Three women have joined a lawsuit against Baltimore County authorities that claims they had a lack of concern for women who have been sexually assaulted.
One of the women, a former student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, says she was raped by four UMBC basketball players on campus in 2014. She went to a party and had no recollection of the night before after she consumed multiple alcoholic beverages.
The woman discovered a few weeks later that basketball players had sex with her and passed her around. While two of the players were expelled from school, detectives said there wasn’t enough evidence to arrest them. A detective allegedly told her that she would have had to been conscious for some of the sex acts that were performed.
Another woman recently named in the lawsuit, a former UMBC student, claims she was sexually assaulted by three UMBC basketball players at her home while she was incapacitated. The third woman, another student at the university, said she was sexuall assaulted by a UMBC graduate student who worked in her lab in 2016.
The lawsuit claims that these women were treated poorly when they came forward to the authorities. The police showed an indifference to their allegations and discouraged them from reporting the sexual assaults. The lawsuit also alleges that the authorities concealed the seriousness of the rape by misclassifying sexual assault crimes. The police department allegedly miscoded several sexual assault reports as cleared due to “exceptional circumstances.”
UMBC spokesperson Dinah Winnick released the following statement:
“UMBC does not discuss individual cases to protect the privacy of our students. However, it is the practice of the campus in all cases to handle the matter diligently, equitably, and consistent with university, state, and federal policies and procedures. Cases are managed by expert investigators and we receive assistance from the Office of the Attorney General of Maryland. Findings made through the University’s adjudication process have resulted in serious disciplinary actions, including the suspension and expulsion of students.”
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