The San Francisco Police Department has not received a report about a rape that allegedly occurred on 19th and Capp streets early Monday morning or made contact with the victim as of Thursday evening, an inspector told Mission Local on Thursday.
The investigation is ongoing, said Inspector John Keane who was at Bender’s Bar Thursday afternoon interviewing patrons.
“There is not much we can do without the victim’s cooperation,” Keane said explaining that no report had been filed. “I encourage her to come forward.”
Police department statistics show that 127 rapes were reported citywide in San Francisco in 2011 compared to 140 in 2010, but more than 60 percent of rapes go unreported, according to the FBI.
Mission Local made contact with the victim on Wednesday through a friend. The victim, who wished to remain anonymous, explained that she wanted to share what happened to warn others. She said that she was attacked by two men after leaving Bender’s Bar shortly before 2 a.m. on Monday morning. During the 10-minute interview, the victim sounded uncomfortable and upset when reliving the incident.
The two assailants allegedly attacked her from behind while she was standing at the corner of 19th and Capp streets. They then allegedly dragged her to a nearby driveway on Capp Street and sexually assaulted her, she said.
The victim also told Mission Local that she was taken to San Francisco General Hospital shortly after the attack. However, according to Keane, the hospital didn’t know about the incident as of Thursday.
The victim did not respond to Mission Local’s phone calls seeking comment today.
A Facebook message posted by Tuula Ala, a friend of the victim, started circulating on social media sites, Reddit and other blogs on Wednesday afternoon.
“Okay people. I need your help […] One of my friends was VIOLENTLY ASSAULTED and RAPED by two men she did not know Sunday night at 19th and Capp. You wanna get graphic? I’m talking stitches in the cervix. With her permission, I’ve written to the two local mission blogs, asking them to publish this incident. Nothing. Police help? NOTHING.”
The message then mentioned that a friend saw two men fitting the description of the attackers. “One had scratches on his face that correspond with the attack. Two Hispanic men, between 20-25. One stocky, one lean, one with obvious scratches on his face,” Ala wrote.
When the SF Appeal made contact with Ala, through an intermediary, she said the victim “has agreed to talk to people,” and passed on a phone number. But when an SF Appeal reporter called the victim, she said she was done talking about the attack and urged the reporter to lose her number.
Keane took the opportunity to warn neighbors about the importance of walking home with other people and being aware of your surroundings at night.
If you have any information regarding this case, please call San Francisco Police Inspector John Keane at 415-553-9225 or the anonymous tip line at 415-552-4558.
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Ala had said that the victim “has agreed to talk to police.” According to the SF Appeal, Ala said that the victim “has agreed to talk to people.”
Hey, you guys might want to see this:
http://www.kron4.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=4427
“San Francisco Police Make Possible Connections Between Two Rapes in the Mission
By: Brian Shields – Fri, 22 Jun 2012 20:01:33 -0800
SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — San Francisco police detectives say they have identified the woman who told two local blogs that she was raped on Monday, June 18th in the Mission District.
The victim spoke with the two online publications but never filed a police report about the attack in the early morning hours near 19th Street and Capp Street.
Now investigators say they have identified connections between this crime and another sexual assaults in the same area involving two men with similar descriptions. On June 15, a woman says two men approached her from behind, grabbed her, and tried to rape her on Erie Alley near 13th Street. That’s just five blocks from the most recent crime.
One of the two men is as short as 5’4 while the other is taller, about 5’10. Police are putting more detectives on the two cases to look for more similarities that could lead to the arrest of the pair of rapists.
If you know anything about these crimes, contact San Francisco Police”
I imagine he got the scratches on his face from a previous rape victim.
whether this is true or not, i think every woman living in the mission should go buy a bottle of pepper spray and if you have to walk home at night hold that bottle in your hand as you walk.
This type of crime always needs to be reported right away. I understand how difficult that can me, but even if for some odd reason, one does not want to deal with the law, you need to report so the police can try to catch the criminals so this does not happen again to other women. It’s not only about this victim. True or false, this victim needs help.
