Rapists in uniform #4: Standard Operating Procedure
Here's a pretty old post from the blog archives of Geekery Today; it was written about 16 years ago, in 2008, on the World Wide Web.
It’s done a lot. We have a lot of prisoners in there totally naked.
— Timothy Swanson, Sheriff of Stark County, Ohio.
Trigger warning. The link is to a local news story, which includes a video with short clips from a police video which may be triggering for experiences of sexual assault.
For the past several months, Sheriff Tim Swanson has refused all requests for interviews about the Hope Steffey case, claiming that it was inappropriate to comment on the case in the media while it was still being reviewed in court. Of course this was complete bollocks; as he just proved, the real issue was that he had an election coming up in November, and he didn’t want to say anything on teevee that could be used against him, and now that he has been safely re-elected he is happy to wallow around in front of a camera and say any damn thing he pleases about the case. For example, that his gang of hired muscle down at the jail are doing this sort of thing all the time, and it’s not his fault because he can’t ship people down to the local mental ward anymore and that it’s O.K. for his crew to strip down women with men in the room because he just can’t be bothered to figure out how to hire enough women that he won’t be routinely sexually traumatizing women in his jail, for their own good,
but, hey, it’s all O.K. for the Stark County Sheriff’s office to be running their own personal Abu Ghraib, because the mixed-gender hired muscle that strips women down in cells and leaves them there naked for hours at a time has a nifty four-letter acronym, which makes it all official and O.K.
There is absolutely no conceivable excuse for treating anyone this way, ever. Whether man or woman, calm or belligerent,
nice or nasty, crazy or sane. This is gang rape, professionalized and excused by Official Procedures. What is becoming clear is that Sheriff Tim Swanson and his goon squad, not only have convinced themselves that this kind of brutality is sometimes acceptable, but also that they have an especially broad understanding of the sort of situation that calls for it. They are a pack of dangerous predators, and their uniforms and badges don't make them any better than any other gang of serial rapists.
See also:
- GT 2008-02-05: Rapists in uniform
- GT 2008-03-07: Rapists in uniform #2: four more women come forward
- GT 2008-03-08: In Their Own Words:
Just following orders
edition - GT 2008-05-10: Rapists in uniform #3: a sixth woman comes forward
- GT 2008-06-23: We need government cops and government courts because private protection forces and private arbitrators would be accountable to the powerful and well-connected instead of being accountable to the people. (#2)
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John 
Time to ship “our” worst cops off to the Hague.
No?
And the moral of the story is that we live in a world where evil behavior is acceptable so long as they engage in said evil behavior on a regular basis.
If they only did it on the first Tuesday of every month, well then we’d have to string ’em up, but since they do it day in and day out, I guess it’s ok.
It should probably read, “for their own good” and not, “for their own god”.
“The Investigator Tom Meyer asked Swanson if he would want his wife treated that way if she was being held in jail. Swanson said, ‘If they deemed it necessary and she was out of control, it is what it is. You are responsible for your actions or inactions.'”
And if someone deems it necessary for Mr. Swanson, seeing how out of control he is, and his refusal to take responsibility for his actions or inactions?
I feel sorry for Mrs. Swanson. How sad to live in a house of people who say they would turn her over to strangers at strangers’ discretion and let them do with her whatever they saw fit without intervention. I suppose the belief that it could never actually happen to her is one way of coping.
People like these are why walls and bullets were invented. . . stand ’em against the wall, and put one right in their left eyeball. . .
everything about this story is horrifying. i came across this story/site while perusing feministblogs dot org. what a repulsive reminder of what many of us already know; those hired to protect us do not always have every citizen’s best interest/protection as their priority. this reminds me of all the women who end up tasered or the victims of excessive force because they (the women) did what they’ve been told to do when a car, that may or may not be a police car, attempts to pull them over on a dark and/or isolated road – they drive home, or to a well populated area. and, as someone with “functional” bipolar, i’d like to thank the person who has been writing this story for pointing out what can happen to a person who either honestly answers the question “do you want to harm yourself?” or who doesn’t instantly give a clear “no” right away to that question. it’s yet another shameful aspect of this country, the way both law enforcement and emergency rooms treat anyone who for the slightest of reason could be deemed mentally unstable or suicidal.