Sexual Assault

The prospect of spending years behind bars in a tiny cell is sufficiently chilling to deter most people from ever committing a crime. Those who willfully break the law anyway and get caught have no one to blame but themselves when a judge sentences them to prison. But even convicted felons shouldn't have to suffer the extralegal indignity and physical trauma of being raped by fellow inmates and prison staff while they're serving their time. Sexual assaults in the nation's prisons are alarmingly common.

The prospect of spending years behind bars in a tiny cell is sufficiently chilling to deter most people from ever committing a crime. Those who willfully break the law anyway and get caught have no one to blame but themselves when a judge sentences them to prison. But even convicted felons shouldn't have to suffer the extralegal indignity and physical trauma of being raped by fellow inmates and prison staff while they're serving their time. Sexual assaults in the nation's prisons are alarmingly common.

Anne Arundel County police are investigating a reported sexual assault of a girl at Annapolis High School by a fellow student Friday. Officers were called to the school on Riva Road at about 12:30 p.m. for a report of a sexual assault where the female juvenile student said she was sexually assaulted by a male juvenile student. Police said the students knew each other. Detectives from the Criminal Investigation Division's Sex Offense Unit are investigating. Anyone with additional information is asked to contact Detective Justin Widup at 410-222-3468.

Annapolis police are looking for a man who pulled a 21-year-old woman into an alley in downtown Annapolis and sexually assaulted her early Saturday morning. About 1:30 a.m., the woman was walking alone in the 100 block of Duke of Gloucester St. near the heart of the downtown area when a man walking behind her grabbed her and dragged her into a nearby alley, according to police. The man threw the woman to the ground and sexually assaulted her, police said. The woman, who had been walking home from West Street, was eventually able to fight off the man, who then fled, police said.

A $278,000 grant was awarded to the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice to train city police detectives on sexual assault investigations, city officials announced Thursday. The Byrne Grant from the Governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention will fund training, as well as new case-management software, video recording equipment, a victims' advocate, outreach materials and biological evidence testing. "This grant will support a victim-centered approach that will allow us to better identify, apprehend and prosecute offenders," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in a statement.

A well-regarded Howard County nonprofit that is helping 88 clients deal with sexual assault and abuse has announced it will close Dec. 31 because of financial problems made worse by the recession. Lisa Bailey, board chairwoman of the Sexual Trauma Treatment, Advocacy and Recovery Center (or STTAR) for the past two years, said the 32-year-old organization's attempts to expand just as the recession was reaching its peak stretched finances too far. An office in Anne Arundel County closed this fall, she said, and offices in Montgomery County and Columbia will close by year's end. All the patients are being referred to private practitioners, including to some of the group's 15 employees who operate private practices.

A Milwaukee man was charged with second-degree assault and sex offense charges after Anne Arundel County police say he sexually assaulted a woman in her Arnold home Wednesday afternoon. Officers responded to the 500 block of Norton Way at about 2:40 p.m. when the woman called police to report she had been assaulted. She told police that a man selling magazine subscriptions asked to use her bathroom and then assaulted her. Police officers in the area arrested Jarvis Lamon Spain, 21, of the 4600 block of N. 37th St. in Milwaukee and charged him with second-degree assault, perverted practice, fourth-degree sex offense and sodomy.

A 14-year-old Odenton youth is facing attempted rape and other charges, Anne Arundel County police said this week, accusing him of sexually assaulting a female student in a bathroom at Arundel Senior High School, police said. Police said the student was charged Monday as a juvenile with attempted second-degree rape, second-degree sex assault and a second-degree sex offense. He was released to a relative, police said. Last Monday, school officials received an anonymous call alerting them to a possible sexual assault in a bathroom earlier in the day. A female student told police that she knew the student whom she said attacked her. andrea.siegel@baltsun.com Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

A former Randallstown man was sentenced this week to 40 years in prison for the sexual assault in March 2009 of an employee at an Edgewater restaurant after she got off work, according to court records. Christopher Edward Taylor, 36, of Washington, D.C., was accused of forcing his way into the woman's car at gunpoint at about 11:30 p.m. March 31 after she left work at an Original Steakhouse, assaulting her and making her take him to an ATM to withdraw cash from her bank account.