Mission Local – if you could continue to chase this and get a “yay or nay” on its validity, that would be truly appreciated. On one hand, I don’t want to hassle a potential victim, but as other posters have pointed out, if there ARE these perps out there, this is likely just the beginning for them.
first off, talking to the police and filing a report are two different things. like you just go into the hospital and they automatically see injuries and don’t assume your bf and you were messing around? they can tell it’s rape? i was sexually assaulted and didnt want to tell ANYONE at the hospital. they don’t instantly report “suspicious injuries” to the police: it would be a serious amendment violation. do you even know how many times hospitals report “objects” being lodged in people’s body? you think they call the cops?? that’s a personal decision for someone to make. people can receive treatment or talk to the cops and then decide they don’t want to proceed. I know I did. maybe the woman knows her rapist and doesn’t want to identify them. do you think the police keep a log of every comment or call? considering how often rape happens vrs. how often it’s actually reported.
From the SFAppeal Article:
“In an email published by Mission Mission, a person describing themselves as a friend of the alleged said:
‘The rape was reported at SFGH as well as in a police report, and also to SF WAR. If necessary, my friend is willing to provide hospital records with her name blacked out as evidence.'”
Neither the police, SF General Hospital, or SF WAR (Women Against Rape) have come forward to say that such a report was made.
http://sfappeal.com/news/2012/06/sfpd-no-record-of-sexual-assault-at-19th-and-capp-streets.php
Sorry, to be more clear it is a Remington Sound Mate personal safety siren.
When I moved to SF my father bought me a SoundMate hand held noise alarm. You can carry it in your purse and hold it in your hand when walking. You squeeze it to set it off. The sound it makes is sooo incredibly loud, supersonic, disorienting to assailants, plus no criminal wants to be seen and get caught, so it is a great deterrent. I think it is a brilliant form of non-voilent self defense. It only costs about $20 and I highly recommend every woman who walks alone carry one with her. (You can order them online- Sound Mate)
This is a great idea. The last thing a rapist needs is attention to be drawn to his crime.
i think it is pretty clear that this has been a scam the whole time. it is sad and irresponsible that people use rape as a ploy for attention. more importantly, incidents like this make me immediately doubt any allegation of sexual assault unless I know the victim personally. maybe that frame of mind is a positive unintended consequence for we are in a county where people are innocent until proven guilty.
what is most shameful is that race was brought into the mix.
rape is a serious and vile crime, but the recklessness in which allegation are submitted and the immediate mob mentality of supporters leads to a desensitizing of the population to ACTUAL rape/sexual assault claims. sad.
I’m a “mandated reporter” as a nurse at SFGH. I would like to clarify the rape reporting process for you all, since there’s a lot of misinformation being thrown around here. There’s absolutely nothing inconsistent in this story to suggest the victim is lying. If you know anything about the reporting process, that would be clear. So here’s how it works:
If a patient seeks medical care after sexual assault, it is true the hospital must file a report with the city. However, this report is 100% confidential and is not the same thing as a police report!!! It’s processed by a separate division of law enforcement which is required to keep it secret from the police crime unit and out of the public record. Therefore, only a handful of people will know the incident occurred, and they are legally bound to keep it confidential, even from the rest of the police force.
An actual “police report” is only filed if the patient CHOOSES to do so. The incident then becomes part of the public record and the city must then launch a criminal investigation. Once a police report is filed, the victim is no longer anonymous.
The hospital legally CANNOT publicly acknowledge whether or not they treated the victim for injuries incurred from a rape. Ever. So that explains why they are denying any knowledge of the incident.
In sum: it’s quite possible (and common) that this incident would not be acknowledged by police or the hospital. This is consistent with legal protection’s of the victim’s rights, which are designed to ensure that she/he can get medical attention and legal assistance while maintaining confidentiality. I don’t know anything about this particular case, but this woman deserves the benefit of the doubt. She may have just experienced a horrific trauma, and nothing about her story is inconsistent thus far. Its irresponsible and disrespectful to go around drumming up suspicion over such a thing unless you have damn good proof and sufficient knowledge of the legal process to back it up. Shame on Mission Local and on the numerous commenters for not doing their homework.
I hope as she begins to recover she does decide to file a police report. She still has time to do so. But please respect her wishes and right to elect not to do so. Many victims simply don’t feel they can withstand the process of police interrogation and testifying in court, since this means her name will be released and require reliving the event over and over….she was brave to anonymously tell the news media in order to alert others….
Thank Kelly, explained so well.
No police report. No hospital record. (odd being that the post said she received stitches in cervix.) What’s up? This is weird.
