15 Responses to “Important Updates to “Wasilla Police Billed Sexual Assault Victims for Their Own Rape Kits””  

1. 1 Chris on September 9, 2008 said:

   To the person in the last comment section that said I didn’t know what I was talking about regarding the police chief:

   http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008163431_palin070.html

   FTA: “In the summer of 1996, Stambaugh encouraged Wasilla and the Mat-Su Borough, the regional governing body, to pass ordinances requiring bars and liquor stores to close earlier than 5 a.m., the latest hour allowed by state law. Because bars in Anchorage closed earlier, some people drove to Wasilla to keep drinking, endangering themselves and others, Stambaugh argued. He wanted Wasilla’s bars to close at 2:30 a.m. on weekdays and 3 a.m. on weekends.

   The idea’s supporters talked of reducing roadway fatalities. Opponents talked of an encroachment on their individual freedom. The borough’s leadership rejected the proposal, and afterward so did the Wasilla City Council, by a 3-2 vote. Palin was in the majority.”

   So I made a slight error in the timing, but the facts still remain about why he got fired. You should learn not to call people out when the facts are a google search away.
2. 2 Chris on September 9, 2008 said:

   Oh, I forgot to add. From that same article above, the Police Chief also opposed allowing concealed weapons in Banks AND BARS! Palin, as a card carrying member of the NRA, wanted it.

   So, in a nutshell, Palin’s philosophy on public safety is allow people to get drunk while carrying a firearm, and if you get raped, you pay for your expenses? What is this the wild wild west?
3. 3 Sigivald on September 10, 2008 said:

   Funny thing, Chris.

   It’s possible to support carrying a concealed weapon in a bar without wanting to make it legal for people to drink while armed.

   Bartenders, waitresses, and designated drivers are all people who are both in bars and not drunk. Why should they be disarmed, exactly?

   Other states have laws allowing concealed carry in bars as long as one does not drink, and that doesn’t seem to have led to a bloodbath.

   And why should law abiding people be disarmed in banks? I mean, little news flash here: bank robbers ignore the law. That’s part of being a bank robber, isn’t it?
4. 4 Chris on September 10, 2008 said:

   Newsflash – violence tends to start in bars. I don’t know maybe I drank my college days away, but I seem to recall bars being crowded and full of belligerent drunks. Somehow adding firearms to that equation just doesn’t seem like a good idea. Considering all the stupid shit I’ve seen happen in bars – sober bouncers, waitresses, and bar tenders included – I personally would not walk into a bar where guns were allowed. People are just infinitely more retarded and irresponsible in a bar.

   If you think somehow arming the citizens are going to stop bank robbers – you’re a retard. Apparently you haven’t watched the videos from that LA robbery a few years back that inspired the movie HEAT. If you would’ve had a conceal weapon on you, you would’ve been dead. If you decide you want to carry a handgun, some bank robber is going to come in with an assault riffle. And why is it so important to shoot it out with a bank robber anyway? It’s just money. All it would take is the robber to grab a hostage and your concealed handgun is useless. All it took was some terrorists with box cutters to grab a hostage to fly a plane into the trade center.

   I’ve actually been robbed before. I’d rather just give the guy the money then try to shoot it out with him. Considering how fast the guy got the drop on us, a gun would’ve been pretty useless and we might have all ended up dead. The $50 bucks he made out with wasn’t worth risking it anyway.
5. 5 Jef on September 12, 2008 said:

   “What is this the wild wild west?”

   Maybe it still is up here in Alaska. Or maybe it was within living memory for older Alaskans. I haven’t been here that long but I’ve no reason to mistrust the people I’ve met and socialize with here in Fairbanks when the tell stories about what things were like 10 or 20 years ago. Fairbanks at least in the pipeline boom, was probably very much a wild west town. Does Wasilla have a similarly rich and exciting heritage in the last quarter of the 20th century? I can’t say. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it had.

   The point is this. Alaska is different. The Alaskan political and social experience is quite different than what you will experience in other state the United States of America. It is not the Mid-West, it is not the North-West.. it is not the heartland nor the breadbasket.. its not even Maine-West. Alaska is not typical small town America. Alaska is small town America about 100 years ago in some ways.

   Turn the clock back to just after the dawn of statehood for other states and look at the political landscape..and you may find some similarities looking at the political landscape of Alaska as it currently stands.

   It’s an exceptionally young state, with an exceptionally short history. There are still people here who think of the Federal government’s control of large swaths of the state in terms of a colonial control. Not federal or national…colonial. Where else in the country do people organize political parties around the idea that the US Federal government as an oppressive colonial power? Whether individual Alaskans agree with that currently, doesn’t change the fact that statehood when it arrived was influenced by the ideas over colonial exploitation. Those ideas still persist and influence political discourse. It’s a very different place.

