Public Complaint No. 1709950189 - 269664884

February 10th, 2020 SFPD Special Victims Unit It happened on Saturday, October 12th, 2019. I was raped. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to talk about it. I kept replaying my statements declaring my boundaries. Saying no, saying I don’t want to have sex with you. Saying, you can’t do that. I kept asking myself how did this happen?. What did I do wrong? Sunday morning, October 13th, my roommate looked at me concerned and asked me what was wrong. I said something about the family. I was still in disbelief that this happened. My face vacant, my mind in replay mode. Monday, [10/14/19] I went to work. My boss called it, something was off about me. I broke down and shared what had happened. He encouraged me to go to the police and the hospital. I called the hospital, my hospital. Kaiser. They called SFPD. SFPD was offering an ambulance to pick me up from work, or an officer to get me. I had already explained that it had happened on Saturday and that I was safe at work. The idea of the police or an ambulance picking me up made me feel incredibly uncomfortable-- and also that they weren’t listening. Why? What would I say to my coworkers? Either way, leaving with the police or an ambulance would certainly bring curiosity, attention, and questions from colleagues. I said no thank you. Can I just go to Kaiser? (I know Kaiser, and feel comfortable there). Together they said I could. I left SF, took Bart to Oakland, scootered home, got in my car and went to the Kaiser I know best, Walnut Creek. When I got there, they couldn't treat me, they had no rape kits. After an hour there, they learned I had to go to SF General hospital to get a rape kit or to report it. I wish the officer on the call had been informed enough to share this before I made this trek and then reversed it. I went to SF County Hospital to have a rape kit performed. Eventually, Officer Dierdrick showed up, he was kind enough to introduce himself. His partner Officer Ramsey did not introduce herself or acknowledge me. As officer Dierdrick started asking me about the incident, I turned to officer Ramsay and asked for her name. I felt it would have been appropriate to know her name as I was revealing intimate details about myself and this traumatic experience. I recommend that your officers always introduce themselves to victims. No one should be in your hospital room without giving you their name. It seems like a common courtesy that was overlooked. I think having officers introduce themselves is beneficial and something that should be included in officer training. After telling [Officer Dierdrick] him the details, he gave me a document with information about my case and how to obtain a copy of the police report. He said in the next few days an officer would be assigned to my case and would contact me. I was also told an advocate would be appointed to my case and that they would be present at meetings with the police to support me. I was told I could go to the rape crisis center for counseling. Officer Dierdrick assured me the rape kit would be processed and an officer would be assigned to my case. He gave me a small piece of paper with my case number and instructions for getting a copy of the police report. An appointment was scheduled on October 29th, 2019 with the Rape Crisis Center in SF. During this appointment, I mentioned I had not been contacted by the police or a victim advocate about the case/investigation. The counselor from the Rape Crisis Center said she would place a call to SFPD and to the DA’s office to assign a victim advocate. By November 3, 2019, I still had not been contacted and decided I needed to take action. I called SFPD and left a voicemail. I called the victim advocate phone number and left a voicemail. I received no response. On November 4th, 2019, I called again and spoke with Lisa at the SFPD Special Victims Unit. She informed me that there was no officer assigned to my case, and that, despite the information, Officer Dierdrick supplied at SF County Hospital about an officer being assigned to the case, this was not how this would go for me. She informed me that I was required to show up in person at SFPD SVU office in order to have an officer assigned to my case. I couldn't believe it, all this time, it turned out, no officer was assigned. No advocate was assigned. It also turned out that because I don’t live in SF- I do not have access to the SF Rape Crisis Center’s services. At least, not more than a single visit. The information I had been given about an officer being assigned, about an advocate being assigned, it was all inaccurate- no one was taking action but me. On November 4, 2019, I was forced to leave work and go to the SFPD Special Victims Unit in order to get an officer assigned to my case. While I waited, I read about other victims’ experiences with SFPD. This begs the question: why would after reporting a crime, a rape survivor must show up at the police station for action to be taken? I had already made the report and given a rape kit. They established a case number. How is a case number established without an officer being assigned? It seems there is a gap in this process that should be dealt with immediately. So then, while uninspired by the engagement of the SFPD SVU, I sat reading snippets like this. “San Francisco does a bit better than these national statistics; recent research from 2017 shows that out of 757 reports of adult sexual assault in 2016, 297 or 39 percent were investigated, 91 or 12 percent referred to the District Attorney, and 11 cases or two percent of adult and child sexual assaults went to trial, leading to nine guilty verdicts which is one percent. “ -SF Examiner. “Nine months after the San Francisco Police Department fully implemented a new digitized case management