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Ashland chief says sexual assault victim can say how aggressively they want case pursued Ashland High School students rally Monday to protest school policies on sexual violence. Daily Tidings / Denise Baratta Tuesday Dec 13, 2016 at 8:35 PM Dec 13, 2016 at 9:44 PM Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings @Joe_Zavala99 Ashland police Chief Tighe O’Meara can’t say that sexual assaults are a “regular occurrence” at Ashland High School — an assertion suggested by the organizers of Monday’s sit-in protest at AHS. What he can say, however, is that if and when sexual assaults do occur, APD’s involvement almost always depends upon the victim. “I’ve heard the anecdotal evidence that you have through Facebook, that there’s a rape culture, a sexual assault culture there,” O’Meara said. “I don’t know whether or not it’s true but I’m not a student there. The Ashland police can do two things. We can do education as prevention and we can try to maintain as good a relationship with the student body as possible, which we have tried to do in the past through the school resource officer but that position has been temporarily discontinued for staffing purposes. In the end, though, after all is said and done, in this sort of case, more than anything the police department is always going to be reactive and we always have to rely on people to come to us.” Sexual assault and the district’s response to allegations became a hot topic on the AHS campus last week after a student posted a message on social media accusing a classmate of assaulting her and “multiple” other girls, prompting an official response from Principal Erika Bare. On Monday, Ashland High’s “Got Consent?” co-founders Bella Head and Nicole Locklin organized a sit-in at the district office that drew about 50 students, and Head submitted a letter addressed to interim Superintendent Suzanne Cusick and Director of Student Services Samuel Bogdanove. The one-page letter criticized the district’s handling of sexual assault reports and claimed administrators are more concerned with the school’s reputation than student safety. “Our cases aren’t being filed when they are being reported,” it read. “This is illegal. We know of at least a half a dozen students that have come to you for help and heard nothing for months. … Student survivors are dropping out of school because of your failure to act responsibly.” O’Meara said APD was in the process of investigating the alleged sexual assault concerning the girl who posted her story on Facebook and Twitter before she took her story online. “What this brought to light was that there might be other sexual assault victims at the high school,” O’Meara said. “So this facilitated us making ourselves available to the other sexual assault survivors to whatever extent they wanted our assistance.” No other sexual assault cases involving AHS students have been reported since the post went up Dec. 5, O’Meara added. When a sexual crime is reported, APD’s procedure for handling it is fluid by necessity, as victims are the ones who decide how far they want to pursue justice. “A lot of the time victims of sexual assault say they want to reach out enough to get the emotional support that they need to mitigate the trauma as much as possible, and that could mean talking to a sexual assault advocate, but they don’t want to talk to a police officer,” O’Meara said. “Or maybe they want to talk to a police officer to have their case documented, but they don’t want it investigated. So as much as it’s possible, it’s all left in the hands of the victims.” The fact that the person accused of sexual assault in the case that’s sparked outrage at AHS is a minor does not change APD’s response, but may complicate the investigation. “When we’re talking about 16-, 17-year-olds, we can go contact them,” O’Meara said. “Very often their parents advocate for them and guide them away from talking to the police, but we can go try to make contact with them and of course we will respect their right just as we respect anybody’s right. We can talk to them just as we can talk to an adult. It’s not like we’re talking to a 10-year-old kid here. If we’re talking about somebody that’s 15, 16, 17, 18, then they’re grown up enough to have a one-on-one conversation with a police officer. “Again, very often the parents will throw up some — I don’t want to say obstacles because I’m very respectful of everybody’s right — but sometimes the parents will advocate them away from talking to us. Also, sometimes the parents will advocate them toward talking to us and dealing with the issue head on.” The district’s own sexual assault investigation is usually handled by a district administrator, but on Monday, Cusick said a third party who works for Southern Oregon University and is a “trained Title IX investigator” has been brought in because, among other reasons, it could help minimize any perceived bias. While the two investigations will run simultaneously, it’s hardly a team project. APD, O’Meara said, does not share information related to an active case. “We have a great partnership with the high school and we’ll support them any way that we can, but they’re really two parallel but separate investigations,” he said. “We’re not going to share a criminal investigation with the high school. They have an administrative investigation that they do and that’s really completely in house. Our investigation is completely in our house and they can be concurrent or they can be consecutive but for the most part we’re doing our thing and the high school is doing their thing and, with a few rare exceptions here and there, we’re not going to give them what we have because it’s sensitive, confidential information and frankly we’re not allowed to release it most of the time. It just goes straight to the DA’s office and gets handled from there.” Joe Zavala is a reporter for the Ashland Daily Tidings. Reach him at 541-821-0829 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @Joe_Zavala99.