Wellington Police investigating Newtown indecent assault

Wellington Police are investigating the indecent assault of a young woman on
Hutchison Road in Newtown on Wednesday night (1 February 2012).

Acting Detective Sergeant Sam Mercer of the Wellington Crime Squad says the
victim was walking on Hutchison Road around 10pm, by the bus stop adjacent to
John Street, when she was approached by three men.

“The men made lewd remarks to her, before one of them assaulted her. Luckily,
the victim was able to defend herself and run to safety.”

Sam Mercer says the main offender is described as being olive skinned, with
short spiky black hair and around six feet tall. He was wearing a baggy, dark
grey hooded top. The other two men are described as wearing dark jeans and
beanies.

“We believe the three men had been consuming alcohol, and may have been
carrying some with them.”

He says Police are interested in hearing from anyone who was in the area of
Hutchison Rd between 9pm and 11pm on Wednesday night or who might have seen
the men walking in the Newtown or Mt Cook areas.

Anyone with information should phone the Wellington Crime Squad on (04) 802
3606 or phone Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

Nicola and Polly’s story: street harassment with a megaphone

My flatmate and I caught the bus out to Kilbirnie then walked through some shops for an Opportunity for Animals opshop sale which was on. A car full of young men drove past and suddenly we heard a “rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr” gross gurgling sound and cat-calls coming out of a speaker on the car, and saw them laughing while talked in to a mouthpiece connected to something on the roof by a wire. They had actually invested money and resources in their objectification of women and installed a megaphone to harass women with. This was at like 5pm in broad daylight, too.

I hope they had a minor, non-serious, accident which didn’t hurt them as people but destroyed their stupid speaker thing. Why are people so awful?!

Zac Guildford

This is a link to an article about Zac Guildford returning home and apologising for some his inappropriate behaviour while in Rarotonga.

I think Zac Guildford’s apology regarding assaulting two men is a very good one, and I am really pleased to see that he is open about needing to put steps in place to get well.

However, I really wish while publicly apologising for his first inappropriate incident, he had also apologised for harassing a female athlete – other than just mentioning he “tried” to meet with her and “she declined”. I’m hugely disappointed that this incident is seen as being less worthy of apology than him punching two men.

The woman who reported being harassed has talked about fearing for her safety after she asked Guildford to stop yelling sexual obscenities and comments about her body while he followed her in his car as she went for a run. She has talked about how he became aggressive, and how she hid in a shop until he left.

Since then not only has she been pressured to meet with him by his manager (really empathetic move to try and push someone to meet with the person who harassed them and made them feel unsafe, thanks All Blacks management), but she has been pressured to drop the charges by All Blacks management and had Acting Police Commissioner Akatauira Matapo refer to her complaint as a waste of police time.

It seems to me that Guildford is a clever guy who understands that he’s in a bad place (especially in regards to his relationship with alcohol) and that he has let a lot of people down with his actions. I’m not sure whether not specifically apologising for acting in a deplorable way toward this woman is due to a decision by All Blacks management or Zac Guildford himself, but I hope that her refusal to meet with him, compared with the men he assaulted agreeing to meet with him, is not the reason why she has not received a public apology and they have.

I also have to question the mentality behind All Blacks management pressuring the victim of harassment to meet with her harasser. In the interests of wanting to deal with this in a tidy, private way, they have effectively attempted to erase her right to lay a complaint and let the police deal with it. They have ignored the (fairly common sense) need for distance from the person that made her feel unsafe, and THEN publicly discussed her refusal to do what they asked, which is a judgement on her ‘willingness to cooperate’ regardless of whether they frame it as such.

All Blacks management pressuring her to drop the complaint is further harassment as far as I’m concerned. It’s the big boys vs one lone woman, whose own police commissioner thinks her grievance is not worthy of anyone’s time.

People with power trying to silence women who have experienced harassment or abuse is not new, but frankly I feel that Zac’s attitude is new. In the hyper-masculine culture of Rugby Union in New Zealand, it’s rare to see someone mess up and talk frankly about needing to put steps in place, draw on his support systems and take one step at a time to get better.

So I hope with all my might that Zac will realise he has every young rugby fan watching him. He has office workers discussing him over the water cooler, and radio commentators filling their inane timeslots with every juicy detail of his fall from grace.

I hope he realises his lack of apology makes women who get harassed on the street every day feel like even if their harasser is famous no one will care. And that his comments about her refusing to meet with him make women feel like we are obligated to face the people who make us feel unsafe or else we’re not ‘moving on’ or ‘being fair’.

All Blacks management might continue to throw their clout around and try and nip ‘problems’ like this in the bud while denying victims justice or due process, but Zac actually has the power here. If he apologises as openly and genuinely for harassment as he has done for assault, then people might actually start to see that harassment is violence.

Olivia’s Story: Lambton Quay

As I was walking along Lambton Quay last week, on my way home from law school, a man walking towards me made sure that he got close enough to brush past my shoulder before turning, pinching my ass and saying “slut” in to my ear. Following that he simply continued walking, leaving me shocked by his behaviour and his apparent right to touch me.

Megan’s Story: leaving WYFC candidate’s forum

As I walked home from (ironically) the WYFC candidates meeting last night, along Courtenay Place, a car pulled up alongside me, and the man in the passanger seat yelled “I’d like to tap that ass, baby. With a crow bar.”

As I ignored them, the car drove slowly along with me, and he continued to tell me what he’d like to do with my ass.

