S25 Ep2: In Shock

Hey, it's Zoe Ball and Joe Wiley here from the Digit Podcast, and we're currently sponsored by the Woodland Trust. The Woodland Trust lets you dedicate a tree, a bench, even a whole area of Woodland in someone's name. Plus all of the Woodland Trust sites are free to visit, so you can go and see it anytime. It really is a gift that keeps growing, and every dedication directly supports the Woodland Trust's vital work. So if woods are your happy place or theirs, this is just a beautiful way to celebrate a birthday, a wedding anniversary, anything really. Visit woodlandtrust.org.uk slash digit. Full terms and conditions can be found on the Woodland Trust website. Yes, you are running a business, so of course you're working hard, but your reposting isn't working at all, darling. If it can't cope with the visitors, you can't grow the business. Try Ayano's. It loads up to three times faster, so you get much happier customers at unbeatable price. It is easy, easy way to get hardworking website. That is nice, nice, nice. Try Ayano's. Your digital partner at ayano.co.uk. Something was wrong is intended for mature audiences and discusses topics that may be upsetting. This season discusses sexual, physical, and psychological violence. Please consume the following episodes with care. For a full content warning, sources, and resources for each individual episode, please visit the episode notes. Opinions shared by the guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of broken cycle media. The podcast and any linked materials should not be misconstrued as a substitution for legal or medical advice. Thank you so much for listening. Previously on Something was Wrong. I'm at Cody the third day of school. We were texting all weekend and talking about making plans to hang out on Sunday night. You're watching the movie again and all of a sudden he starts to kiss me. I was like, I don't want to take it any further than this. And he starts to kiss me again. My alarm bells are ringing. Now I'm realizing how vulnerable I actually am. I'm locked in a very dark and very small room with a guy that I clearly don't know and a school I've only been at for a month. I tried to push him off. And instead of backing off, he moved me so that I was flat with my legs open. And he wedged himself on top of me. And I'm saying out loud, stop. You're hurting me. I don't want this. I didn't want to say the wrong thing. I didn't want to just get up and run because what if he attacked me? I had no idea. It was divine timing. My roommate was calling me. She was saying that one of our friends was in our room and needed help. I told my roommate the entire story and as much detail as I could. My roommate was like, why don't we go downstairs to the RA and just tell her what happened because I want you to know that you were assaulted. My roommate and I went into the RA office and we asked her if we could talk. I told her as much as I could in between sobs. I told you my story now I'm going to bed and I just showered and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, put my pajamas on and went to sleep. For many survivors of sexual assault on college campuses, the first step is not reporting. It's deciding whether to tell anyone at all. Data from the 2019 Association of American Universities Campus Climate Survey shows that while the vast majority of women and men who experience sexual assault tell someone, only about one in four women and roughly three in 10 men disclose the assault to a family member. For many survivors, the people they trust most in the immediate aftermath are often friends, roommates, or peers. Medical care when it happens often comes next. But even that decision is shaped by uncertainty and fear. Some survivors seek care through a sexual assault medical forensic exam often performed in emergency rooms or specialized clinics by specially trained forensic nurses. According to national standards from the US Department of Justice, these exams are intended to provide medical care, document injuries, and if the survivor chooses, collect forensic evidence. What many survivors are not always told up front is that in most states, they can receive this exam without being required to report to police. National guidance makes clear that except in situations covered by mandatory reporting laws, the decision to involve law enforcement belongs to the patient, not the hospital, and not the clinician. During these exams, providers may offer medical treatment such as STI prevention or emergency contraception depending on the survivor's needs and wishes. Still, many survivors never seek medical care at all. Often because they fear losing control over what happens next, or because they worry that seeking help will automatically trigger a police investigation. Only a small percentage of survivors move forward into formal reporting systems. The Bureau of Justice Statistics Analysis of the National Crime Victimization Survey shows that among female college students, about 20% of sexual assaults were reported to police. Campus-based reporting is similarly limited. Large university surveys indicate that only about one quarter of survivors make contact, with a campus or community support resource of any kind. And contacting a resource does not necessarily mean filing a formal Title IX complaint. For survivors who do reach out to the Title IX office, the process they enter is separate from the criminal legal system, even when both are unfolding at the same time. Title IX offices may coordinate with campus or local law enforcement when a survivor chooses to pursue criminal charges, or when they request safety measures such as no contact directives. But these systems operate independently, often with different timelines, different standards of proof, and very different definitions of accountability. Within the Title IX system itself, survivors are typically presented with two paths. Option 1 is a formal grievance process, an investigation governed by federal regulations involving written notice, evidence review, interviews, and a determination regarding responsibility. The