   And while Palin might be a very good fit for the Governor of this state, because like it or not she’s in tune with the ebb and flow of this state’s internal politics, that fact is not necessarily indicative of appropriateness as the VP or P for the United States of America. Be very watchful of the promises she makes to Alaskans, versus the promises she makes to the outside.

   -jef
6. 6 iusbvision on September 20, 2008 said:

   Hate to spoil the fun, but I have that Illinois Bill on my site and it seems that most people didn’t actually take the time to read it.

   If you have low enough income, if you dont have insurance, if you jump through their hoops, you can apply for reinbursement. Then the perp has to be found guilty or it can come back on you.

   Also the Federal Law that kicks in next year to fix this issue nation wide was sponsored by James Sensenbrenner, the link is on my site. Since Joe Biden is a ranking member on the Judiciary Committee in the Senate, all crime bills will be co-sponsored by him, as his committee position will allow him to stop any crime bill cold.

   Also if people bothered to read the Alaska Bill first (which is on my web site) they would see that Chief Fannon in Wasilla opposed the Alaska Bill because it made NO provision for obtaining restitution from a perpetrator and that is why he opposed it. Not because anyone wanted to stick women with the bill. When you came to the conclusion that the administration in Wasilla were some kind of monsters, didnt you stop to ask yourself “why would a police chief want to make sure women paid” before you started posting these silly accusations?

   At least the Illinois bill made a provision for the perp to pay if he was found guilty. But the bottom line is that many women still ended up with paying for the kit in Illinois. The law Illinois passed in 2000 makes it clear why AND womens groups as shown in the US News & World Report article demonstrate it.

   Of course if people wanted to show some consistancy, how many poor women in Illinois were stuck with the bill even before this Law passed, was every mayor and police chief in the State of Illinois some kraven jerk out to make women pay? To be consistant you would have to take that position.

   Women who arent near destitute who ’s insurance would not cover it could still be stuck with the bill under that Illinois law that Obama sponsored.

   Of course, if some ideological nuts weren’t so obsessed with trying to make Palin into some kraven figure, you could just read the evidence and see what was going on, but some people have no interest in the facts.

   Why do you think that the Obama campaign hasnt touched this at all…… think and get facts BEFORE you post… the order of those things IS important.
7. 7 OpEdna on September 20, 2008 said:

   Hey Iusbvision,

   Looked at your website. So you’re on “a” Palin Truth Squad, but not an official Palin Truth Squad…. we would all LOVE to know why she keeps claiming she told Congress “Thanks but no thanks” to something that she supported. I’ve counted 11 different times she’s told that lie. And THEN she took OUR tax dollars and used it to pay for other projects up there in Alaska.

   With a name like “Truth Squad,” you’d better be prepared to address all of the half and non truths your candidate tells… NON-PARTIAL fact checking groups like FactCheck.org and Politifact find your candidate to be an outright liar.
8. 8 Tommy B on September 20, 2008 said:

   lusbvision: no. While in some cases an Illinois sexual assault victim may be billed by a hospital for evidence costs, Illinois law insures that in NO CASE does a victim have to bear those costs. If a victim’s insurance doesn’t cover it, they are covered by the state. Period.
9. 9 Bud_the_wiser on September 20, 2008 said:

   Very good posts on this topic. This and another post got me thinking so I did some digging myself. What I found is rather disturbing about sexual assault in Wasilla.

   Wasilla had a seemingly high rate of sexual assaults for its population size 2.4 sexual assaults per 1,000 residents in 1996, Palin’s first year. I haven’t found any similar data on the category of sexual assault for the U.S. as a whole, but the rate of rape for towns the same size as Wasilla in 2007 was .285 per 1,000.

   And thanks to Joe Biden’s 1994 crime bill (which required states to create a database of sex offenders) we now know that there are 62 sex offenders living in Wasilla today (which is roughly double the rate of sex offenders per 1,000 residents in Alaska).

   I have blogged on this and more here:

   http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/09/mccainpalin-rape-victims-and-w.php
10. 10 voxitar on September 22, 2008 said:

    Unless I missed it, can someone answer me a simple question? Is there a shred of proof anywhere that Wasilla ever actually charged a rape victim for a rape kit??? If I’m reading the FBI crime stats correctly, there was exactly ONE reported rape between 1995-2000, and it occurred in 2000, the same year the state law change in 2000 requiring law enforcement agencies to foot the bill for rape kits.

