UPDATE: Read new information on this case at http://wweek.com/wwire/?p=12393.
A writer’s claim that a Reed College security guard raped her has thrust the private school into an uncomfortable spotlight for the second time this year.
As first reported June 30 on wweek.com, Janine Wonnacott of Arlington, Va., is suing the college and Noble Powell, the security guard she claims raped her in a dorm during a summer writers’ workshop in 2006.
“It was just a horrific incident,” says Wonnacott’s attorney, Salem lawyer Daniel Gatti. He says his client, a 28-year-old writer of nonfiction for magazines, has been hospitalized for emotional trauma three times since the encounter.
The lawsuit, filed June 27 in Multnomah County Circuit Court, seeks $4.6 million for Wonnacott’s psychological injuries and medical expenses, in addition to $1 million for suffering caused to her husband, Alan Wonnacott.
Reed College spokesman Kevin Myers declined to comment.
Reed has already settled one lawsuit this year, that one from a former campus security guard. The ex-guard, Josh Chambers, sued the school Feb. 29 claiming he was fired in 2006 for raising concerns that administrators had covered up evidence of heroin use in a campus apartment.
The school settled with Chambers for an undisclosed sum in March, a month before freshman Alejandro “Alex” Lluch died in his dorm of a heroin overdose (see “Higher Ed,” WW, May 14, 2008). Lluch’s family has not brought a lawsuit.
According to Wonnacott’s suit, she was attending a writers’ workshop put on by local publisher Tin House at Reed’s campus in Southeast Portland’s Eastmoreland neighborhood.
On the night of July 10, 2006, the lawsuit claims Wonnacott became intoxicated and fell down on a path near the college’s student union. Wonnacott’s speech was “slurred and incomprehensible,” the lawsuit says.
Two women who attended the conference called campus security. The lawsuit says two guards arrived, took Wonnacott to her room in a campus dorm, and said they would check on her throughout the night.
Several women on the hall who were attending the workshop became concerned when one of the guards, Powell, stayed alone with Wonnacott in her room, holding her hand under the covers while she laid in bed and cried, the lawsuit says.
According to the lawsuit, one of the women, Lisa Schappell, told Powell she was uncomfortable with him being there. The lawsuit says Powell told Schappell he was a medical professional.
Around midnight, the lawsuit says, Schappell returned to Wonnacott’s room, walked in and “found Powell with his legs apart, his pants down, and in the process of having intercourse with Wonnacott.”
According to the lawsuit, the police were called immediately and interviewed witnesses. No arrests were made, the lawsuit says.
The Portland Police Bureau has so far declined to release a copy of its report. According to the lawsuit, Powell told police he denied raping Wonnacott and said she gave consent.
Wonnacott told police she may have given consent. But because she was drunk, the lawsuit says, she “did not and could not have consented to having sexual intercourse.”
The lawsuit names Reed College and Powell as defendants. It claims Reed was negligent in failing to supervise Powell and enforce safety standards, and it alleges Powell was negligent for taking advantage of Wonnacott when he should have been protecting her.
According to Gatti, Powell, who was 40 years old at the time, was fired soon after the incident. Now 42 and living in Beaverton, he did not return a phone call seeking comment. An Oregon court records check shows Powell has no criminal record.
Federal law requires colleges to report crime statistics, including sexual assaults. But Reed, which has a reputation as one of the most academically rigorous schools in the country, has not always been forthright about sexual assaults.
In 2004, Reed sophomore Alison Mahan told The Oregonian she reported to administrators being raped in her dorm room in September 2003. But The O’s 2004 report said then that Reed’s official crime stats showed no reports of rape in the past three years. Mary Catherine King, a former dean of students, had told the newspaper a year after Mahan reported the assault that rape “just doesn’t occur here like it does at the larger state schools.”
According to the most recent data available, submitted by Reed, there were two forcible sex offenses on campus in 2006, two in 2005 and one in 2004.
FACT: Founded in 1908, Reed College has 1,400 students and charges $38,000 a year for tuition.
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Preventing Crime Is everyone's responsibility
I guess it's human for people today to be in a make believe world of their own, safe and secure, families living happy, healthy and successful. Nothing wrong with a happy family life, we all want such. True reality of life after September 11th is too much to fathom for Americans over three hundred million populace. We look at our little individual worlds as a safe haven far from crime and terrorist attacks!
Until someone in our family circle is a victim of crime! Then the world of reality strikes hard, with no natural affection, love, kindness, goodness present and panic set's in! Security and safety is gone suddenly, just like a raging storm! Like a tornado with no wall, tower, thing or person to stop it's powerful surge smashing your make believe world to pieces!
The police made their report, after they arrived, responding to a security department's call for help. They investigate and take statements from witnesses (If there was any), then make their report. They tell the victim/s that they will do what they can to find the criminal/s involved. That's all they can do. And they are doing their jobs well. No shame should fall on our Criminal Justice system's Vanguard, the police. They are a re-active crime control agency.
If the crime was at a Shopping mall, Hospital, University or office complex, chances are, the corporate owners are afraid the liability risk is much to high to give their security departments the right tools they need to prevent such crimes against your family. They implement a strict policy of hands off, when it comes to preventing crime! They are told to call the police if there is something that may cause an interruption in the peace and public safety. The owners even go as far as telling store keepers in the shopping malls to call the police directly, and do not call security, for they are wasting time going through the security thinking that the malls security can prevent a crime!