system, inspectors were still finding as many as 20 domestic violence cases per month that were not immediately referred to the Special Victims Unit for investigation, said a lieutenant in charge of the domestic violence team.” -SF Public Press “Rape survivors feel re-victimized by the SFPD, despite department’s pledge to improve.” -Mission Local In the waiting room at the SFPD SVU office, I read the above articles and thought to myself “Every rape victim that informs themself with research walks into SFPD to report their case operating under extraordinary hope, with a 1% chance that their efforts will be successful. What does this say about the efforts of SFPD to protect victims?” Imagine that your doctor tells you your condition is terminal and you have a 1% chance to survive. How much faith can you put in that 1%? This is exactly the question rape survivors must ask themselves when wondering whether they should report their attack to your department- what faith do I have in the 1% chance they will catch my rapist? While in the waiting room on November 4, a man came into the employee portion of the reception area in plain clothes. I heard him say, “yeah, it’s mine, but I have to go, someone else will have to deal with it.” I didn’t know yet, but this was the officer assigned to my case, Sergeant Morales. About 20 minutes later, Sargeant Wren asked me to come into the conference room. He informed me that an officer [Sargeant Hector Morales] had been assigned to my case, who was out of the office at the time. He also stated that the rape kit had been processed, but that he had no information to share at this time. Later that day, [11/4/19] Sergeant Stokes called me. She had received my voicemail and was following up. I explained that I had been informed I was required to come into the office to get an officer assigned. She told me that the rape kit had not been processed and that she had no knowledge of my case to update me. At no point during this visit did anyone say anything about the lack of action of SFPD, about how they had told me someone would be assigned to my case, and how no one ever was or how I had to physically SHOW UP to make any action happen on the behalf of SFPD SVU. Is this how it is with all of your victims? Do you just leave them hanging and hope they won’t call? Hector Morales called me on November 5th, 2019. During this call, I asked him about the rape kit; he told me it was unsure that it had processed, and that he would need to follow up with Sergeant Stokes, who had this information. I found this interesting, since Sargeant Wren told me the rape kit was processed, and Sargeant Stokes said it had not. And Sargeant Morales, who was assigned to my case seemed to have no continuity of knowledge about the case or who might know what happened with the rape kit. We scheduled a meeting on November 12th for him to interview me about the incident. During this “interview” on November 12th, 2019, about the incident, Sergeant Morales recorded my testimony. At times, he would interject when I was relaying the events. For instance, I said, “At this time the assailant had his left hand on my right breast under my shirt.” Sergeant Morales then said, “ok, so he’s got both his hands up your shirt, go on.” I would have to correct him and say, “No. I did not say that.” If you listen to the recording you will hear this. It was pretty frustrating to be reviewing these details with someone who was not paying attention. It also did not inspire confidence in his level of engagement. Sergeant Morales also expressed that because I was not “beaten” or injured during my rape, that my case “lacked evidence.” While I understand that injury adds to the evidence, I don’t think that lack of injury means a lack of evidence. I think that this is a mindset that is not advantageous to share with a victim. Talk about what you’re working with, not what you’re not. Furthermore, Sergeant Morales told me the next step would be a pretext call, where I would call my rapist and ask him to “admit” that he raped me, without using the word rape. This seemed like a terrible idea. I asked, “Does this work? What are the statistics around success?” He said, “sometimes.” I questioned, “what is the success rate of this tactic?” He had no idea. As you know, the world is becoming more data-centric. AI, Machine Learning, data tells stories, data gives insights. It was pretty astounding that an officer who has been working in SVU for I then asked about the rape kit, as Officer Wren had told me that it was processed. Sergeant Morales did not have any updates. I told him I would like to wait for the rape kit results before the pretext call, so we could have the DNA evidence on hand. In early November 2019, I realized I hadn’t ordered a copy of the police report. I followed the instructions on the document Officer Dierdrick provided and sent the required information with a self-addressed stamped envelope. On November 13th, 2019, I received a call from a number that my Android labeled “Scam Likely” -- when I answered it was SFPD’s Office of Records. They were calling to inform me that I could not obtain a copy of the police report by mail. They sent me a new form, different from the one Officer Dierdrick supplied, and told me I had to complete this form in order to obtain a police report, and that I was required to come to the SFPD Office of Records if I wanted to get it. This form, labeled Request for Incident Report: Family Code § 6228 also stated that I could order a copy of the police report by mail sending a self-addressed stamped envelope. On November 13th, 2019, I brought the form into the SFPD Office of Records to obtain the police report. Upon viewing the police report I noted that there was an error in the report. It stated I met with my assailant at 15:30 hours; while I