See why the girl didn’t report it? Even here there are people questioning an anonymous woman’s credibility and if she was even raped at all, as if this is so far-fetched.
Apparently she was willing to ‘report it’ to facebook and blogs, but not to the police? And SF General has no record of what would be a pretty serious and notable emergency procedure?
I live in this neighborhood, as does my wife, I am genuinely concerned, but this story isn’t holding water.
“You wanna get graphic? I’m talking stitches in the cervix.”
Why no hospital record if her cervix needed stitches?
when someone is raped a lot occurs for the person.
I don’t really think there needs to be judgement on any woman reporting a specific rape (esp. if she is not naming the perp) – it happens. even *IF* it did NOT happen on Sunday night at Capp and 19th, it DID happen somewhere else.
the bigger issue is about what it takes to report a story initially in any media format, and what values the blog wants to have about unnamed (unvalidated) sources, intermediaries and/or unreported (to the police) crimes.
No rape has been reported to the SFPD, which is the only report that matters in terms of getting anything done. The only judgement (excepting the usual “what was she wearing?” trolls who will never Get It) has come from people who understand that until she files a report, she’s not helping.
So far, I’ve seen most of the blogs do a decent job of reporting what little information there is. There’s a lot of chasing each other’s tails, but that’s to be expected when the only sources are a since-hidden Facebook post and a single phone call.
Go look at the SFPD’s facebook page. It seems SFPD is now looking for a connection for this (June 18th) and another incident “June 15, 2012 on Erie Alley near 13th Street” with perpetrators with a similar description. As for how all of this is being reported strangely — I can’t say. The woman is probably overwhelmed, just a guess, and her friends are clearly upset. I don’t think it’s a scam.
If the police and the hospital don’t have the incident it sounds pretty odd.
I hope that she gets help if it happened. If it did not happen, talk about instilling fear in people for no reason.
Hi there, I am Tuula, the person quoted in the article. I acted as the go between for the victim and gave her number but not her name to the reporter, with whom she did the article. I don’t understand why my name is being quoted, I did not talk to anyone at SF Appeal. I gave the victim’s number to a reporter at mission local, who then interviewed her.
Your name is being used because you’ve acted as the victim’s spokesperson. You’ve posted on FB that the police aren’t helping, when there’s no police report on file as of last night. What more is there to understand?
Why did you try to throw the police department under by making a false statement that the police did nothing to help? That’s such a ridiculous and false statement. The police take rape reports very seriously and investigate all of these incidents. The fact is, this incident was not reported to the SFPD because it probably did not happen and/or there is much more to the story than is being revealed. Stop making irresponsible statements.
Mission local and their ‘alleged’ reporters need to be more responsible when reporting a violent crime that may or may have no been occurred.
Thanks for putting unecessary and incorect info out there only to print a sensationalized article.
If this did happen I truly hope the victim comes forward or this is a truly disgusting joke.
There was nothing incorrect in the initial article. The police never received a complaint, cited in the article, which does not mean that a crime did not occur and considering this past year there was serial rapist targeting women in the Mission, I think it was important for Mission Local to alert the community so as people can walk in groups late in the night.
One should always walk in groups while drinking late at night in the mission, esp females….sorry, but do not need an article to remind me to do this.
Furthermore, they are not alerting the community, but rather instilling fear into it….and as a resident, I think it is irresponsible. Any person can call the paper and report a crime, a good reporter would do some fact finding.
If this really happened then she needs to report it & cooperate with police ASAP. Hopefully there’s evidence still at the hospital and they can get surveillance video or a sketch of the suspects. If this is a hoax, then it’s pretty twisted. Either way, it’s smart to follow the buddy system when walking home at night.
He fact that SF General has no record of treating her makes this seem pretty bogus
HIPAA regulations would prevent the hospital from disclosing medical information anyway. They’re not allowed to say what any of their patients were being seen for, at any time, period.
When i was 14 i was sexually assualted. I told no one. Why? Many reasons. Two years later he raped another girl. I had to watch an innocent 17 year old cry as she recanted her story in front of the courtroom. I knew the twisted scum’s identity, and had i turned him in he would have been in prison that day instead of violating that poor girl (based on the sentence he received for assualting me). Its something i will always carry with me.
These two, thus far, think they got away with it and will do it again.