However! This entity (Security) is the only entity that has the before, during, and after the fact premise to be successful in preventing crime and terrorist attacks. The police are usually at a scene after the fact! Please, we are not saying the police are not needed! For they must be in place working with security to complete the circle of preponderate to fight crime!
So what happens when these sequence of scenes take place at this present time in American history? we then have in the end result, many frustrated people! The victim/s, their families, the security, the police, the owners, the politicians, and the public! For the crime was not prevented! And then everyone looks at the police and security, and say, where were you guys?
Does the Homeland Security department encourage the owners of these complexes, Shopping malls, Hospitals, Universities/Colleges and office complexes to give their security people the tools to prevent crime instead of just responding to these problems? Do they encourage law makers to change the laws to help private and governmental security people to Prevent Crime instead of acting like police, and just respond to a crime in progress? The five students killed when a gunman opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University Thursday ( 2-14-08) in the afternoon were at college to begin building their dreams. And please don't forget those Virginia State Tech. students had their dreams shattered to.
I believe this problem will continue, until the American People realize that crime prevention must have the Before factor to work! Security must be looked at in totally unique way, and must be developed to prevent these issues. Security must have the rights and duty to investigate before hand all connected to the Universities and other schools. Security must be able to detect before hand, these troubled people and be able to stop such bloodshed ! Security must not be an operation that mainly shows a reactive response. Security must have the high tech systems in place to detect issues that relate to prevention!
In essence, we as American citizens continue to ignore facts. Facts that will hit you right in the face, at any moment! You want more crime prevention? Then supply the before factor that will ultimately prevent your family from being the next victims in universities/colleges, hospitals, Shopping Malls and other complexes.
My research that started in 1968, shows that our communities could benefit greatly if large complexes would take the responsibility of preventing their own inevitable crime and terrorist attacks! Folks our front lines are not secure!
We have space age technology today that would boggle the minds of all Americans! This 21fst century technology is barely used in America, but, if it was, security would use it to prevent crime! You'd be surprised how much of this technology isn't being used in shopping malls, hospitals, universities/colleges and other complexes. It would put you in panic mode, and I could prove it! I am very concerned when my family visits these complexes knowing what I do about their security as it is now. Security at present time will not prevent crime! They can not! Security in most places act and operate as police departments with no authority. The technology they have in most places is not helping them to prevent! They really have no detective departments investigating complaints and researching problem issues. Social workers are not working closely with security to prevent what happen at those schools.
In hospitals, there are so many crimes covered up that if you knew you'd also be concerned as I am. Look what happen at Virginia Tech., and Northern Illinois something I say should never happen, especially when it is proven that it could have truly been prevented, after everyone made their investigations. Everyone seems to say, "Well we should have done this, or that!". Yes! I say yes, we should! Investigations seem to only be after the fact! Why? Why not do the investigations Before the fact!
I know it is human to live in your family make believe worlds, the safe haven we all need just to keep from becoming depressed over the September 11th reality of things. But, when it comes to preventing crime and terrorist attacks at the frontline level, somebody needs to do something, and soon!
I know that there are many other security people and police out in America that sees what I see. Please! Pass this article on to everyone you can, and maybe, just maybe, we could prevent a family from experiencing crime!
Preventing crime and terrorist attacks is the responsibility of all Americans! Especially the corporations that own these big complexes that draw large crowds! Terrorist attacks will be centered on these areas! And some entity needs to prevent crime! Not just respond to it!
I pray that the media grabs my article and runs with it so things change in security for America, before you, and your family experience crime! My family is dear to me to, and if any of my family members experience crime, knowing what I know about crime prevention, it would cut my heart deep! It's like a medical doctor who can't save his family member at a crime scene because his hands are forced tied!
Everybody worries about the liability risk of any operation. The Cities worry about their police putting them in a high liability risk when acting in a physical way. Shopping Malls and other complexes worry about their security acting in such a way that it would put them in a high liability risk and that's why they play it safe insisting that security have a hands off policy! But, what they don't understand is, that you could be putting yourself in a higher liability risk for not putting hands on! For a crime could be committed before the police get there, after security calls the police! As time ticks onward I foresee lawyers winning cases against these complexes for not having security that would prevent crime against your family while shopping in their mall or place of business. My heart goes out to all the families who have lost love ones in crime! I just wish people would hear what I have to say about stopping crime at Universities! Every time I hear about crime at another school it makes me upset! Security must, yes, must prevent crime, it's their responsibility, so give them the things they need to do it.
I wrote a book published July 2005, and the American Book Publishing Company of UTAH took it out of print for lack of sale. Yes. Nobody knows what my research (since 1968) and investigation on crime prevention and public safety and security is, and therefore missing out on the many years of hard work.
America, Wake Up!
Article by;
James R. White, Jr., Public safety and Security Consultant, Research since 1968, jwhitejr@nycap.rr.com ., http://www.irg-security.us http://www.irg-safety.us P O Box 84, Sand Lake, New York, USA 12153-0084
End of article.
I like that sidebar- very appropriate for the wweek.