(stories reported in the Feminist Blog)

This is the worst assault I’ve ever seen where the person ended up living, according to Denver police Lt. Gary Lauricella. He is talking about the savage beating of a pregnant 18 year old woman by her former boyfriend, 21-year-old Reed Gulley, on 20 September 2001. Gulley was arrested for assaulting her on 17 September 2001, but the judge proved his sensitivity to violence against women by giving Gulley only 220 days in jail, then suspended 219 days and crediting him the last day with time served. The very night that Gulley was released, he went to his former partner’s apartment and beat the shit out of her. She was found lying in a bathtub full of water (attempted drowning?), with broken bones in her face and all of her teeth knocked out. She was battered so savagely that it caused a miscarriage of her pregnancy and she had to be put into a coma temporarily to relieve swelling on her brain [Denver Post]. On the same day, the Denver Post also reported that a doctor was arrested the day before for serial sexual assault of at least three pregnant women under the guise of an obstetrical check-up (and they wonder why women are preferring to go to female ob-gyns?).

All this is so outrageous that there are words I can put to how mad it makes me. Here’s a free clue for the Denver criminal justice system: partner battery and sexual assault are not minor crimes. Men who commit them cannot be trusted to walk the streets after three days time served. For the safety of the community, Gulley needs to be in jail for the rest of his life, and I wish that the fucking judge who let him free would be arrested for criminal neglect. Sexual assault and partner violence are forms of torture. They are crimes against humanity. They are terrorism against women. And they need to be treated as such. This kind of shit is exactly why we need an organized, radicalized, agitating feminist movement which will hold men accountable for the violence they commit, and the violence they allow by not taking these kind of acts seriously.

For further reading:

• GT 5/17/2001 Seattle SuperSonics forward receives only 15 days in jail for attempted rape

• GT 8/1/2001 Rape and battery still rampant in teenage dating

• GT 4/19/2001 Male doctors at East Alabama Medical Center refuse to give emergency contraception to rape survivors

• GT 9/24/2001 The Rape Blog documents pervasive sexual terrorism against women

• GT 3/11/2001 and GT 3/12/2001 Faux Leftists make excuses for Lionel Tate’s savage murder of a six-year-old girl

• A letter on why We Need Campus Activism

Take action! Read about What You Can Do to Support Women’s Rights. Participate in campaigns through the Stop Family Violence online action network. Visit NOW’s Violence Against Women campaigns page.