This NYC Cop Rape Case Is the Worst

Unsurprisingly, I’m not particularly enjoying each morning’s report from the New York City police offer rape trial. (Yeah, go figure.) Here’s part one and here’s part two, and it’s a rotten thing to wake up and read. The story, in brief, is that a young woman came home to the East Village intoxicated; she needed help getting out of the cab, so the cabbie called 911; two cops arrived, took her in; paid the cab; and then they returned to her apartment three more times that night. (They said they were discussing her alcoholism with her, which, that’s not something you do while someone has come home while vomiting in a cab; that’s something you do the next day?) On the final visit, one of the officers said that he “succumbed” to “physical contact” after she “became flirtatious” (oh brother) while the other one slept, which, where to even start with that? Why is there even a cop sleeping in some woman’s house after a 911 call???

So… sidebar, can I say something horrible? In case no one has ever told you this before: if you have been, or think you have been, sexually assaulted, please call a friend and visit a hospital, and do not shower or change your clothes, if that is possible. It does not matter if you intend to press charges or not: obtaining a rape kit does not require you to go to the police or talk to the police if you are not interested in doing so. Yes, this is the last thing anyone would want to do! And no, you do not have to do this if you don’t want. (There are huge arguments about this, and I’m not stepping into them, but they boil down to it being your right to do whatever you want, which, of course.) The argument is that getting medical attention allows you to keep your options open, and you will not be placed in the remarkably terrible position of having lawyers describe your sexual assault as consensual sex.

In any event! Yesterday’s story ended on a bizarre note:

Assisted by the district attorney’s office, the woman wore a recording device to confront [police officer] Moreno. He repeatedly denied having sex with her, but finally told her he wore a condom after she threatened to make a scene, [his lawyer] said.

Right, how exactly does that conversation occur in the real world between people who didn’t actually have sex? “No, no no, we didn’t have sex, we didn’t… oh, I see, you are going to make a scene, okay, yes we did but I wore a condom.”