The story behind "Victim/Suspect"

Brut America

Warning: Distressing themes   "I was raped, and they told me I lied about it."  How does a sexual assault victim go to the police for help and end up in handcuffs? In Netflix's "Victim/Suspect," investigative journalist Rae de Leon exposes a terrifying pattern.

Transcript

00:00I was raped and they told me I lied about it.

00:02I think you're one of those people that's taken away from my true victims.

00:06How does a sexual assault victim go to the police for help and end up in handcuffs?

00:12Was it wanted? Was it consensual? No.

00:14From the investigation, you're not being honest with me, okay?

00:17With what I just told you? Yes.

00:19In their new documentary, Victim Suspect, investigative journalist Ray DeLeon and

00:23director Nancy Schwartzman explore how sexual assault victims all over the U.S.

00:28are forced to take the blame for being raped.

00:30The themes I was hearing was a lot of pain, betrayal, confusion.

00:35There really wasn't a path forward for them to find justice.

00:38So sometimes it just was like, this happened to me, I'm gonna

00:43live my life, whatever that looks like.

00:45How can you tell me that I'm lying to you when there are no cameras?

00:48We don't have to, you know, say our opinions about the behavior.

00:52We can actually show it.

00:53The film shows how the police employ deceptive evidence,

00:56an interrogation technique where they lie about evidence to solicit confessions.

01:01These tactics work well with perpetrators, but can quickly turn victims into suspects.

01:05If you continue to lie to me, this is about to go south.

01:08How do you know?

01:10You just look at the physicality of the space and where the young women

01:17are positioned in the space, sometimes by themselves,

01:22with a man, with an adult man, sometimes with two adult men.

01:25We heard on audio.

01:27So already that's such a power imbalance.

01:29That is so uncomfortable for anyone who's survived abuse or assault.

01:34The girls are positioned in a corner.

01:36You see physically one of the detectives getting closer to one of the girls,

01:41moving his chair closer, physically touching her body, right?

01:45So that's one thing that's not even spoken yet.

01:47Was there a point like with the investigation where you felt like the police just,

01:52you knew they weren't believing you?

01:54And the detective told me he didn't hold you down with that rape.

01:59Then there is a tactic of pointing out or questioning something that actually does

02:06not have to do with the assault, but has to do with the victim's behavior.

02:09Was she drinking?

02:11Oh, is she underage?

02:13Oh, did you use a fake ID?

02:15Then the young person is like, oh my God, I like messed up.

02:19I did something I'm not supposed to do, which actually has nothing to do with her assault.

02:23And then we see this a lot with Emma.

02:26We see it with Diane around the inconsistencies.

02:29What exact time?

02:30And if someone says 1135 and it's 1210, that's not a huge difference.

02:34They'd really push on that inconsistency and start to really seed doubt and

02:42kind of throw them off, right?

02:43And make them already feel like, oh, am I guilty of something?

02:46I do not believe you.

02:47I do not believe you at all.

02:49It is a crime to file a false report.

02:53In the police reports, it's like, actually says like victim will be arrested.

02:58So there were times when I would read it in a report or hear it, you know, in the interview

03:03that they had something or they had an interview or they talked to a witness and I'd follow up.

03:08And sure enough, it just, that, that didn't happen, but they are allowed to do that.

03:12There's nothing stopping them.

03:15The public really appreciates them.

03:18I've noticed when they do publicize these, these arrests.

03:22So for Emma, for instance, you know, you, you Google it, you look at the comments on

03:27Facebook and it's like, wow, can't believe this person would do this.

03:32I'm so glad they caught her.

03:34The message that they send to all the sexual assault survivors in their community is that

03:39if the police don't believe you, they might prosecute you.

03:43Some of the reports, they will say that the crime, the sex crime was cleared by arrest,

03:49clearing it by arresting the reporting victim, not by arresting a perpetrator.

03:53I've also just heard police tell me that some, some officers get really angry if they feel

04:00like someone's lying to them.

04:02And they just like personally don't like that.

04:05We all carry around, it's been proven sort of false numbers about how many people make

04:12it up, right?

04:12There's like a trope that women lie and we show that in the film.

04:15Police officers carry that bias as well.

04:18So there are already many of them, if they're not trained well, and if they haven't known

04:24anyone to have survived a rape, or I've never heard of a rape this way, or how come you're

04:29not bruised in the face?

04:30That doesn't sound that bad.

04:32It's a little bit of like, we don't care.

04:34We don't have time.

04:36And we don't believe you.

04:37And I think what happened with Me Too, it's such an interesting question to think about.

04:41Is this a backlash?

04:42I think no one was ready for the amount of reports and the amount of rapes that come

04:46in.

04:46And I think there is a cognitive dissonance around believing that it happens actually

04:51as much as it does.

04:52I was the one who said to her, baby, you need to go to the cops.

04:55You do everything that you're supposed to.

04:57And things like that happen, you know.

04:59Sometimes the justice system is not made for everybody.

05:02It's not made for everybody.

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