harvey said. “We are a big part, a lot of people want legal closure and to see prosecution...it’s not always up to us. Some people get discouraged in the process, and that bothers me.”
@eockerman
eo300813@ohio.edu