Department of Education requires schools to move through this process within what it calls reasonably prompt timeframes, though what that looks like can vary widely from campus to campus. The other option is informal resolution, a voluntary structured alternative that may include agreements such as restrictions on contact, educational requirements, or other remedies. Federal guidance makes clear that survivors can generally withdraw from this process at any point before a final agreement is reached. At every stage, survivors are asked to make decisions, often quickly, while navigating trauma, institutional rules, and processes that were not designed with their healing as the primary priority. And for many survivors, the most defining part of the Title IX process is not resolution or accountability, but the isolation they experience while moving through it. I'm Tiffany Reese, and this is something was wrong. The next day, I believe Cody reached out to you. Yeah, the next day, he had texted me multiple times. I had definitely decided immediately when I left his room that I was never going to speak to him again, and I never have, because that is the ultimate betrayal he completely took advantage of me. As a person emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually, all the ways, that was the most hurtful thing anybody has ever done to me. He had texted me multiple times. He was like, hey, I hope I didn't do anything that made you uncomfortable. I haven't heard from you since you left my room. If I did anything to make you uncomfortable, I really want to talk about it. I'm really sorry, are you okay? He just kept refraising that and blowing up my phone. He had called me, I think, seven or eight times, within the next 48 hours. When I didn't respond to him, he reached out to my roommate. I think it was the next morning and said, hey, have you talked to me? My roommate said no. He was like, okay, well, I just feel like maybe she's mad at me. Has she said anything to you? I told my roommate, please don't tell him that I told you I just don't want anybody to know about it. She agreed and said no, she hasn't told me anything. He goes, if she tells you anything, please tell me, which I thought was super weird because I felt like he was trying to cover his own, but I encouraged everybody that I knew not to talk to him about me, not to answer any questions. Every time that he would text me, I felt worse and worse and worse because it just kept reminding me that it was real. I imagine that he had access to you and how distressing that is, too, because you literally live in the same building. He was literally just a staircase under me. He could just come up there. I just knew he was so easily around that I was trying to deescalate by being really boring and unappealing and unresponsive. What was it like for you to make the decision to discuss this with your mom and go to the hospital? I think that's kind of a decision that nobody is really prepared to have to make, especially since I spent a lot of my life really protected. I never thought that that would happen to me. When I walked away from talking to my RA, I felt like there were some options for me in terms of how I wanted to move forward, but it was still kind of overwhelming at that point, so I didn't really know what to do. There was a huge part of me that didn't want to tell my family because I felt like I did something wrong. I think that's the big underlying theme for a really long time. I felt like it was something that I did that allowed that to happen to me, and maybe if I had done the things differently, then it wouldn't have happened to me. By telling my parents, that would mean that I would have to admit my own faults. Looking back, I realized that that was just not the case. It was challenging. I had never really talked to my parents about anything sexual in my life. We have a great relationship, but that was a difficult subject, and it was really hard to find the right way to bring it up, especially since it was only a Sunday night. If I waited the entire week, then I wouldn't have told her until Friday when I got home. I talked to my roommate about it. I told her, I really feel like I should say something to my mom because maybe my mom will know if I need to go get help or not because I was injured. I didn't really know if I was going to get an infection or if I was going to get worse or if there was something seriously wrong, and then I'm going to have to tell her later down the line. At that point, I wasn't thinking about the legal aspect of it at all. I wasn't thinking about the police. My roommate was like, you should just honestly tell her because it's not your fault. My roommate was amazing. She kept reiterating the fact that it wasn't my fault and that I should get help and that my mom would understand and that parents are supposed to be there and protect you and make sure that you're safe. What a beautiful sentiment for her to offer to you in that moment. I agree. I don't know where I would be without her, honestly. I was like, if you take away all the feelings behind it, then I should probably go to the hospital and I didn't want to go alone so I knew that I had to tell my mom. What do you recall about what that conversation was like? I said, remember how last night I was in Cody's room. She knew that I had a plan to go watch a movie with him. She said yes. And I said, well, he ended up attacking me for a lack of better word and I'm hurt and don't really know what to do and where to go from here. She was like, what the hell are you talking about? I told her just a brief synopsis of it because I didn't really want to get into it, especially over the phone. How do you handle that kind of news coming from your only child? She freaked out and she was like, I'm coming to get you. We're going to go to the hospital. I don't want you to be alone. I don't want you to be there right now. I was crying and freaking out because my mom's reaction definitely made everything very real. Okay, if my mom is upset, then this must be really bad because I was still kind of in that