The Star Tribune Finds That Minnesota Law Enforcement Largely Ignores Rape
LatestAn excellent and totally disheartening report by the Star Tribune has found that law enforcement has consistently and utterly failed victims of sexual assault in Minnesota. Out of 1,000 sexual assault cases analyzed, only 26 percent went to prosecutors; victims overall had less than a 1/10 chance of seeing a conviction; and in one in four cases, police never even assigned an investigator, which they do for every case of murder. And these numbers come from only a subset of materials from law enforcement agencies, which reportedly have yet to fill about half of the records requests.
The instances reflect a general attitude which simply doesn’t take rape as a serious crime. In one exemplative story, a woman alleges that even when she provided the location of the rape, immediately called 911 and provided semen from a sexual assault exam, the investigators went back and forth a few times with the suspect and then simply dropped the case. She claims that one of the first things a police officer asked her was: “Why were you drinking alone?”