Thursday, August 7, 2008

sexual harassment and me...sigh

I'm mad enough right now that I'm going to post a fairly real story. As usual, details and stuff have been changed, but really, I don't know how I could even begin to make this up. Did you now I have "buffalo breasts"? Because I didn't!

So I have this IDPA. He's crazy. And by that, I mean he's intoxicated and has a severe and persistent mental illness. I'm not one to use the word crazy, but in this instance, it seemed fitting. The police who gave him to me apologized for doing so. I said, oh, I'm sure it'll be fine, little did I know.

Stuck him in a cameraed cell...mistake (or well, actually a good thing). Guy gets naked and starts masturbating. Guy is very harassing towards me when I'm doing checks, but whatever, I'm ignoring him for the most part. This guy is very creative when it comes to finding ways to please himself, which is hard when all you have is a mat. I am trying very hard not to watch, but when he's not busy with himself, he's doing stuff like throwing himself against cement walls at high speed or shreding his mat into tiny pieces.

I have never been talked to the way this guy talked to me. Asking me to come "suck his dick" and offering me sex even though I'm "ugly". I won't get into it, but it was incredibely vulgar, and I had no choice but to ignore it, or argue, and I don't argue with intoxicated people. My supervisor came and told him to put "it" away and all he said was "isn't it big". So fine. I'm busy ignoring him. Then the police come to drop off another IPDA, and this, is why I'm mad. And, I don't have to protect their privacy, only my IPDA's.

So anyway, one of the cops sees my IPDA who by now has semen all over his cell and window. Cop tells IPDA that I'm at the front laughing at him masturbating for the camera (yes, he was totally thinking of me, and looking right at the camera). So then the police officer comes over, around the counter to my side, and tells me what he told the IPDA (i couldn't hear because it was the other end). Then he says "so are you watching" I said "no, actually I'm trying not to, he's been harassing me all night". Then the officer says "I so caught you, you like it, I know you liked it, I'm just going to go tell him how much you like it", and then he takes off down the hall, again, I couldn't hear what he said. There was more to the conversation, but yeah. The freaking cops are egging the guy on, and harassing me. BAH!

So, I talked to my supervisor, who got me to file an incident report. Talked with my boss this morning, who's never dealt with this before, but is glad I reported it and is going to talk to our executive director about it... he also lost the incident report in the 24 hours between me reading it and talking to him... i should have photocopied it... oops. I hope he finds it, because it has the best description of the incident. Also the car number of jerk face. Sigh. We'll see what happens, hopefully something. I mean, i'm not a big whiner, and I can deal with intoxicated people being jerks, but the police, they're supposed to be professionals.

4 comments:

antiSWer said...

Umm, yikes. I'm only going to comment on the police aspect of this, as that seems to be the pertinent part.

Have you considered filing a complaint with the police department? I would definitely think from the description that both you AND the "IDPA" were harassed.

That's absolutely unacceptable.

Anonymous said...

Ergh - that made me so angry on your behalf just reading it and I don't even know you. That really stinks big time. I would create such a fuss if any policeman acted in that way. It is beyond unacceptable, I'd say it's verging on the criminal.

Wow, I'm still angry.. :(

Herman said...

:( ugh that's really really awful. Totally unacceptable. I hope you are dealing with it ok.

(ps - learned the hard way to photocopy everything)

Anonymous said...

Please consider filing a police report about the cop's behavior. He is making the environment less safe for you and your clients by his inappropriate, harassing behavior.

Another comment--I often used to think of myself as causing trouble, or whining, if I am pointing out something negative. What can I say--I was socialized to be a people pleaser. In certain cases it's helped me to start thinking about stepping up as a safety issue. It's okay to express directly to an officer that his comments are inappropriate and unhelpful. Not easy, given the power of the police, but important to do. Often I've found assertiveness--and it's not whining--is my first line of defense as a social worker.