Rape Reports 'Unfounded,' Police Say After Teens Tell of Park Assaults

The first report came in late January—a 15-year-old girl saying she had been raped nearly two weeks earlier at La Mesita Park. Two weeks later, a 16-year-old girl told police she’d been raped Feb. 1 at Northmont Park. Then in mid-February, a La Mesa woman in her 40s said she’d been raped in October 2010.

On Wednesday, police Lt. Dan Willis said all three cases were empty of evidence.

“Both the Northmont Park and La Mesita Park ‘sexual assaults’ have been investigated and have been determined to be ‘unfounded,’” Willis said.

That means no evidence exists that a crime occurred, he said. 

The third incident, involving a woman who delayed her report for more than three months, “is suspended, pending any further investigative leads to follow up,” he said.

Police reached their conclusions on the teen reports within the past 10 days, he said Wednesday, adding: “Both cases had conflicting evidence and a significant lack of supportive evidence that a crime ever occurred.”

Asked whether police had plans to charge anyone with making a false report, Willis replied via e-mail: “Not at this time.”
 
La Mesa police have no hard numbers on what share of reported rapes are later judged “unfounded,” Willis said.

“There are a certain unknown portion of sexual assault cases where the evidence leads the investigator to believe a crime did not occur, or likely did not occur; however he/she is unable to conclusively show that the victim falsely reported the incident,” he said.

In fact, he said, it’s rare for police to find evidence of fibbing—“therefore seldom do cases get referred to the DA’s Office for false reporting.  If we can show it, we definitely do request prosecution.”

But most of these types of cases “with little or no corroboration,” end up being suspended pending further investigative leads, he said.

In 2010, a series of stories in The Baltimore Sun detailed how the percentage of rape cases investigated and marked “unfounded” by Baltimore police had soared to 32 percent. The series said only two other major cities had more than 20 percent of cases judged “unfounded.”

In response, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake ordered an audit of unfounded cases and a review of investigative practices, noted a victims advocacy group in Baltimore called TurnAround.

TurnAround later issued a report decribing an audit of unfounded rapes, saying: “In comparison to last year, there has been an 84% decrease in unfounded rape and attempted rape cases. So we are encouraged that change has begun.”

A December 2010 article in The Baltimore Sun reported:

More than half of nearly 100 rape reports that Baltimore Police decided were false or baseless have been reclassified as rapes or other sex crimes, according to an audit presented Wednesday to a City Council panel.

The findings came from a review prompted by a Baltimore Sun analysis that exposed flaws in the way police handled sex offense investigations. Baltimore has long led the nation in the proportion of rape reports classified as “unfounded” — meaning the incident did not happen.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said the audit, along with other comprehensive changes in recent months, “has forever changed and improved the way sexual assault cases are investigated in Baltimore, ensuring that all victims of sexual assault have their complaints investigated fully and are treated with dignity and respect.”