Special Assault Unit

We received the phone call to set up the date for our child to be interviewed by the specialist. In Kitsap county a child that has been sexually victimized never has to talk to an actual sheriff detective. They are instead interviewed by someone with specialized training in this area. Eric and I took our child to this appointment. We knew ahead of time that we were not going to be allowed in the interview room. This was a huge deal to me. This rule, although I understand why it is in place, almost caused me not to proceed in officially reporting the crime. The child enters  a room with the specialist and is audio and video recorded by a stranger.

Meanwhile, Eric and I sat in a small room where there were few toys, a chalk board, a small kid table, and a specially built play-toy in the corner. The room was depressing, the building was run down and full of clutter in the hallway. Everything about the place felt yucky. And this was where we were at to get help. Any victim of sexual abuse in the Kitsap area had to come to this particular building to start the legal process. The appearance of the building did not bring on emotions of confidence or importance. Quite the opposite!

When you have a child that has been victimized they are given an advocate that is suppose to explain the process to you and help you make contacts that you might need to make. Our advocate was nice enough but right off when we briefly told her what we knew about our case at that time, the advocate stated that no charges would probably be filed because of the limited information. This was discouraging to say the least.

The detective involved in our case had made a similar statement. He had said although this guy (Patrick) was clearly a predator he didn't have much to go on and not to expect charges to be filed by the prosecutor. It was very frustrating to hear this from the people that were supposed to be on the side of justice. Clearly a crime had been committed. Why was it so hard to bring about justice?  They live the life of injustice day in and day out. Many, many cases similar to ours don't get prosecuted and that is both unjust and scary to me!


From "The Center" post.