So a friend of mine had the misfortune of dealing with rape culture from a police officer. She gave me the permission to post this on Tumblr so the name of this officer and her story can spread.
So let’s be serious for a second guys please -
Last night around 2 a.m. my friends and I decided to take a drive around Hutchinson island, and when upon returning into Sewall’s Point we made a stop underneath the causeway. We decided to stop, listen to music, and stand outside the car. Not intoxicated, not under any substance abuse, and not in the possession of any weapons - we were having clean wholesome dumb teenage fun. Without doing anything incriminating it still was unfortunately interrupted by Officer Scott Donlon, when he drove around the causeway and approached us with his lights on. We turned down the music and waited for him to approach us outside my friends car. The lights almost made it impossible for us to see his face or communicate with him without holding my arm in front of my face.
He walks up to us and says,
"I sure as hell can’t wait to hear this story."
I took the liberty to talk for my friends, because they were visibly intimidated and frightened by this officer.
"Honestly officer, we were on our way to the beach when we decided that it was probably too late and unsafe. We decided on our drive back to stop here and enjoy ourselves. We are good people. None of us are under the influence or intoxicated we are more than willing to take a breathalyzer if you have any suspicion that we are."
That’s when he made the most disturbing comment of all,
"Yeah because running around in your underwear -"
I couldn’t believe it, he decided that my outfit of choice constituted as underwear to him. My floral top that showed my mid-drift and my high-waisted shorts was something he was going to demean and call “underwear”?
I tried my hardest not to be rude to him, but I responded with,
"That’s extremely rude and offensive sir. I don’t think my outfit should be considered underwear."
He continued to walk around my friends car trying to be intimidating and aggressive, so I spoke again:
"Sir, are you detaining us?"
Which he responded, “Yes.”
I was fuming. I was disgusted. I was baffled. I couldn’t believe that right before my very eyes rape culture was brought to light by this officer.
Again everyone - Scott Donlon, Officer of Sewall’s Point, who’s name I asked for because I was not going to let this white old privileged male think he could demean the four of us.
Luckily another officer, rolled up to us in the middle of this, he who was much kinder and diffused the situation by saying,
"Do not try him, you need to just give him respect. You could make things so much worse for yourself."
"What!? Excuse me? It’s your job to protect us, not to make us feel like our lives are threatened because he decided that he wants to be intimidating?"
Instead I said to the other officer,
"Officer, I mean no offense, and I’m sorry if I upset him, but he told us we were being detained for wearing underwear. Look at the four of us, we may be showing our stomachs, but we’re fully clothed and that’s by no means okay."
"Well if he says you’re being detained. You’re being detained."
It was all an intimidation tactic, and because of course it wasn’t worth the fight, I apologized for MY behavior and for disrespecting HIM. I let him continue to say I was running around in my “underwear.” I continued to let him say, “If I was in a bad mood tonight, I could have got you in so much more trouble.” I continued to let him discriminate my age by saying “I don’t need some 19 year old giving me attitude thinking she knows the law better than me.” I continued to let him completely dominate the situation and degrade us.
I’m not okay with this, I’m not okay with another officer fluffing his ego because he has some fucked up authoritative mentality.
Below I’ll add the photo of the outfit I was wearing, you guys let me know if I missed out on the memo of what defines underwear now.
If you actually took the time to go through my terrible grammar and read all of this ridiculous nonsense - thank you so much thank you thankyoouuu.
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