KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ Angela Garza agonized over what to wear to the police station the day she reported being raped.
The wrong choice of clothing could diminish her credibility, the University of Kansas student thought, or make an officer think she had been "asking for it." She chose something nice _ but not too nice.
Her attention to detail was wasted. The Lawrence police officer she met with still didn't believe her when she said her ex-boyfriend raped her multiple times when they were still together.
"He gave me his card, wrote down the case number and said since it was a relationship it means it was consensual," Garza said.
"It felt like he was siding with this guy he'd never met."
She and other women who reported sexual assaults in the past few years said they were brushed off, blamed or retraumatized by Lawrence police, whom they trusted.
In one case, police decided in 90 minutes the woman was lying. In another, an officer allegedly suggested such assaults happen when women in college "experiment." And in yet another instance, Lawrence police never arrested a KU guest lecturer accused of three sexual assaults in the city.
The most recent Kansas City Star investigation found two additional false report charges brought in the last two years against Lawrence women who reported rape or domestic violence. The charges were dropped after The Star asked about them.
The Star also found that Lawrence police aren't as well-trained to handle such crimes as are police elsewhere in the region and don't have an adult special victims unit. Their arrest rate in rapes is lower than the state average. Their investigations have led to more false report charges against women in recent years than in other cities.
Law enforcement in the county needs to change, Douglas County District Attorney Charles Branson acknowledged.
KU law professor Suzanne Valdez, who is also president of the University Senate and a special prosecutor in Wyandotte County, said she does not believe there is a safe place in Lawrence she can send students who come to her reporting assault.
"Women aren't safe here," Valdez said. "Police aren't protecting women, the DA's not protecting women."
Lawrence police disagreed with those conclusions.
"The Lawrence Police Department takes alleged crimes of a sexual nature very seriously," spokeswoman Amy Rhoads wrote in an email. The department, she wrote, "is firmly committed to assisting the survivors of sexual assault."
Asked about Garza's story, police said they would not discuss individual cases of sexual assault because of privacy concerns. But they said the relationship between victim and suspect is not a factor in deciding if a rape occurred.
As an attorney, Valdez said she suggests students go to the police. But she also tells them to expect the worst treatment.
"You don't expect anyone to be supportive. Don't expect anyone to believe you because that's not what's going to happen."
The Star generally does not name possible victims of sexual assault without their permission. Some women, including Garza, agreed to be named in this story.
Garza, the KU student, said she told her boyfriend "no." But he kept pushing, sometimes injuring her while she froze, unable to fight back.
It happened again and again, throughout the fall of 2016.
"I didn't realize until months after it ended that I was raped," Garza said. "It doesn't matter that I was in a relationship. No means no."
When police told her otherwise, Garza left the department angry but exhausted.
She sank into a deep depression and lost faith in the world around her, she said. The straight-A student saw her grades tank and she was kicked out of the University of Kansas Honors Program.
Relying on good friends and her own stubbornness, she graduated and moved to another state. She doubts that she would ever return to Lawrence.
Police never contacted her again, she said. She heard no updates on her case over two years. In October 2019 she called the department asking for a copy of her police report.
The officer she spoke with told her she couldn't have it, she said.
He told Garza the case was still open, she said, so the report couldn't be released.
But the officer also told her police never investigated the case because there was no probable cause that a rape had occurred, she said.
Lawrence police said the department would not discuss Garza's case, but acknowledged that the first page of a police report is open to the public under Kansas law, though other parts of the record may be closed during an investigation.
The department, however, has no record of women being denied that first page, said Lawrence police Capt. Anthony Brixius.
Garza said police offered her no part of the record but said she could go to headquarters and look at it. By then, she lived out of state.
When she first made her report, Garza said, she expected a detective similar to what she had seen on TV, someone who believed her and was well-trained.
Hers is one of many cases that never led to an arrest.
In 2018 Lawrence police made an arrest in 13.8% of reported rape cases, according to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. That was almost 1% below the statewide average, but it was an improvement from the previous two years when less than 5% led to an arrest.
Nationwide, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found in a 2017 survey that about 20% of reported sexual assaults led to an arrest.
When Lawrence police officers go through the department's in-house academy they receive basic training on sexual assault investigations based in part on standards set by a KU law enforcement training center.
That training material has not been updated since 2012. It explains some symptoms of trauma a survivor might experience but does not provide officers with clear guidelines regarding how to conduct an interview or investigation with that trauma in mind.
The officers also see a presentation from a local rape crisis center covering services they provide to survivors.
Rhoads, the police spokeswoman, wrote in an email that some officers have completed more specialized training in sexual assault investigations. One detective, she wrote, had more than 300 hours of training on sex crimes and related topics.
But police officials in an interview could not say how many officers received that additional training. Officers are required to undergo 40 hours of training each year. They are not required to seek out training on a specific topic unless they are part of a special unit. In contrast, KU campus police are required to get continuing training in sexual assault investigation yearly.
All three Lawrence police officers on the case of a woman charged this year with making a false report testified that they did not have special training.
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