Elderly woman raped after getting off bus, police make her wait three hours before responding
Via John Diedrich of the Journal Sentinel
An 82-year-old woman who was raped by a stranger after she got off a bus last week was forced to wait three hours for a Milwaukee police squad car to respond, records show.
The woman, who has difficulty seeing, finally called the police dispatcher back and asked if she could take a shower.
The victim was told “do not do anything until a squad arrives,” because it could remove key evidence of the rape. Finally, three hours and six minutes after the assault was first reported, a squad car arrived, according to police records obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The victim was getting off the bus and was knocked down and raped, but walked to her home and denied medical treatment because she didn’t think she could afford the ambulance bill. The rape was first listed to responders as a priority 1 call, but eventually made its way down to a priority 3 call (which allows police to respond to top priority 1 calls always before priority 2 or 3).
A 29 year old suspect was arrested, and the case is being reviewed by the district attorney.
Does anyone else get a little queasy reading this? And then an uncontrollable, fist clenching rage immediately follows?
ALL those police officers on duty at the time should be sat down, and be forced to think about their little grandmas being assaulted and raped, and then having to sit in her assailants bodily fluids for 3 HOURS before anyone helped her.
A rape is an incredibly traumatic situation for the victim as it is, but for a little old lady to be disregarded while the rapist is still out there is just sick. After three hours of waiting it took the officers 6 minutes to arrive when they left the station.
It is known that in large cities police officers avoid stickier calls until someone eventually picks it up, and if it’s not life threatening the situation is downplayed as much as possible until police get around to it.
The Milwaukee Police Department issued a statement saying their respond times are being reviewed and blah blah blah professional apology… The department has not said if disciplinary action was taken.
Many are looking at Police Chief Edward Flynn who promised the department would better their response times after another elderly woman was stabbed to death recently and it took police 22 minutes to arrive.
So the answered question here is that you cannot always rely on police officers for your security, I can guarantee you if this elderly woman was any one of those police officers grandmother, they would be there faster than the best respond time.
Many places are not being policed properly, it is smart to understand where you live and what you can do to keep you and your family safe in an emergency or violent crime.
Know your rights, know the facts, know that armed defense happens daily and we are more than capable to deter crime by showing criminals we defend ourselves. We need to stand up and DEMAND defense, we need to refuse to let horrible situations like this go unnoticed.
And people, if your 82 year old grandma needs to get on the bus to go get groceries or do errands in a more dangerous area, do what you can to go with her, or make sure she has something to defend herself with.