delirious state of pushing it away and watching myself from the outside perspective. That was probably one of the worst parts of the entire thing, having to share it with my parents. Here's Luna's parents. Prior to the incident happening, she had told me that she was excited. She was going to hang out with some friends. She talked about Cody, this guy who was a really good friend, everybody liked him. He was really popular. He was like one of the girls. He invited a few of them to his dorm room downstairs to watch a movie. I talked to her that night. We had said good night as we do every single night. The next day, I had gone to work. I'm also a nurse. I work days. We had checked in a couple times throughout the day. Nothing. She never made any comments about anything. I had gotten out of work around four o'clock or so that afternoon. She called me and it's not common that she calls. Typically, we text and we only talk if we have to. I said, I'm just driving home. What's up? She's like, so there was an incident last night. Something happened with Cody. I was like, okay, like what do you mean? She said, we're hanging out. We were watching the movie. She said, he attacked me and I'm like, what do you mean? He attacked you. She's like, he just attacked me and started like touching me and it got really inappropriate. He bit me and he hurt me. I was like, did you tell anybody? I'm going to come to see you. We have to tell somebody. She was with her friend roommate at the time as she was talking to me on the phone. She said, we went to the RA and we told her, I'm like, are you okay? And she's like, I can't believe that happened. And I'm like, where is he? She's like, well, he's been trying to text me and reach out to me, but I'm not answering him. And I was like, are you her? And she's like, well, I mean, I have some bruising and I have some kind of sore and I'm bleeding a little. I don't even really remember honestly what happened after that. Except I just just know I had turned around and had started heading her way. I told her that I was coming and then that I thought we needed to go to the hospital as a nurse. I know how important it is to have someone look at you immediately. I said, just hang tight and went to her and took her with me to the hospital. Here's Luna. My roommate walked me into my mom's car from our dorm room and we went to the hospital. The ride to the hospital was pretty much completely silent. I didn't want to go to the hospital all of a sudden. I think we got like 10 minutes away from it and I started freaking out because if I actually went to the hospital, then it was legitimate that it happened to me. And I didn't want to accept that at all. I started arguing with my mom about it. I was like, please don't make me go. And my mom was like, you need to go. You are injured. You need to get checked out. And if you decide to go to the police, then this is good evidence for you to just to have. I was like, I feel like you're mad at me. And she was like, of course, I'm not mad at you. And then she started crying. And then it was just pretty much silence after that until we got to the hospital. Hey, it's Zoe Ball and Joe Wiley here from the Digit podcast. And we're currently sponsored by the Woodland Trust. The Woodland Trust lets you dedicate a tree, a bench, even a whole area of Woodland in someone's name plus all of the Woodland Trust sites are free to visit. So you can go and see it anytime. It really is a gift that keeps growing and every dedication directly supports the Woodland Trust's vital work. So if woods are your happy place or theirs, this is just a beautiful way to celebrate a birthday, a wedding anniversary, anything really. Visit woodlandtrust.org.uk slash digit full terms and conditions can be found on the Woodland Trust website. Hey, it's Zoe Ball and Joe Wiley here from the Digit podcast. And we're currently sponsored by the Woodland Trust. The Woodland Trust lets you dedicate a tree, a bench, even a whole area of Woodland in someone's name plus all of the Woodland Trust sites are free to visit. So you can go and see it anytime. It really is a gift that keeps growing and every dedication directly supports the Woodland Trust's vital work. So if woods are your happy place or theirs, this is just a beautiful way to celebrate a birthday, a wedding anniversary, anything really. We went up to the triage desk and they asked me why I was there and what happened. And it was the first time I said it out loud. I had to go up to the nurse at the front and I told her I was here because I had been sexually assaulted. That was just such a hard thing to say out loud because again, that denial piece is so big. The book on the nurse's face was really kind of shocking too because she looked like she felt so bad for me, which is not what I wanted. The last thing I wanted was somebody's pity. They checked me in and I didn't even end up waiting that long in the waiting room. It wasn't super busy. Thank gosh. They took me into a room. I had this amazing male nurse. He was only like three weeks off of his new grad orientation. So that was really cool because we had something that we could talk about and he knew that I was a nursing student. He knew where I went to school because my school wasn't very far from the hospital. And that was kind of like a nice distraction. It took my mind off a lot of things for a little bit and he was great and he got me blankets and ginger ale just to make it a little bit less clinical feeling. We ended up waiting for seven and a half hours though at the hospital. So that was really awful. They had called in a sane nurse, the sexual assault nurse examiner. But apparently there wasn't one on the unit or like in the hospital. So they had to call somebody to come from somewhere, which was a really good hike from where we were. They said it was going to be a couple hours. It was really crazy because she ended up not coming at all and they ended up having one of the staff nurses do the entire rape get. She did a really good job. She just had to follow all the instructions in the manual. So the process took a lot