She went to the police, and then she went to the hospital. The police officer who blew her off said she didn’t want to press charges, but do we have any independent confirmation of that from someone else? It’s not an unknown tactic for lazy or hostile police officers to claim that victims don’t want to press charges.
I didn’t know that, but it also suggests to me that there might have been a drug that the test didn’t pick up.
[A toxicology lab](http://www.expertox.com/documents/ExperTox-Date_Rape-Updated-May_2011.pdf) says that blood should only be submitted for testing for date-rape drugs if the sample is taken within five hours of the administration of the drug. Was the FSU victim within that range? She called 911 at 3:22 am.
@momofthreeboys: But how could the university tell that he wasn’t a threat if they didn’t investigate? That’s where I have a problem with the whole “colleges shouldn’t even be involved with these cases” thing.
I’m not saying nobody lies about being raped. People lie. Rather, I’m wondering why she would tell this lie, if she was lying. It doesn’t seem to me to be a good lie to tell.
Here’s a few disjointed comments -
The girl seems to have done almost everything that a rape victim is “supposed” to. She reported the assault almost immediately to the police; she went to the nurse for an examination and for blood tests. The biggest immediate problem the police had was that she couldn’t give them enough information for them to arrest a specific person, so I’m not sure who specifically she could have pressed charges against, which might have contributed to her reluctance. But in the first few nights, she did everything that many people would want her to do.
Does anyone know how the victim’s name got out in public? I’m pretty sure it was plastered all over the comments sections of the sports pages many months before she decided to go public. I find it disgusting that someone would do that to an (alleged) rape victim. She was bullied at FSU and by tens of thousands of football fans in Tallahassee. She was called all kinds of disgusting names in sports media read by tens of millions of people. (Winston was as well, but to some extent it goes with the territory of being a national star and doing stupid things like breaking windows, shouting misogynistic things in public after being accused of rape, and stealing crab legs). I think whoever leaked her name was trying to harass and bully her, and I really don’t like this.
Even though Winston wasn’t a collegiate star at the time of the incident, he was a consensus 5-star freshman recruit and was considered one of the absolute top QB prospects in the nation out of high school. I find it completely plausible that enough people at the university, the police department, and the town had a vested interest in turning a blind eye or in obstructing the investigation. We’ve seen too many examples of this when big time college sports are involved.
One key fact that has been overlooked in the thread IMHO. I believe (but I’m not sure) that somehow the victim’s father was told by one of her friends that his daughter had been raped within a hour or two of the incident. In my limited experience, it’s always a huge complicated factor when parents are involved. Kid’s can’t admit that they’ve done something that their parents wouldn’t approve of, and lies rapidly spin out of control. Perhaps this is the origin of the date rape drugging speculation? I would research this aspect to better understand the case.
DFB. I live in a college town. So my three Gen Y-ers have been going to concerts and restaurants and parties in and around the college campus for many years, beginning in high school. They are constantly mixing with other kids. Particularly in the summer, they are bumping into kids not yet in college, just out of college, temporarily dropped out of college, home for the summer and working but in college at another place, enrolled in college somewhere else but taking a summer college class, etc. etc. etc. Two of my kids attend school elsewhere. One of my kids attended the local college but not currently since he and some of his college colleagues have dropped out to start up a business.
If any of the kids gets into a bad situation with someone they meet at a local concert, the local PD will always have jurisdiction. Depending on the fortuity of who the kids involved are, though, the local college may have significant responsibility and liability. Or none. Seems quite bizarre and arbitrary to me.
The accuser’s lawyer said they were waiting to see how rhe investigation turned out before charges were brought.
This seems pretty logical to me. Just because somebody is assaulted doesn’t mean that somebody has a case.
The alleged victim is now called a liar? I am blown away. The alleged victim has been interrogated. Winston said almost nothing.
Check out Winston’s record. He stole. He vandalized. After being accused of sexual assault, he stood and yelled or sang something that is incredibly offensive to women. All women. Yet… Women defend him and call the woman a money hungry liar. She wouldn’t have a case against FSU…
Check out what Meggs said…
[The Washington Post](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/wp/2015/02/19/erica-kinsman-who-accused-jameis-winston-of-rape-tells-her-story-in-new-documentary-the-hunting-ground/) reports that Kinsman’s father was with her at the hospital. So as al2simon says, her father knew about the alleged assault right away. But if she herself called her father, that also suggests that she is not intentionally lying.