had reported that I met with the assailant at 14:30 hours. I contacted Sergeant Morales about the inaccuracy in the report. I asked him how we could correct the police report. He told me he would put “a note on the file.” I asked him, “are you unable to correct the police report?” He replied, “I’ll put a note on the file.” I pressed him, stating that the police report was the evidence, and that I thought it was important the information in it was accurate and that it be updated. Only then did he say he would “update the report.” I haven’t ordered a new report yet, so I do not know if this has been done. The rape kit came back with DNA. They were sending it to process at the lab. Sergeant Morales informed me that they would send it to see if they got a DNA hit. He explained there was no timeframe by which this could be expected to return results, and also informed me that if there was no DNA match in the system, we would never be informed. I don’t understand why informing someone of no-DNA match is not part of the process. It seems like another gap in the process that keeps victims uninformed and waiting. We scheduled a pretext call for 9:00 am on December 18th, 2019. Sergeant Morales met with me and told me what he wanted me to say. He instructed me: “Say you’ve been depressed, not sleeping, having bad dreams, and that you really need to talk to him. You need to talk to him about that day, to understand what happened.” He even instructed me to say ‘you put your dick in my pussy.’ I was completely shocked. I stopped him and asked, “is it required that I use that language? Can I just say sex?” He responded, “oh yeah, you could say that.” I could not believe he was in a room alone with me, a rape survivor, using this language; instructing me to use this language, knowing I was raped by this man. It made me feel that he was with either: 1) playing out a porno in his mind 2) imagining that I’m some “bitch” who talks that way 3) getting off on my discomfort His language felt abusive. When I asked if it was required, he stated it wasn’t. I was floored that he would ever choose to lead with this language as a recommendation for how to speak to the man who raped me. For how I should refer to my body. It was entirely insensitive and completely inappropriate. How would you feel if the officer helping your daughter/wife/sister/mom through rape, talked to her about her pussy? Is this how all officers in SVU speak to victims? That is foul. I realized that I head read about Sergeant Morales in an article while searching Google "SFPD Rape" in this article he told the victim he didn’t collect evidence because “It was his Friday.” The article was published in May of 2019. The article describes him as just I had come to see him; not attentive, not detailed, uninformative, and disengaged with my case. I did not get the sense he was dedicated to serving justice. Countless times I thought, How many other victims had Sergeant Morales been assigned to? How many other victims has he failed? After the pretext call, I asked, what if the rapist calls me back when you’re not here? Sergeant Morales said, “well we can’t do anything then.” He called me later to see if I wanted to come to have another pre-text call. During this call, I relayed my experience and told him I didn’t think he was good at his job. He didn’t ask why. And I said, aren’t you curious why I would say that? So I told him. I read an article about him failing another victim. I couldn’t believe the language he used with me. I told him I was likely to file a complaint, and that I had no interest in proceeding with him. A week later, his boss, Sergeant Rachel Moran called. She said she’d heard I was dissatisfied with Sergeant Morales and could assign another officer. She did not ask why I was not satisfied. I told her. I said that he instructed me to use vulgar language and spoke about “my pussy” in a way that made me uncomfortable. Sergeant Moran assured me, the officers use this language all the time and she didn’t find it the least concerning. That was astounding to me, first that she had no query about my dissatisfaction, and second, that him talking about "my pussy" didn't give her a pause. So, I want to say, I understand, if you're talking to a sex worker, a porn star, someone who was in a loving/kindy relationship with someone. But there is a context that matters. My context was I was on a date with someone I just met, I told them I didn't want to sleep with them. All the language I used when I spoke of my rape was standard, sex ed language; penis, vagina, sex, penetration, no consent, I never used the word "dick or pussy" while talking to anyone about my rape. So, while it may be something that SFPD Sergeant Rachel Moran deems appropriate in some situations, it is most certainly not appropriate in all situations. Apparently, officers are instructed to ask victims to talk about their 'pussies' to their rapists, that they talk to women who are looking for help from them, and use the word "pussy?". Frankly, I think that is abusive. I hope that language shocks you as it shocked me. The current process is flawed. Almost everything people told me would happen as far as the process did not happen. So perhaps there is a process in place, but the execution does not align. The only reason I even had an officer assigned to my case was because I showed up for myself. When will SFPD show up for victims too? The suggestions I have for your department could never be captured in such a letter as this; however, I am happy to share them. Thank you for reading. I hope that SFPD will make necessary efforts to improve this process, to better care for victims, and be more discerning identifying employees/ officers/ people who have emotional intelligence, compassion, and the patience to work in the SVU. With gratitude, Jane McKay