    Beyond the fact that the very idea of Sarah Palin advocating that rape victims be charged for their own rape kits seems beyond ridiculous, it seems quite possible, even likely, that this was an internal Police Department policy that never came up during Palin’s tenure as mayor.

    One last note – the police department budget account used for rape kits that was ’slashed’ by some reports (supposedly proof that Palin didn’t want the town to pay for rape kits)in the late nineties…shouldn’t it have gone UP in 2000 and beyond after the Alaska legislature mandated law enforcement agencies pay for their own rape kits? It didn’t – in 2000, that account was budgeted at $1000. In 2001, it was budgeted at $500.

    Without any supporting evidence to support the claim that she either knew or was responsible for the PD’s policy regarding rape kits, this sure sounds like yet another Palin smear.
11. 11 OpEdna on September 22, 2008 said:

    Voxitar,

    I don’t know which shocks me more, your lack of sensitivity when discussing this matter or your faith in the reporting of rapes.

    Look. If you’re a Palin fan, no matter what I print about her here, you won’t believe it. But you need to have some compassion and respect. Reporting a rape is hard enough for a woman who is feeling violated, guilty, and traumatized. Add on a $1,200 bill and the chance that she’ll report anything to anyone decreases steadily.

    For the record, I have a source who confirms that there are women who have paid the “rape tax” in Wasilla, but understandly, they aren’t about to hold a press conference and relive their personal hell on the political stage so that people like you can have the proof you so desperately need to confirm that this woman is a terrible a person as the rest of us know her to be.
12. 12 Bud_the_Wiser on September 24, 2008 said:

    voxitar, a “rape kit” or “rape exam” is just a general term for an exam that is done with the intention to gather any type of dna or physical evidence, evidence of injuries, etc. that occured from a sexual assault (of which there are many varieties).

    The City of Wasilla’s own website lists 84 sexual assaults during the time of Palin’s mayoral terms, 96-02. Undoubtedly there are numerous cases where evidence would be collected in exams. The FBI only reports focible rape statistics in their public data, which perhaps is the only category of sex crime they fully tabulate. Or they may tabulate it all and not publicly report numbers for statuatory rape, child molestation, etc.

    A browse through the Alaska sex offenders website shows quite a few offenders from Wasilla convicted in cases of sexual assault involving minors (many of which occured within the family). That data wont be in the FBI forcible rape stats.
13. 13 BOB on October 17, 2008 said:

    I don’t know who im voting for yet, im a registered democrat who lives in the god-loving and gun-toting southern hills of Tenn. I don’t own a gun and I don’t go to church, except for easter or christmas, and I really don’t have any problems, crime or otherwise, with the “joe six-packs” around here, especially not as much trouble as Ive had from thugs and gangs in larger cities.

    This election is so interesting. Several months ago we had dozens of hopeful, promising candidates and now im stuck weighing Obama and Mccain. Palin and Biden. Now that Ive done some reading on your website, especially your narrow-minded, misleading smear attacks on Palin. Im actually thinking of Voting for her. Not because I know anything about her politics. I mean, how can I know anything. All I find is site after site listing posts like Opeds. You people have put out so much mis-information its actually amazes me. Currently Ill be making my choice not on the candidate but on who supports them…and its obvious almost everyone on this site and others support Obama. Whats really causing me to lean towards Palin, actually its making me downright like her more, is how much you people hate her. I understand why its easy to hate some one you percieve to be punishing rape victims, but for most of you its just an EXCUSE to hate her. I thought the Republicans were supposed to be the Hatchet people. I remember reading things I never would have thought could be published legally about the president or first lady more than 8 years ago and it sounded just like the rhetoric the Repubs were using in those day. Congrats, all of you have brought shame and dishonor to the democratic party, to yourselves, and your candidate. Its Appalling. And When the hell did liberals become so crazy?
14. 14 OpEdna on October 17, 2008 said:

    Oh Bob.

    “Currently Ill be making my choice not on the candidate but on who supports them.”

    So you’re admitting that you are voting based on other people’s opinions? And you call US appalling? You didn’t change your mind because you came to my site. Clearly, your mind was made up long ago.

    By the way, you can’t “vote for Palin,” Bob. I’m not sure how to break it to you, but you vote for the top of the ticket (aka the PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE), not the bottom.

    No wonder you don’t like this blog… we make up our minds based on the candidates and their policies. You make up your mind based on whether or not you like the people they support. Perhaps you should consider spending your vote at a high school student government election in lieu of the general election… you know, since you’re so into voting with the cool crowd and all.

1. 1 Wasilla Police Billed Sexual Assault Victims for Their Own Rape Kits « Op-Edna