PART 2 | CRIME WRITER TURNED VICTIM AND SURVIVOR: When the system fails, you rewrite the rules
Laurie Chandlar
TW: sexual assault
This is no longer about just me. This is about the systemic problems within the justice system in Dallas, TX. This is about their complete disregard for their own processes and disdain in regard to justice for women.
The primary role of law enforcement is to be evidence collectors. But what happens when they do not follow their own processes and refuse to look at available evidence? Well in Dallas, Texas: Nothing. I’m not rich enough, famous enough, or dead enough for the Dallas PD and DA to care enough to investigate.
In my prior article, Crime Writer Turned Victim and Survivor, I brought my case to the public to rally the Dallas District Attorney’s office to investigate the violent crime committed against me after the Dallas Police Department prematurely closed the case without following their basic standards for investigating a sexual assault[1]. Amy Derrick from the DA’s office contacted me quickly and in our follow-up meeting told me that they agreed that the investigation the Dallas PD did was not thorough at all. The ADA then committed, in front me, my advocate from TAASA (Texas Alliance Against Sexual Assault), and the investigator with the DA’s office that their office would review the case and secure the evidence that Dallas PD ignored. At the end of this meeting, I understood that Amy Derrick would follow-up to let me know next steps. She assured me that they’d take my case seriously and apologized for my previous experiences. Little did I know these words were empty.
After waiting months, the DA’s office contacted me to inform me that they too decided to not adhere to the basic standards of investigating a sexual assault. There still has been no proper evidence preservation and collection; and they did not interview witnesses nor the suspect. This is evidence that the NYPD SVU thought important enough that they spent the time and resources for the SVU detective to fly to Dallas and hand deliver it to the Dallas PD. But the Dallas PD ignored this evidence and closed the case before any of it was tested or considered.
To this date, what have both the Dallas Police Department and the District Attorney’s Office failed to do?
1) Interview the nine witnesses that came forward with info about my case and the suspect
2) Obtain a search warrant for the video surveillance footage at the hotel
3) Interview other witnesses who were at the conference
4) Allow the Grand Jury to decide whether the case has enough evidence to move forward
5) Fully process all evidence included with the SANE kit by the NYPD SVU
6) Contact the suspect about new evidence that has been discovered
What do these two agencies have in common?
1) They don’t have processes in place to ensure their biases don’t impact the investigation
2) They can decide the outcome of the case before doing a thorough investigation
3) They scrutinize the victim more than the suspect
Why would they work so hard to not do their jobs? Perhaps my case is just the tip of the iceberg. Perhaps they are in fact acutely aware of a widespread problem, systemic deficiencies, and dereliction of duty, but don’t want it discovered. Perhaps it is just easier to deny victims the possibility of justice than to risk exposure.
This is seemingly a systemic issue because this is the same problem reflected in the recent rapes in the Dallas area that also was not fully investigated and though authorities were warned repeatedly of the danger of the predator, the suspect faced no consequences and went on to murder. [2]
So now, if they admit they didn’t do what they were supposed to do, it’s a bigger problem so they’re just going to double down? It’s high time that the public understands what happened and what’s going on in their own justice system. The DPD and DA’s office have spent vastly more time, energy, and taxpayer dollars trying to not investigate than if they’d just done the basic requirements of their job in the first place. And this fact scares me above all else, because who does this and why? All I’ve ever asked and argued for — for four long years, in the midst of a global pandemic and world unrest — is that they collect and process the ample evidence from a crime that is consistently complained about for not enough victims who come forward and not enough evidence to prosecute. I have it all and it still wasn’t good enough to simply investigate.
I brought in the AGs office, a Texas Ranger, the FBI, former TX prosecutors and they all agree it should be fully investigated, but those systems cannot force the DPD to investigate because there are no laws with teeth saying they must. So, who suffers? The public.
The majority of these sexual assault criminals are serial rapists and when they aren’t investigated and face not one single ounce of consequence, they go on to commit more crimes and escalate. I have argued with them that I have credible evidence that suggests that my perpetrator likely preyed upon others in Dallas. But they don’t care. The DPD and DA’s office are essentially allowing more crime that they could have prevented and repeated the same errors that other counties made in cases such as Molly J. Matheson’s, which had they done their jobs could have saved actual lives.[3]
Yet, they then have the gall to complain that they don’t have enough resources to handle the volume of cases. Rather than dismissing or ruthlessly interrogating the few victims who have the courage to come forward, perhaps if the Dallas police and DA’s office followed their own processes, resulting in any consequences at all for the criminals, they could stem the tide of repeat offenders.