The Sun has invited participants in the Occupy Baltimore protest to submit occasional articles describing their experiences, ideas and goals. This one, from Baltimore resident Jenny Gaeng , provides one protester's perspecti ve on a memo circulated at the protest that drew criticism for apparently suggesting that any allegations of sexual assault at the encampment be handled internally and that victims not call police. Well, it's finally happened.  Occupy Baltimore, the 100-person occupation fighting valiantly to stay abo ve water, has made the national news.

Sexual assault in the military threatens our national security. This has been a hard lesson for military leaders to learn, but thanks to significant pressure from Congress and victims' advocates, they're starting to get the picture. Last month, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced that sexual assault cases will now be handled by higher-ranking, more experienced officers and supervised by new Special Victims Units. These changes indicate that the Pentagon is finally interested in treating sexual assault as a serious crime rather than as lapse in professionalism or leadership.

The Baltimore County Police Department announced Friday that, in the wake of a Maryland Court of Appeals opinion, it will discontinue collection of DNA samples at the time of arrest from suspects charged with certain violent crimes. But in a press release, Police Chief James Johnson expressed his displeasure over the ruling, and said he hopes it will be reversed. "Our job is public safety, and DNA collection is an invaluable tool for helping us protect citizens from criminals," Johnson said in the statement.

When a high court ruling came down this week limiting the use of DNA evidence, police in the state were investigating 20 cases based on DNA  collected after they arrested suspects charged with committing a violent crime or burglary. Now, it's unclear whether any of  those cases will lead to prosecutions. The Court of Appeals decision puts in question the constitutionality of collecting the samples before a conviction, and the state is considering whether to appeal the matter to theU.S.

Rape is a notoriously difficult crime to prosecute. Of every 100 rapes nationwide, 46 are reported, 12 lead to arrests and three result in prison sentences. To improve those odds, advocates are encouraging more nurses to receive the training to give a forensic examination that can be key to securing a conviction. Prosecutions are difficult when a victim fails to get a prompt examination. And with TV crime dramas such as "CSI" raising expectations among juries, prosecutors and victims' advocates view the forensic exam as more essential than ever.

A former midshipman who says she was raped twice while at the Naval Academy has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to force officials to improve their response to sexual assaults at the service academies. In a complaint filed Friday, the woman, now 22, says she was raped on separate occasions by two different midshipmen. After she reported the assaults to an academy counselor, she says, the academy forced her to drop out. The woman and a co-plaintiff, a former U.S. Military Academy cadet who says she was raped by a fellow student there, say officials at the two academies tolerate sexual assault and discourage victims of attacks from reporting them.

There were football players in high heels, police officers in pumps, and students in spikes marching around campus on Wednesday, April 4, as Towson University hosted its third annual Walk a Mile In Her Shoes event. Walk A Mile is a national movement and marks April as National Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The event invites men to walk a mile on campus in a pair of women's shoes. Scores of students - men and women - took part in the walk, with many men choosing from a wide range of shoe choices at the sign-in table before stepping out. Towson University Student Government President Matt Sikorski, wearing a fashionable pair of heels, carried a sign stating, "My strength is not for hurting.

A Baltimore man has been charged in Anne Arundel County with sexual assault in Linthicum last week, police said. Tamango Johnson, 38, of the 1800 block of Bolton St., has been charged with rape, assault, false imprisonment, impersonating a police officer and other sex offense charges, according to a statement Tuesday from the Anne Arundel County Police Department. On the evening of Dec. 27, a woman reported being sexually assaulted at the Microtel Inn and Suites, in the 1100 block of Winterson Road, by a man she arranged to meet in her hotel room, police said.

A woman walking through Riverside Park in South Baltimore early Sunday was attacked and sexually assaulted, and city police are asking for help in locating a suspect, authorities said on Tuesday. The incident occurred 10 days after a couple was robbed at gunpoint at East Clement and Covington streets, a few blocks south of the park which runs along East Randall Street, between Johnson and Covington streets. City police released scant details of the latest attack, and only after inquiries from The Baltimore Sun. The police then issued a news release to all the city's media.

Machele Fredericks had to face her attacker every day. She was in the Air Force. He was a fellow service member on the base. And he said that if she told anyone what he'd done, he'd kill her. "You didn't hear much of people getting raped in the military back then," Fredericks said. "At least I didn't. So, you know, it was like fear every day: 'I hope he's not at the gate today.' "I wouldn't dare tell no one. I didn't think anybody was going to believe me anyway. " She drank instead.