Lauren Chief Elk (left) and April Grolle
Alleged rape victim's rescuers threatened
Soccer players are called names after intervening at party
C.W. Nevius
Sunday, June 3, 2007
April Grolle, Lauren Chief Elk and Lauren Breayans never expected to be called heroes. But they never expected to be called names either.
The three, all soccer players on the highly regarded De Anza College women's soccer team, were thrust into the national spotlight when they rushed in and rescued a 17-year-old girl who was, they say, being sexually assaulted at a March 3 party in San Jose. They say the victim was so intoxicated she appeared to be comatose, and that eight or more men stood around watching one of them sexually assault her.
The three broke in, grabbed the girl and carried her out. They took her to the hospital, notified authorities and volunteered to testify in any court proceedings. What more could you ask?
To keep their mouths shut. To butt out. To mind their own business.
That's the message the soccer players got from the men accused in the case.
"People I didn't even know were coming up to me and saying, 'Stop your lying. Shut your f -- mouth,' " Chief Elk said in an interview last week. "We'd be walking around, and people would actually come up and get in our face."
It reached the point where they felt threatened. Cmdr. John Hirokawa of the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department confirms that deputies were called to the campus on a complaint of harassment.
"I can say that we went out there at least once in regards to a possible complaint," Hirokawa said. "People were warned."
After the Sheriff's Department and District Attorney Dolores Carr investigated the case, Carr declined to press charges, saying she doesn't have enough evidence to convict. Although nearly everyone agrees that, in Carr's words, "bad things happened in that room," there does not appear to be a positive identification of the perpetrator. And those speaking for the men said that any sex that occurred was consensual.
"We did our own investigation early on,'' says attorney John Cahners, who represents Steve Rebagliati, a baseball player whose parents own the house where the alleged assault took place. "What we found was, no, we don't think a crime did occur. But I am not going to drag a 17-year-old girl through the dirt to explain what we found.''
Cahners also says that because the men were 19 and 20 years old, sex with an underage girl would be only a misdemeanor. He says that's the law if a victim is no more than three years younger than the person accused of having sex with her.
"It seems to me that a bunch of folks have already made up their minds,'' says Cahners. "I would say this: The D.A. is a woman, she is married to a policeman, and she is the former head of the sexual assault team in the D.A.'s office. Do you really think she doesn't want to prosecute?''
(Cahners, it should be said, is a supporter of Carr's, giving $1,000 to her election campaign. He says he did not donate to her opponent.)
That's the case against prosecuting, but Grolle and Chief Elk failed to get the message. Their experience at that party made such an indelible impression on them that they couldn't keep quiet. They still can't get the image of the victim out of their minds.
Grolle, Chief Elk and Breayans were leaving the party that night when a female partygoer came up to tell them that there was "a girl in a room with eight guys."
"That didn't sound right," Grolle says. "We had no idea who she was, but we knocked on the door."
They were confronted by someone they knew as a De Anza student and a baseball player. He shouted at them that this was "none of your f -- ing business! Get out of here!"
But when he opened the door, the soccer players saw the victim on a mattress on the floor being sexually assaulted. Breayans, who is out of the country until June 17, says she can identify one man who was sexually assaulting the girl.
They shoved their way through the door and confronted the men.
"We weren't very nice," Grolle says. "We were swearing like sailors. I couldn't believe some of the words that were coming out of my mouth."
They got the guy off the girl -- although they didn't get a look at his face -- and tried to get her on her feet. She was unable to stand. Grolle says they looked at the men and asked for help to take her out. Instead, the guys drifted away sheepishly. Breayans and Grolle draped her arms around their shoulders and pulled her through the door, her feet dragging behind.
"It just boggles the mind that not one of these big, strong men stood up to help us carry this lifeless girl out of the room," Grolle says.
"She had vomit dribbling down her face," Chief Elk has said. "We had to scoop vomit out of her mouth and lift her up."
(Cahners says tests proved that the vomit was not the victim's. But Grolle says "that's even worse,'' meaning that someone else's vomit was in the girl's mouth.)
"She was literally lifeless," Grolle says. "Her eyes were completely shut. On the ride to the hospital, I had to keep my hand under her nose to make sure she was breathing."
This, remember, is the girl who is supposed to have "consented" to sex.
The three soccer players are waiting. They are waiting for someone to step up, to be a man. There were people in that room who didn't do anything. But they knew that what was happening was wrong.
My guess is the men in that room haven't been sleeping very well since this happened. They've been warned to stay quiet, to keep the code of silence.
"I could see this coming," Hirokawa says. "The culture now is not to be a snitch, not to say anything."
"What I think about is their mothers," Grolle says. "What do they think?"
My guess is they think they are glad their sons got off. And they don't worry about someone else's daughter.
So in theory we both believe that it shouldn't matter if it's a room full of young men or a room full of west African Wildebeest. Women should be safe anywhere. Unfortunately we all know that is not the case. I'm sure this girl didn't spend one second weighing up the risks by drinking on until she was in such a state, having been lulled into the sense of safety we tend to feel in familiar situations and/or with familiar people.
