Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Saradise Lost - Chapter Forty-Three -- Torn clothes - $150 ... Rape Kit - $1,200 .... Shame - PRICELESS!

That's Shannyn Moore's headline on Sarah Palin and Charlie Fannon's policy at the Wasilla Police Department, that charged rape victims the costs of investigating the crimes against them, unless the perp was caught and convicted. If the police chose not to investigate, or couldn't catch the perp, the victim was supposed to pay the City of Wasilla for their troubles. Wasilla's troubles, not the victim's.

Celtic Diva's headline on this is Sarah's boo boos, nasty revelations of how she treated rape victims while Mayor of Wasilla and lies about pork.

Progressive Alaska's was What Do Rape Gurney Joe, Charlie Fannonn and Alaska HB 270 Have in Common? -- SARAH PALIN.

This comes from a Frontiersman story, written on May 22, 2000, that some enterprising blogger uncovered yesterday. I'm trying to locate an Anchorage Daily News story on it from May, 2000, so far, unsuccessfully.

A Google search - Anchorage Daily News Sarah Palin Charlie Fannon HB270 - gets - No standard web pages containing all your search terms were found. Your search - Anchorage Daily News Sarah Palin Charlie Fannon HB270 - did not match any documents.

Shannyn, Linda and I are all working on finding out more on this. Apparently, no major Alaska media outlet has covered it yet.

Why?

Did the ADN cover HB 270 in 2000?

Update: Apparently the ADN did not cover the bill. However, they did editorializ. unfortunately, the editorial failed to mention Palin and Fannon's decisive influence on why this bill was necessary. Here's their editorial from May 20, 2000, which you have to pay to read - except here:

Rape victims spared fee

Victims of sexual assault will never again have to pay for the physical exam to gather evidence of the crime committed against them, thanks to a bill sponsored by Rep. Eric Croft, passed by the Legislature and signed into law this week by Gov. Tony Knowles.

As Gov. Knowles pointed out when signing the legislation, ''We would never bill the victim of a burglary for fingerprinting and photographing the crime scene, or for the cost of gathering other evidence. Nor should we bill rape victims just because the crime scene happens to be their bodies.''

Few rape victims or their insurance companies actually had to pay the $300 to $1,200 charges. Most of the time, law enforcement agencies took care of the cost. However, even one victim charged is too many when the very idea is repugnant.

With the passage of HB 270 , law enforcement agencies or Medicaid will pay for the evidence-gathering physical exams.

Victims of sexual assault have suffered attacks of the most personal kind; the last thing they need is to take a hit to the pocketbook as well.



image by Dennis Zaki

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Frank, Joe, Nancy -

Here's a hint.

Between the three of you, one of you MUST have a library card.

Go to the ZJ Loussac website and search their database.

http://zephyr.ci.anchorage.ak.us:2048/login?url=http://infoweb.newsbank.com/?db=ADNB

Here's a link to get you started.

I'd do it myself but I certainly don't want to steal your thunder.

A better example of what you guys can do, until you talk to one of the perps of the vandalism incidents, I'd suggest you leave that one alone.

Philip Munger said...

Frank, joe, Nancy,

If you go back through the PA archive, you'll see that PA has only covered the coverage of the 2005 vandalism by other outlets.

thanks for the help on the other issue.

Anonymous said...

http://safety.fizber.com/Alaska/Wasilla/

Check out the actual stats for crime in Wasilla.

Is Daily Kos going to find one woman who paid out of pocket for her rape kit?

Anonymous said...

good job, McUSAToday picked this story up....