A woman who escaped her kidnapper by punching her way out of a homemade cinder block cell at a home in southern Oregon likely saved other women from a similar fate, authorities said, by alerting them to a man they now suspect in sexual assaults in at least four more states.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    What cops dont want to talk about is this guy (and others) get victims by pretending to be cops.

    Because even real cops don’t follow procedure and will kill people for not following nonsensical orders, it’s really easy for criminals to just yell “police” and victims know even if it’s legitimately a cop, they may be murdered for not doing everything the person claiming to be a cop orders them to do.

    Even the rape after “arrest”, that’s something cops are legally allowed to do in a lot of states still. They can just claim it’s consensual even when the women is being detained and handcuffed, and then it’s the cops word against their victim.

    When cops act like criminals, it’s impossible to know if someone is a cop and also a criminal, or just a criminal pretending to be a cop.

    • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You’re correct and it’s only get worse. A lot if not most of our police force are made up of fascist.

      They even recruiting that way. There is terrifying video of police recruiters teaching that civilians should be treated as enemy combats.

      And with Atlanta building that “cop city” were police will be trained in urban combat and full on war against us civilians we are totally fucked as a society.

    • KeenSnappersDontCome@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      To add context this isn’t a hypothetical situation. In New York Two cops Eddie Martins and Richard Hall raped an 18 year old woman they had arrested for marijuana possession. They detained a group of teens, and let all of them go except for the woman who they then handcuffed and raped in the back of their police van. They then dropped her off in another location. She went to a hospital where a rape kit found semen matching the DNA of detectives Eddie Martins and Richard Hall. Both officers claimed that they did have sex with her, but it was consensual. Because it wasn’t specifically illegal for police to have sex with someone they detained they were able to accept a plea deal for taking bribes and official misconduct where they got 5 years probation with no jail time. Because of this case New York unanimously passed a new law (SB S7708) making it so that a person “under arrest, detention or otherwise in actual custody” cannot consent to sex. In any other state that doesn’t have a similar law it is essentially legal (as in it is not specifically illegal) for police to rape someone they arrested.

      • Myro@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        That’s pretty horrifying. You have all the evidence you need but can’t do anything. Being police always puts you in a position of power, which makes it so much more likely for people to not resist for the fear of consequences.

    • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Also, sex work is real work. If the same people trying to keep it illegal are paying for it, there’s no excuse to continue leaving sex workers out to fend for themselves.

      • livus@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        What they mean is, it is legal for police there to “have sexual relations” with people in police custody. For that reason it is very easy for them to overpower people/coerce them and rape them, and very difficult for victims to get justice for this.

        • El Barto@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Sort of like when a teacher has sex with his 18-yr-old student, I’m assuming? It would be grounds for dismissal but not fit criminal charges.

          Damn. Shit’s fucked up.

          • Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 year ago

            Except the teacher has the legal right to force the student to go into a space the teacher controlls, force the student to get rid of all possessions including ones that could be used for recording, handcuff them, and then it is illegal for the student to fight back against the teacher in any way even while being raped. Also teachers may kill students during this with minimal repercussions

      • Chetzemoka@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        In many states, the law fails to recognize coercive power dynamics (like being arrested and detained) as inherently non-consensual, leaving “but she said yes!” as a viable defense for cops who “have sex with” a detained woman. It’s disgusting and very real.

        https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/07/09/fact-check-police-detainee-sex-not-illegal-many-states/5383769002/

        "After a woman accused two New York police officers of raping her while in their custody in 2017, the legality of police-detainee sexual conduct gained national attention.

        While the Prison Rape Elimination Act protects inmates from sexual abuse by prison staff, the law does not apply to detainees who have not been convicted of a crime. Forced sexual conduct is illegal in every state in any context, but in states without a law mandating otherwise, police can argue a consent defense if detainees accuse them of rape."

      • nul9o9@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Sure is, isn’t it? Police have too much power and not enough accountability in this country.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, what the other person said.

        If a person is in custody, most states don’t say an on duty cop can’t have sex with them.

        So the cop just starts doing it, the victim thinks saying no won’t help, or even does say no.

        Later the cop claims it’s consensual and since they turned off the cameras, it’s their word against their victim’s.

        And most won’t even report it, because it’s hard to believe other cops will do anything after they were just raped while in custody, either in a police car or even in a police station.

      • evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s not legal. What it comes down to is that some states wrote laws saying any sexual encounter where one person is in duty in a position of power, that encounter is automatically deemed non-consensual. In other states, it would follow the exact same laws as any other sexual assault. In these other states, if a rape were reported, during the ensuing investigation/court case (if there actually was one), the prosecutor would basically just say the same thing, that there was no consent because of the power dynamic. I don’t know whether or not those laws make a difference in the long run. It’s probably a good thing to have on the books, but not as sensational as people make it out to be.

        To use the first weird analogy that came to mind, it’s like if one state had a law saying that you couldn’t poke whales with sticks, while another state just said you couldn’t mess with whales. Either state would prosecute you for poking a whale with a stick, just the one would have to say that poking is a form of messing with the whale.

        There’s arguments for and against laws like that, cause on the one hand, you want laws to be as simple as possible to cover whatever use case, but on the other hand, you don’t want to give criminals/businesses/etc. to have any wiggle room to do things against the public interest because there isn’t a specific law against it

  • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldM
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    1 year ago

    Shit like this is just a reminder of how absolutely batshit insane cops like this are when they demand unquestioning acquiescence. People are right to take their own safety into account when approached by someone claiming to be an officer, because even legitimate officers can (and do) trample people’s rights EVERY. SINGLE. DAY in this country, and they’ve made the case loud and clear that no one will protect us but ourselves. They should BEGIN their training with a course about the horrific situations innocent people have had to endure as a result of unquestioning obedience to a real or purported LEO, and only then start to wrestle with the hefty responsibility that comes with exerting that kind of authority.

  • MicroWave@lemmy.worldOP
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    1 year ago

    “This woman was kidnapped, chained, sexually assaulted, and locked in a cinderblock cell,” Stephanie Shark, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Portland field office, said in a news release. “Police say she beat the door with her hands until they were bloody in order to break free. Her quick thinking and will to survive may have saved other women from a similar nightmare.”

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A woman who escaped her kidnapper by punching her way out of a homemade cinder block cell at a home in southern Oregon likely saved other women from a similar fate, authorities said, by alerting them to a man they now suspect in sexual assaults in at least four more states.

    Negasi Zuberi posed as an undercover police officer when he kidnapped the woman in Seattle, drove hundreds of miles to his home in Klamath Falls and locked her in the garage cell until she bloodied her hands breaking the door to escape, the FBI said Wednesday.

    “This woman was kidnapped, chained, sexually assaulted, and locked in a cinderblock cell,” Stephanie Shark, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Portland field office, said in a news release.

    A grand jury in Portland on Wednesday returned an indictment charging Zuberi with interstate kidnapping and transporting an individual across state lines with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

    According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Oregon, Zuberi solicited the woman, identified only as Adult Victim 1, in the early-morning hours of July 15 to engage in prostitution along Aurora Avenue in Seattle, an area known for sex work.


    I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • FollyDolly@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Man I hope if I ever get kidapped I can just women up and punch my way out. Just Kill Bill that shit.

  • ZzyzxRoad@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Another example of why sex work should be legal, so that people who do it can have more protection from freaks like this guy.

    • DarkThoughts@kbin.social
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      Investigators interviewed Zuberi’s wife and neighbors, but authorities declined to say if there was any indication that any of them had been aware of the abduction.

      Assuming they didn’t live separated it is hard to imagine that they didn’t know. A makeshift cell in your garage that holds your victims is kind of hard to hide from your family.

      A search of Zuberi’s home and garage turned up the Seattle woman’s purse and handwritten notes, according to investigators. One of them was labeled “Operation Take Over” and included a bullet list with entries that read, “Leave phone at home” and “Make sure they don’t have a bunch of ppl (sic) in their life. You don’t want any type of investigation.”

      This kinda makes it sound even darker, maybe like a trafficking ring. Did he write that himself? Some third party? His wife?

      • ClanOfTheOcho@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I heard that the woman was taken from Washington, held in the cell in Oregon, and the guy was arrested with his family in Reno. I don’t know any details, but figured there was something more to the logistics that weren’t being reported.

  • girlfreddy@mastodon.social
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    1 year ago

    @MicroWave

    "The Klamath Falls rental home where Zuberi allegedly took the woman is owned by the city’s mayor, Carol Westfall, and her husband, Kevin, according to property records.

    Court records show that after Zuberi’s arrest, the couple had him evicted."

    Nice mayor. Zuberi is in jail so they didn’t evict him … they evicted his wife and child.

    Carol & Kevin Westfall should be forced to allow the wife and child back into the rental.

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      The wife is likely either an accomplice and should also be in jail, or another victim and remaining in that house would be traumatizing. You don’t just have secret prisons in your garage without others noticing that live in the same house.