As bad as colleges and universities are at adjudicating accusations of campus sexual assault, police aren’t always perfect, either.
I’ve written before about the need to trust but verify claims, as activists insist that the police don’t listen or believe them. It seems many activists won’t be happy until cops react to each accusation as if it is 100 percent true, and as if it is the only evidence needed to arrest and convict.
My greatest fear right now is that police begin doing just that due to the false media narrative that rape is rampant on college campuses. As due process advocates argue for police to be put back in charge of investigating and adjudicating felonies, what happens if the police become just as credulous as campus administrators mandated to get tough on the issue?
This appears to be the case with a Monroe Community College student who was accused of keeping a female student as a sex slave for three days in his dorm. During this alleged period of captivity, witnesses and video evidence showed the couple holding hands, smiling, going to church and going to a jewelry store.
This evidence prompted a grand jury to refuse to indict the accused student; however, he had already been arrested and jailed for 11 days based on the accusation.
The two students met online and spent a few days together, but after the accused student decided not to continue dating the woman, she made the accusations, according to the accused student’s lawyer.
The accused student’s parents say their son should not have been jailed for 11 days, and his name should not have been splashed across the news, allowing talk radio hosts to defame him. The family said the evidence that the accused was innocent was easy to discover — including campus photos showing the couple happy together, and statements by the accused’s roommates, who said she was not held against her will.
Brighton Police Chief Mark Henderson said his department “did a pretty thorough investigation” and conducted “multiple interviews.”
“Probable cause was established to corroborate the victim’s allegations,” Henderson said. “The victim desired prosecution and an arrest was made.”
After the accuser made her report to the police, officers sat with her and assisted her in texting with the accused student to try and get an admission. The accuser claimed the accused student had sexually assaulted her. The accused responded: “I really am truly sorry from the bottom of my heart for hurting you.”
The accused said he was apologizing because of the breakup, and wasn’t really paying attention to the specifics of the texts. (Note to students receiving texts after a breakup or sexual encounter: Always read the entire texts.)
The accused student’s mother believes her son was arrested after an interview with the police in which he decided to obtain a lawyer.
“I was always under the impression innocence matters, but it doesn’t,” she said. “They’re going to get you. They’re on a mission.”
That’s a startling claim from the mother of a son who was brought through the legal system, as it is strikingly similar to claims from mothers of students accused through campus kangaroo courts. Police and prosecutors do need to work on how they handle rape and sexual assault claims, but the solution is not a move toward the campus model, where constitutional due process protections are eviscerated and evidence becomes secondary to an accusation.
