Police: teen sexually assaulted while waiting for bus (Fairfax County)
Paul Robinson
Tuesday February 1, 2005, Page 5
Police: Teen sexually assaulted while waiting for bus
By Tony Holt
Examiner Staff Writer
A teenage girl was sexually assaulted Sunday morning by a stranger who
picked her up at a hybla valley area bus stop, Fairfax County police said.
The girl was waiting near the intersection of Richmond highway and
Belford Drive at 11:45 a.m. when a man parked his black sport utility
vehicle nearby and began talking to her, police said.
Detectives said the man eventually earned the girl's trust and she
accepted his offer for a ride.
The man drove the girl to a woodlawn parking lot near Pole Road, where
he allegedly brandished a knife and handgun before sexually assaulting
her inside the vehicle.
"We're hopeful that some witnesses come forward," said Sgt. Richard
Perez, a Fairfax County police spokesman. "This all happened in the
middle of the day in broad daylight."
The girl was driven a short distance away and was allowed to leave,
police said.
She ran home and reported the assault and eventually was taken to Inova
Fairfax Hospital to be treated for minor injuries, police said.
The suspect was described as black, in his early 20s, 5 feet 7 inches
tall, about 180 pounds with a medium build. He had facial hair that
appeared to be a few days old, but no mustache.
Anyone with information is asked to call police at 703-691-2131 or Crime
Solvers at 1-866-411-TIPS.
Paul Robinson
which a guy in an SUV got talking to a girl at a bus shelter and won her
confidence enough that she accepted his offer of a ride.
The driver took her to a remote location and raped her. He then drove
her a ways and fortunately he let her go. She went home and reported
the incident and was taken to a local hospital with minor injuries.
I think about the horrible waste of this kind of incident. Clearly if
this guy had the capacity to win a girl over into getting into his car,
he probably could have talked her into willingly having sex with him if
that's what he wanted.
But obviously it wasn't. Rape isn't a crime of sex, it's a crime of
violence and power; it is an act in which the perpetrator forces the
victim to accept whatever they wish to do to them. As the Supreme Court
of California said:
"By its very nature, rape displays a 'total contempt for the
personal integrity and autonomy' of the victim; '[s]hort of homicide,
[it is] the "ultimate violation of self."' Coker v. Georgia 433 U.S.
584, 597, 603 (1977) [53 L.Ed.2d 982, 996, 97 S.Ct. 2861] (plur. opn. of
White, J.; conc. and dis. opn. of Powell, J.).) Along with other forms
of sexual assault, it belongs to that class of indignities against the
person that cannot ever be fully righted, and that diminishes all
humanity." Mary M. v. City of Los Angeles 54 Cal.3d 202,222 (1991) [285
Cal.Rptr. 99; 814 P.2d 1341]
Eve Ensler, in her book The Vagina Monologues, had this to say:
As I traveled with the piece to city after city, country after
country, hundreds of women waited after the show to talk to me about
their lives. The play had somehow freed up their memories, pain, and
desire. Night after night I heard the same stories - women being raped
as teenagers, in college, as little girls, as elderly women; women who
had finally escaped being beaten to death by their husbands; women who
were terrified to leave; women who were taken sexually, before they were
even conscious of sex, by their stepfathers, brothers, cousins, uncles,
mothers and fathers. I began to feel insane, as if a door had opened to
some underworld and I was being told things I was not supposed to know;
knowing these things was dangerous.
Slowly it dawned on me that nothing was more important than
stopping violence toward women - that the desecration of women indicated
the failure of human beings to honor and protect life, and this failing
would, if we did not correct it, be the end of us all. I do not think I
am being extreme. When you rape, beat, maim, mutilate, burn, bury and
terrorize women, you destroy the essential life energy on the planet.
You force what is meant to be open, trusting, nurturing, creative and
alive to be bent, infertile and broken.
I grieve for the innocence of what was probably a lovely little lady
that has been destroyed by some unforgivable bastard who probably could
have gotten what he wanted without having to commit sexual asault, but
decided to force himself upon her.
Instead of some guy giving a nice girl a nice time, he's now ruined
somee poor woman's entire life. If she ever trusts a man at all it may
be years. She'll probably grow up believing that all men are the type
that this scumbag was.
I am saddened and disgusted at this sort of thing. It bothers me
terribly even though I happen to be a man.
I understand that it is entirely possible this girl could have claimed
that she was raped rather than admit that she had (consentual) sex with
some guy, but this sort of thing happens so often that I'm sure a
similar incident has occurred - probably in the same city - and some
woman really was raped even if it wasn't the specific incident I read
about in the paper.
It is the point that it wasn't necessary, not whether a sexual assault
did or didn't happen in this particular incident. Some man violently
stole something that he probably could have freely gotten without force.
And that is why I grieve.
Paul Robinson
February 1, 2005