CF, this is purely speculation but here’s my theory - she willing went with him but for some reason felt mistreated, culminating with him probably telling her to “get dressed” and that he’d “give her a ride home.” He probably is a total jerk. He had a girlfriend. She had a boyfriend. He probably saw it as a one-time hook-up. I mean, it must have been a totally humiliating night for her with the roommate barging in and video-taping to top it off. She told her friend she was raped, and according to the police report it was the friend, not Ms. Kinsman, who called the police. I think she was genuinely upset and saving face so told her friend she’d been raped and drugged and/or hit her head. She might have lied to her friend, but she didn’t untangle anything when confronted by the police. She was down the rabbit hole when the police arrived to accompany her to the hospital and began the investigation especially with the friend’s report already on police desk making claims for what she said. That’s my theory anyway. I personally don’t think she ever intended to lie, except maybe to her friends.
And it could explain why she told the police repeatedly that she didn’t want to press charges, why she told the college repeatedly she didn’t want to bring it up on Title IX adjudication. It even explains maybe why her family member lawyer was so anxious to get the tox screens and asked for them to be tested twice. I think her family wanted to believe her alot. The fact that her bruising as documented at the hospital fell more in-line fairly conveniently with the roommate story was the final straw I think for her 50.0001% change. the federal judge the college hired outlined all the inconsistencies but also concluded that she could absolutely be upset and traumatized. All this could explain why she never really pursued legal avenues against Winston and kind of let it drift along. I suspect she totally felt used and totally a victim but I suspect she knew she’d embellished some things so was constantly worried. When the guy started making national news as an athlete and the media got the police records, she was under intense scrutiny and much negative publicity which had to be awful for her. But it was so late in the game there was not much she could do to alter or untangle anything. I think it really hurt her coupled by the fact that the police had kept the case open but basically shelved.
Anyway that’s how I reconcile the facts and the story. Now I get to enjoy dstark jump all over me and tell me I never support women. It’s easy to look in the rear view window and there are so many things she coulda, shoulda done with a good legal counsel. It’s rather sad.
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@northwesty, it is quite bizarre and arbitrary—and that’s the sort of thing the keeps university general counsels up all night with ulcers.
Let me just point out that even if Winston was entirely innocent, it could still be the case that the university, the police, and the athletic department subverted the process to protect him against the allegations. Those things aren’t inconsistent.
Let me just add that I don’t care for ad hominem criticism of people who raise differing point of views on this, or any other topic. I suggest that people try to discuss only the merits if possible.
Can somebody tell me how to turnoff this particular thread’s notification…
According to the records, she was within the time for the blood testing to be accurate.
It is clear this guy is not (or at least was not at the time) a good guy that treated woman with respect. I think her name was known on the campus, before it was released publicly. The abuse she was subjected to was horrible.
I don’t know that it is relevant that Winston had some petty crimes on his record. Vandalism does not make him a rapist.
According the WashPo article DStark posted about the Hunting Ground, Meggs said something “not good” happened. The way Winston treated her was certainly “not good”; the question is whether it was criminal. Interesting that the Hunting Ground movie reports that she took a shot with Winston she thought was drugged, but does not share that the blood tests did not support her in that belief. I thought she said someone not Winston gave her the shot she thought was drugged?
Winston’s lawyer, as allowed under the law, did not want him to answer questions. That is a constitutional right. Using that right is not supposed to be used to decide someone is guilty. We all should be well aware of cases where innocent people trust the police and end up in jail due to ill advised answers to interrogation. Not saying this guy is innocent, but using his 5th amendment rights also does not make him guilty. In fact in one article the prosecutor (I think that is who) says it is too bad the cops didn’t talk to him at baseball practice when he would have been off his guard, and not read his Miranda rights (since he was not under arrest), and perhaps they would have caught him in a lie (although how that would have been admissible is not clear to me). He then retained a lawyer, so he still may have been smart enough to not answer police questions even at the practice.
None of this makes her a liar, but it makes her case difficult to prove.
I was under the impression that Meggs’ “not good” remark pertained to the shoddy investigation rather than the unknown details of the encounter.
Cardinal Fang,
I doubt you would win a case against a police department. If these people can’t win, I doubt the woman involved in the FSU case would.
Look at this case.
That’s what I figured, @dadoftwingirls.
In the article linked to the quote was:
I was just going to quote what mom2and quoted.
That is Megg’s quote about the assault. In addition Megg has commented on the investigation.
Another prosecuter involved said although there aren’t going to be charges against Winston, this doesn’t mean Winston is innocent.
Winston was suspended for what he said in a cafeteria. I am paraphrasing. No doesn’t mean no. This is after he was investigated for sexual assault.
This doesn’t mean Winston committed the assault, but it does show a disrepect for women. I don’t know why women would support this guy.
We don’t know what happened that night. We would know more if the investigation was done properly. Since we don’t know, why speculate that the accuser is a liar?
Why? What is gained? Fewer women are going to report sexual assaults. Why would a victim would want to go through this?
I can see why the reporting numbers are so low.
Dadoftwingirls, that is a great link. I don’t like the link, but it explains a lot.
Thanks.