Change Systems Advocate, Haleh Hekmat, with the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault states, “Police officers and prosecutors are no stranger to the importance of having policies or processes to follow. This is because when you have a system in place, or a standard to follow, it lessens the probability that you miss a step or take action that causes someone harm or denies their rights. Systems and processes can play a huge role in reducing the risk that our individual or organizational biases, whether conscious or unconscious, impact our judgment and undermine justice. Unfortunately, what we see time and time again is that most criminal justice agencies lack policies that are responsive to the realities of sexual violence.”
This is not good enough for me nor the citizens of Dallas. It’s not good enough for those I care about in Dallas including my former pastor of twenty years and my many close friends. And it is certainly not good enough for the other victims who came before me and those after. In light of this, I highly suggest that until changes are made, any organization that is considering Dallas as a tourism location for conferences or professional endeavors, take serious action to change locations.
I am now over 50, I’ve been happily married for almost thirty years, I have many credible witnesses, I did the work to come forward, there is ample evidence to discover, yet all I’ve faced is the repeated disdain and dismissal of the police and the DA’s office. Ultimately, everything it cost me to come forward and all the evidence didn’t matter. In my last meeting with ADA Amy Derrick, I told Ms. Derrick that as a crime fiction author I would be crucified if — in my novels — I made the assumptions that she was making and drew conclusions with no collection of evidence or investigation. Fiction would not tolerate that, but I guess that is just fine in real life with Dallas law enforcement. She had nothing to say to that.
Do you?
Here’s your chance to do something. It IS possible to make a difference, to lower the crime rate and to save lives. But we have to let the DPD and the District Attorney’s office know we care, we want change, and we are watching.
Nothing changes unless we fight for it.
It IS possible to overcome these problems when people work together. Thank you for your help.
CALL TO ACTION:
I am asking members of the community to join me in urging the Dallas County to take sexual assault cases more seriously and ensure victims who come forward are afforded their rights and treated with the dignity and respect they deserve. I’ve provided suggestions for who to contact and templates below. Please contact the following to let them know that you expect them to make changes:
Dallas District Attorney Community Relations Phone: (214) 653–3600
DallasDAPress@dallascounty.org
Dallas County Commissioner’s Court — Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins
Phone: (214) 653–7949
E-mail: dcjudge@dallascounty.org
Dallas County Commissioner — Dr. Elba Garcia
Chair of Criminal Justice Advisory Board
Elba.GarciaDDS@dallascounty.org
Click HERE to auto-fill the above email addresses
_________________
A sample of what could be included in your emails and phone calls:
Dear Dallas Officials,
I am writing to you today to express my deep concern about the way that sexual assault cases are being handled in our community. The way cases are currently being handled sends the message to our community that victims of sexual assault don’t matter and that offenders will not be held accountable.
I believe that the DA’s office has a responsibility to do everything in its power to hold perpetrators accountable and to support victims.
I am particularly troubled by the following:
- The lack of systems and processes in place to ensure each sexual assault case is thoroughly investigated.
- The lack of awareness and commitment to victim’s constitutional rights-including the right to be treated with dignity and respect for privacy.
- The low number of sexual assault cases that are actually prosecuted.
- The low conviction rates for sexual assault cases that do go to trial.
- The lack of resources available to sexual assault survivors.
I believe that these problems are due to a lack of commitment from the District Attorney’s Office to take sexual assault cases seriously. I urge you to take immediate action to address these issues and to send a clear message that sexual assault will not be tolerated in our community.
_________________
Footnotes
[1] International Association of Chiefs of Police Sexual Assault Response Policy and Training Guidelines
[2] Murder of Molly J. Matheson could have been prevented
[3] Lisak, D. and Miller, P. (2002). Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending Among Undetected Rapists. Violence and Victims, Vol. 17, №1., 2002.
In addition, the majority of undetected rapists are serial rapists who also commit other forms of serious interpersonal violence. In a study of 120 undetected rapists in the Boston area, 63% were serial rapists. These 76 serial rapists had, on average, attacked 14 victims, and were responsible for:
439 rapes and attempted rapes
49 sexual assaults
277 acts of sexual abuse against children
66 acts of physical abuse against children
214 acts of battery against intimate partners