UVA and the alleged frat rape - Rolling Stone backpedals

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"Jackie's lawyer fighting deposition, claiming she will be "re-traumatized."
Lawyers for 'Jackie' in discredited Rolling Stone rape story fight deposition | Fox News

Good luck with that.

 

Her name is Jackie Coakley. It is not "Jackie."

 

I wish PW2 were here to interpret this latest legal salvo.

 

Except for Jeffrey Epstein

 

If someone reports a burglary, do the police tend to believe them or dismiss them?

People do fake burglaries for the insurance money.

I would say believing the alleged victim that a crime was committed is the default start position in most cases.

 

Who is asking them to "dismiss" anybody?

And I would say that you take the alleged victim's accusation seriously and investigate it. No "default position" required.

 

I'm assuming that if someone reports a crime and police don't believe that the crime actually happened, they aren't going to give it their best effort or anything.

They might just talk the alleged victim into deciding not to pursue it further. Or maybe they would threaten to charge her with making a false accusation.

So I have heard.

 

I get what you're saying.

My problem is when "default position" becomes, "Dig in against all evidence to the contrary."

 

I agree. Just thinking you treat them all the same.

As a reoprter, the stories that seem the most plausible initially often turn out to be nothing. And the ones that seem crazy sometimes are true.

You just do the work and see where it leads.

 

Tangent here, but I worked at Blockbuster Video in college with a couple of my fratbros. One of our co-workers was a complete fabulist.

A couple years after college, there is a front-page story in the local paper about how he was ambushed on our college campus, but used his martial arts techniques to fend off the assailant.

"Bullshit," we all agreed. "Did not happen."

A couple days later, he was back on the front page for making a false report.

 

Police and newspaper also release the names and addresses of the people (the victims) reporting the crimes.

 

Hopefully this can still spark an important discussion about how women in America, who wear headscarves, are treated:

A woman wearing a headscarf lied when she claimed she was slashed in Lower Manhattan by a man who called her a terrorist, the police said on Friday.

Robert K. Boyce, the chief of detectives for the New York Police Department, said the woman, a 20-year-old student from Egypt, would not face criminal charges because she had emotional issues. The woman, who admitted to the authorities that she had cut herself, was taken to Bellevue Hospital Center for a psychiatric evaluation, the police said.

The woman, whose name was not released, initially told investigators that she was leaving a school she attends at 65 Broadway in the financial district around 4:20 p.m. on Thursday when a white man grabbed her from behind, spun her around and slashed her across the face, the police said. But investigators found evidence that contradicted her story, and she recanted.

The authorities said surveillance video from the area showed that she had not left the building before calling the police, and Chief Boyce said investigators found blood in a bathroom on the 15th floor. The Make-up Designory, where the woman is studying cosmetology, is on the same floor.

The woman’s claim came as the police are grappling with an increase in slashings and stabbings this year.