You can do a lot in 20 years
The NY Times on David Carrick:
The police officer told one woman he was the “safest person she could be with,” before threatening her with a gun and raping her repeatedly. He shut another woman in a small closet under his staircase, holding her there for hours on end. One of the women he sexually assaulted was a fellow police officer.
At a sentencing hearing in London on Monday, prosecutors laid out the shocking details of the sexual violence carried out by the officer, David Carrick, who raped, assaulted, and abused at least 12 women during his nearly two-decade police career.
That’s the thing about a police career, I suppose – it can enable predators.
Last month, after Mr. Carrick pleaded guilty, Shilpa Shah, the senior crown prosecutor in the case, said that the vast number of charges for rape and serious sexual assault over a 17-year period was “one of the most significant cases” with which prosecutors had dealt.
All the more so given that the perp is a cop.
The cases have fueled broader concerns about misogyny within policing and violence against women and girls.
Misogyny is everywhere. It’s pervasive, loud, seen as funny. It’s the water we swim in.
That sounds very Trumpy. “There’s nobody more safe than me, nobody less racist than me…”
This is why I have to take a deep breath before choosing to deal with anybody who pulls the “very few men are rapists” gambit. One predator can harm hundreds easily before they are caught. And yes, this is another reason why I have no tolerance for men in women’s spaces.
Cops are first responders, so we give them free reign to do whatever they want. You know, since they “put their lives on the line.”
I was listening to a podcast about the Memphis Police force, and the Scorpion team. They were given free reign and complaints against them were ignored for the entire year, in large part because official crime statistics went down. Crimes were still being committed, but now they were committed by the cops.
(I don’t think that cops are bastards. I think that they need to be held accountable by the people they are hired to “serve and protect.” It’s too easy for a rapist like Carrick to hide in a culture that places a higher value on having each other’s backs, and in a culture of misogyny, than it does in protecting the public.)
Yeah, but so do roofers – they have a more dangerous job than cops – but no one claims we should give them free reign.
Cops are definitely romanticized over roofers
I have agoraphobia and only assisted on roofing once. I was miserable and the house seemed like it was 100′ tall.