The most important thing to note about this story is that the perpetrator has never done anything like this before.  That’s the important part, and it’s important that you remember this important part.  He had never done anything like this before.

I don’t know whether his saying such a thing, to him, mitigates what he did.  Perhaps he’s just trying to convince someone (Us? Himself? Mom?) that he’s really a good man and his “serious lapse in judgement” only happened this one time and hey, that happens to everybody, right? So it’s not as bad as it seems, because remember, he had never done anything like this before.  That’s the important part.

As a feminist, a progressive, and heck just a human being, I feel anger pretty much at some point every day.  But there are some that really just take the cake for me in the realm of “Things That Are So Egregious I Am Almost in Disbelief.”

Abuse of power is one of them.  Taking on the moral responsibility of aiding others and then instead harming them is another.  The sexual assault by Dominique Strauss-Kahn is an example of the first. The rape of young boys by Catholic priests is an example of the second.

In this special case, we have both.  On Christmas Day, a woman in Connecticut was drinking at a party, fell backwards, and hit her head.  She was transported via ambulance to Yale New Haven Hospital.  En route, one of the paramedics sexually assaulted her.  Yes, you read that right.  He squeezed her nipples and shoved his finger up her vagina as she lay at his mercy while being transported to a hospital for medical attention.

When Mark D. Powell finally admitted to the crime, he said – and I quote – “I just diddled it.”  And of course let’s remember, he had never done anything like this before.

I don’t know about you, but when someone uses the word “just” before admitting to sexually assaulting someone, I get very suspicious that he has never done anything like this before.   Has he never “just diddled” someone before?  Has he never sexually assaulted someone before?  Raped someone? Maybe he thinks he really never has done any of these things before – he’s just penetrated someone without their consent.  Or just played with their body parts while they were unconscious.  Or just groped them.  Or just put his mouth on them.

Somehow, I’m not sure he understands exactly what it is he did or the grave nature of it.

“A serious lapse in judgement” plagues us all from time to time.  We get distracted, we get overwhelmed, we don’t think things through as much as we probably should.  Sexually assaulting someone isn’t a lapse in judgement – serious or not.  It’s an egregious abuse of power used to force someone into sexual activity.

In this particular case, the survivor of the assault was drinking and a little out of it, but not so drunk that she didn’t remember what had happened.  She was afraid to report it because she’d been drinking, and she was afraid she had no way to prove it and no one would believe her.  Always, my thought is that reporting something or not is the sole decision and discretion of the survivor, based on what is best for them.  Our system is just too penalizing to victims of assault to blanket say everyone should report every assault no matter what.

In this particular case though, I’m especially glad that she decided to report this crime to the police, that it seems they acted appropriately and arrested him, and that there seems to be a good chance that she will get justice.  Maybe this time, Mark D. Powell thinks that all he did was “just” sexually assault her.  But as we all know, criminal activity escalates if it’s not dealt with it immediately.  The more you get away with stealing, the more you steal.  Sexual assault is a crime that frequently escalates, which is why it’s so very important that we tackle all of the “just” sexual assaults that occur every day, and that we seek justice for those survivors.

I have no way of knowing whether Mark D. Powell has ever done anything like this before.  But I do know one thing.  If the survivor in this case hadn’t come forward, there’s a good chance he would have done it again.  And again.  And perhaps even worse next time.  Let’s see if the criminal justice system will work the way we need it to and make sure the punishment fits the crime.

* Note: I tried hard in this post not to comment too much on the gender of the survivor, saying things like “he assaulted a woman.”  While there are times when gender absolutely plays an important role in the contexts of sexual assault, I don’t want to be part of an establishment that feeds into the idea that this attack was somehow worse because it happened to a woman versus a man or anyone else.  A person was sexually assaulted.  That’s horror enough for me.

Photo Credit: CPM_1st Pic, shared under the Creative Commons License.