Crime alert from Somerville Police Department

[ron_newman]

I just received this both as a robo-call and an e-mail:

This is Deputy Chief Paul Upton of the Somerville Police Department with an important community safety message for residents of West Somerville, and in the vicinity of Red Line MBTA stations. Last Sunday evening, at about 11:00 p.m., a woman who was walking home from the Porter Square MBTA station, was indecently assaulted. She reported that in the vicinity of Summer Street and Belmont Street, she heard footsteps behind her. As she turned around, an unknown white male knocked her to the ground and indecently assaulted her. The victim was able to pepper spray her assailant causing him to cease his attack and flee the area.

The suspect is described as a white male, 20 to 25 years old, 5 feet 6 inches tall, medium build, brown hair, clean shaven and was wearing a white shirt and shorts.

Although we believe this to be an isolated incident, we want to alert residents, especially women, who may be walking in this area, to be especially vigilant. We encourage women to take common sense precautions, be aware of their surroundings and avoid distractions such as headphones and Ipods. If you carry a cell phone, keep it in an easily accessible place.

The Somerville Police Department is working jointly with other police agencies to identify and apprehend this suspect as quickly as possible.

If you see anyone who is acting suspicious in this area, please do not hesitate to call 911.

Comments

[pakoo.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this.

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

Yes, thank you for posting this. I also got those calls.

One more thing: I'm glad the city sends us these emails and robocalls, but this (allegedly) happened on Sunday night. This is THURSDAY.

Assuming this was reported immediately, why do we not get a robocall at 7am on Monday morning?

[ron_newman]

I would not want the city to robo-call at 7 am for any reason other than an extreme emergency, like a tornado warning.

[scarletdulcinea.livejournal.com]

My thoughts exactly, since I did late night walking in that area on both Tuesday and Wednesday night. I'm ALWAYS vigilant, but, y'know.

[dial-zero.livejournal.com]

This (from wickedlocal Somerville) really annoyed me: "Although we believe this to be an isolated incident, we want to alert residents, especially women, who may be walking in this area, to be especially vigilant," Upton said in the alert. [fine so far...] "We encourage women to take common sense precautions, be aware of their surroundings and avoid distractions such as headphones and Ipods. If you carry a cell phone, keep it in an easily accessible place."

The vast majority of women DO take commonsense precautions, thanks, since we are constantly reminded that if we are assaulted, it is always our fault. Sounds like the victim in this case was prepared and alert, she was able to access and use pepper spray for crying out loud. Sometimes you just need to get home from the friggin T at 11:00. Place the blame on the ATTACKER.

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

Nope, that's not it at all. From the point of view of, say, police and military circles, there's reams of literature and training about being alert to one's environment. Try Googling "situational awareness" or "Cooper's colors". It's not about who's fault it is, it's about evading danger to begin with.

[dial-zero.livejournal.com]

But they are implying, by issuing the advice, that the victim wasn't using common sense or evading danger, when clearly she was (pepper spray--not many people carry it, the fact that she was carrying it and able to access it shows that she has thought about danger to some degree). Does using common sense mean all women should be safely locked inside as soon as it's dark? If so, wouldn't you agree our society is really fucked up, and more attention needs to be paid to THAT, instead of whether or not someone was using an ipod when they were attacked?

[t-stop.livejournal.com]

I'm slightly agog at your response to the phrasing in the robo-call. To be honest, I EXPECTED them to say something offensive and was listening for it.

But this has to be one of the best-phrased notifications / warnings that I've seen put out. Are you sure you aren't projecting your (undoubtably well justified) trauma from previous similar messages?

What is in this:
- A notification that there is a specific danger in a specific area (beyond the standard day to day danger we all experience just living in the city)
- A description of what happened and the suspect in sufficient detail to allow those that are likely to jump at shadows to not jump at every shadow.
- An indirect endorsement of the use of self-defense to halt an attack. (Something the Police can't endorse explicitly, btw, but which can be highly effective for this type of attack. Also something that I've NEVER seen in this sort of announcement before.)
- A request to be "vigilant" and to take "common sense precautions". This may seem redundant to those that have lived in city's before.. but a ton of folks in this city come from elsewhere and may have little to no experience with "stranger crime".
- a request/reminder to help with community policing by reporting suspicious activities to the police.

What isn't here:
- any request for anyone to change their schedule, change their behavior, etc other than to be more aware of your surroundings (the example, using headphones, would fall into "common-sense, every day" precautions to me; unless you are excited to get killed by a hybrid vehicle crossing a street).
- any indication that you shouldn't come home on the T at 11 pm, 1am, 4am, whenever as you seem offended by.
- any statement that you shouldn't fight off your attacker if you can't evade them.
- anything REMOTELY implying that the woman was IN ANY WAY at fault and/or that they are treating this crime against her lightly. If you get that here, it is all in your head.