When I got to the lights, and turned around to write down the license plate number, he got defensive and angry, continued to yell, and then sped off.

Rugby World Cup fever in Wellington!

It seems like the Rugby World Cup has been the only topic of conversation around here lately!

With Quarter-Finals coming up this weekend in Wellington between South Africa and Australia and Ireland and Wales you can bet there will be a lot of people out on the street this weekend having a good time.

But if you’re feeling unsafe when you’re out in town don’t forget that there are the Walkwise ambasadors who can walk you within a short distance of the town centre or to transport.

We’d also like to hear people’s experiences of the RWC so far – what has it been like? Good? bad? Ugly? What’s the energy like in Wellington at the moment? If you would like to, please share your story in the comments below. If you have something that’s specifically street harassment related, feel free to post it using the “Share Your Story” form.

Arohanui and have a great weekend if you’re going to one of the games!

Anon’s story: racism in the street at Punkfest

I was visiting Wellington from Auckland for Punkfest 2011. I was outside Medusa Bar, and a group of my ‘friends’ wanted to go and see a pro-racist ‘white pride’ band (riding on the coat tails of Punkfest, but not actually booked to play at the festival.) I refused to go along and they tell me I’m being “too sensitive” and they only like them “for the music, not the sentiment.” I was mortified that a venue would even book a openly racist band.

I walk away with others who are refusing to see the band. As I leave I hear one of them say “she’s just a fucking Jew anyway.”

Lizzie’s story: getting home from uni

I recently broke up with a guy who I’d been seeing on a fairly casual basis. He’s responded by sending me frequent unwanted text messages and showing up where I meet my friends on campus.
One Tuesday evening, when I was walking from uni to the Manners St bus stop, he followed me down Church St steps. I didn’t know he was there until he had grabbed me.
He then followed me to the bus stop, and kept trying to talk to me until I could jump on the first bus outta there.
This incident has made me uncomfortable about walking home from campus, and I especially noticed in the first week or so after this had happened that I would get anxious about whether or not he was following me again.
I’ve made it very clear to him that I don’t want to see him around, but he still hangs around my friends and has tried to ask me out again.

Anon’s Story: Outside JJ Murphies

Last night (Sat 13 August) I was leaving JJ Murphies in Cuba Mall with a few of my flatmates after playing some pool. It was about 2am and quite busy on the streets. As we walked past The Bristol, there was a young man and a woman engaged in a very intense verbal argument sitting down at one of the outside tables. It caught my eye and I stopped just ahead to check that the girl was ok, though I said this was looking like an argument, when I turned back it was more than that. There was no arguing, the man had his fists screwed up and was growling at this woman like he was very angry dog ready to attack, holding a very intense stare and trying to grab her wrists to which she was resisting and broke free from. She got up and started striding away from him. I immediately ushered her toward me and said for her to come with us and that we would look after her, or something to that effect. My flatmates didn’t really have time to engage but I felt they were with me. Then suddenly the angry (boy friend/ex, I assume) came bolting up behind us, pushing me out of the way, telling me that he would fuckin’ smash me as he continued to persue this woman. I had my hand in my bag reaching for my phone to call the cops. She was screaming at him by this point and retaliated by hitting him over the head with her hand bag to try and deter him. Only at this stage did some bouncer intervene,following the man as he continued to hound this woman. I kept near by to make sure she was going to be okay. She made haste for a taxi on Ghuznee st which the man was still trying to prevent her from getting away from him. The bouncer it seemed could only try and get between the angry guy and the girl but couldn’t physically restrain him. The taxi driver got out and it seemed was trying to help the girl too. I yelled out for “some one to get the fuckin’ animal away from her”.
I can only hope that this woman is okay now and has protection from this guy. But I don’t know that, do you?
I wish that more people would respond to this kind of thing when it happens, rather than thinking “it’s none of my business” though I know it is really scary to intervene,and I know not every one feels empowered to do so, but even just by alerting someone with authority to do something about it or speaking up and encouraging others to say something too would help to make a difference. Violence and abuse is such a hushed up issue in this country. It is just so terrible when violence is experienced in a public arena like this and no-one reacts. To me it sends a message to both victim and perpetrator that society condones this kind of behaviour when no one does anything. This is not T.V people. This is Reality!!!!!

Rebecca’s story: getting home from the party

It was about 11:30 at night. My friend and I had been to a party nearby, but we decided to leave earlier because we were worried about getting home safe. We were waiting by the bus stop outside Briscoes in Taranaki St. I had an easier way to get home but I wanted to stay with my friend until the bus came because leaving her there by herself seemed wrong. While we were waiting, at least 3 different groups of young men swaggered past clutching numerous bottles of alcohol and yelling things like “Hey bitch” or lecherously sneering “what are you little ladies doing out on night like this…. hey, hey.” We determinedly ignored them, trying to act like they weren’t there, avoiding eye contact, and pretending to be talking to someone on the phone. We felt powerless, threatened and incredibly vulnerable. Fortunately, the aggression from the drunks was only verbal, and they moved off, much to our relief. We then called my friend’s mother to pick us up as the bus was showing no signs of arrival. I’m really glad I didn’t leave my friend alone and I HATE that a few scary drunks with no sense of boundaries manage to traumatise us and ruin a good evening. I also hate having to pull parents out of their other engagements to “rescue” me because I can’t cope with the situation and don’t feel safe.