[dial-zero.livejournal.com]

I can't respond in-depth now, if the wording had just said, "to KEEP taking commonsense precautions," I would have appreciated it a lot, because it would have acknowledged that we already alter our lives in ways large and small to avoid assault.

Also, I grew up in a town of 6,000 people and still managed to absorb all the cultural messages about "stranger danger" that I did, so I don't know who these commonsense precautions are supposed to be news to.

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

thank you for being a voice of reason.

[darxus.livejournal.com]

Keep your cell phone easily accessible so you can call in real quick after you get raped. No encouragement for being able to defend yourself by carrying pepper spray, even though they even said that's how she got him to "cease his attack". And pepper spray requires a permit in this state.

That pisses me off.

But you can pick up the application at your police department and getting the permit should be no problem.

Or you can get the application here: http://www.mass.gov/Eeops/docs/chsb/firearms/Resident_LTC_FID_Application_20100315

And pepper spray can be conveniently concealed in your hand. And / or on your keychain.

[turil.livejournal.com]

"indecently assaulted"?

That sounds suspiciously like one of those things that might be more likely a case of misunderstanding and bad timing, rather than an actual intent to harm someone. Like maybe the guy was flirting with her and thought she was into it, and playfully jumped on her to kiss her or something else similarly romantic in one situation, and scary in another, depending on the timing.

Without more details, it's impossible to tell.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

No. Read what dial_zero said above.

If a woman felt called upon to use pepper spray to prevent it going any further, the man does not get a pass for "playfully jumped on her to kiss her or something else similarly romantic" because he "was flirting with her and thought she was into it."

Whether you mean it that way or not, you are blaming the victim.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Blame is a useless concept that I don't use. Instead I seek to understand reality.

Rather than jumping to conclusions that this guy "deserved" to be physically harmed by this woman (and her pepper spray), I'd like to know what his intentions were, and what his side of the story was. Because there are always at least two sides of the story.

But I know that many people think that it's acceptable to believe everything a woman says about a man when it comes to sex. And that's to be expected, because we are the weaker sex and need protection.

[grapefruiteater.livejournal.com]

If someone I don't know is following me on Summer St. in the dark and attempting to flirt with me, that's creepy, at the very least—nevermind if they "playfully jumped on" me. It's not a misunderstanding if someone feels threatened by that behavior, because that behavior is strange and scary.

[turil.livejournal.com]

It would be a misunderstanding if the guy's intentions were something other than scaring her. But unless you ask him, you'll never know if it was a misunderstanding or not.

[psychohist.livejournal.com]

"Playfully jumped on her to kiss her" would not have resulted in her falling down.

Possibly the man was under the misimpression that he was doing something socially acceptable, but if so, the pepper spray proved him wrong. That's reality.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Well, there's one way to solve this. It's to find out what he intended.

[blinkidybah.livejournal.com]

This is possibly the most offensive thing I've ever seen in this community. I figured davis_square was above this kind of crap but of course it's turil so playing a totally irrational devil's advocate is more important than avoiding victim blaming or condoning rape culture.

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

Clearly, you missed the thread some time ago in which turil suggested that toddlers are capable of consensual sex. This comes in a close second though. Maybe she feels that the limelight hasn't shined brightly upon her in too long, so she had to jump in.

It's what I'm starting to think, yep.

[cos]

"As she turned around, an unknown white male knocked her to the ground and indecently assaulted her."

You sound suspiciously like someone who denies the plain meaning of what you read in order to concoct fantasies about how it might be something else entirely.

Sure, it's *possible* that the report is false, and what happened wasn't actually what we're being told. But you haven't given any reason to assume that it's a false report, you just seem to want to pretend that the plain language of the report itself might mean something other than what it actually means.

According to the report, when she turned around, this guy did two things:
- first, he knocked her to the ground
- second, he indecently assaulted her

Whatever you'd like to believe that means is not what it actually means.

Note, also, that according to the report, all she heard was footsteps. Among the things it doesn't say he did was flirt with her, or even say any words at all. Those are in your imagination.

[lizzielizzie.livejournal.com]

I hope the next guy who wants to flirt with me knocks me down and indecently assaults me. I love that sort of thing from strangers. In fact, I carry pepper spray to attract that sort.

[This post is Smiley Captioned for the Sarcasm-Impaired]

[leonardbriscoe.livejournal.com]

Sounds like someone wants attention.

Also, I don't know what kind of people you hang around, but knocking someone down, pretty much from behind, is not flirting, no matter how many responses you want your inbox filled with.

[degasmakevangoh.livejournal.com]

You really are too much.

...which is why I made this sf_drama post for you (http://community.livejournal.com/sf_drama/2978744.html).

Now you can have more of that attention you so desperately crave. >:/

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

Bullshit like this is a HUGE part of the reason that many, many, many people - men and women - who are raped or otherwise assaulted NEVER report the attack to the police, NEVER get help dealing with the trauma, and get the thrill of walking around blaming -themselves-.

Knock it. The fuck. OFF.