longer because she was going step by step rather than somebody who does that for a living and does it every day. That was an interesting process. It was humiliating but I felt safe. I was just doing my part doing whatever they told me to do. They took multiple cheek swabs and punk swabs. They did an entire pelvic exam on me and swabbed internally and they took DNA from under my fingernails and my hair and it came from this rolling cart with like 12 different drawers full of stuff. It was just a really surreal experience and I think during that entire time as I was sitting in that hospital bed, I was in and out from reality. I would see myself sitting in the hospital bed and watching it happen and then I'd come back and I'd be back in my own body again and I'd be like, wow, this is kind of terrible. Like I'm hungry and I'm scared and I don't know these people and then I'd go back out and watch some more stuff happen to me. I just had never had any kind of experience like that before. Here's Luna's mom. I stayed in the exam room for most of the exam and then I think it was better that I just kind of left and gave Luna some privacy to go through that process. That was tough knowing that that was happening. What was her demeanor like at that time? Just incredible. She was still joking and laughing and showing me tick tocks but then she would stop and go, oh my God, I can't believe I'm here. I can't believe this happened. She was in shock. I think a lot of her was kind of a front. I think she was trying to just keep me positive because she knew how devastating it was for me. I think that she was trying to keep me from breaking down because it was awful. Here's Luna. We didn't leave until like two o'clock in the morning from the ER. My mom took me back to the dorm and I packed a bag full of stuff because I had all my clothes, all my shoes, everything I owned at my dorm. She took me back home. Thank God because I don't think I could have been there after that. That was just too invasive of an experience. So I was home the rest of the week. I stayed home Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then the weekend. I was so worried about missing class. I didn't care that I had something terrible happen to me. I didn't care that there had been swabs in every part of my body at that point and I've been investigated and taken pictures of. I can't miss class. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't want to miss out on my homework. I don't want to fall behind. So I ended up reaching out to the dean of academics at my school. I wrote her an email and I told her that I had been assaulted on campus and that I was home for a few days trying to get my shit together for a lack of better word that I needed either like some kind of accommodations or like an extension. She ended up helping me come up with accommodations to where I could have some extended time on my assignments and I could have absences that were excused so that my attendance grades wouldn't tank and my teachers were extremely accommodating. I think that the academic advisor might have told them a little bit about what happened because they had all reached out to me. Like I hope that you're doing well. If you need any support from us, we're here for you. I think in the academic regard of this whole thing, I was really well supported, which is why I think I made it as far as I have now. Thank goodness for that. It's completely understandable that you would need some time, but I also understand it's easy to get behind. So I imagine it was trying to find a balance of what you needed. Oh yeah. In the determination of hearing report, it was noted that your RA because they were a mandated reporter had reported the incident to the Title IX office. When did you actually file the complaint? The night that I was sitting in the RA's office with her, I did tell her in detail the entire story and she did write it all down. I think I might have told her that she could send it to the Dean of Students, which was the person that correlates all the Title IX stuff. The night that I was sitting in the ER, that was the night that I decided to go through with the Title IX. So that's when I myself reached out to the Title IX director, which is the same person that my RA would have emailed. I think I wrote an email and in the email, I said I was assaulted on your campus on the Sunday, October 15th, and I would like to file some kind of complaint. She wrote back to me the next day and she had said, I want to meet with you. Please come to my office at your earliest convenience and we can go forward from there. It says on October 17th, they met with complaintant to review relevant policies and procedures to discuss resources and supportive measures and to answer any questions that you might have about Title IX. October 17th, 2023 is what they have written down here. Yep, that makes sense because the 16th I went to the hospital, then the next day I went and I had my meeting with her. I went to that by myself, which was intimidating. I remember going into her office, I had never really spoken to her before. I didn't really know who she was. We get automated emails the entire school does from her and from other people, but I had never sat with her face to face. I went into her office and I sat down and she asked me to tell her what happened and so I walked her through as much as I could at that point. She pretty much told me the process was you could either leave it alone or you could do a Title IX report. I had no idea what that was, so she walked me through it as much as she could and from what I remember her explaining it to me was Title IX is the sexual misconduct policy that every college is supposed to have and if somebody violates that Title IX, then it's considered an offense. She told me that I would have to do a written complaint and then send it into her and she would take it up to the Title IX deputy. She would look it over and she would notify him that there were allegations against him. They would put sanctions in place to make us both feel comfortable. She kept saying the entire process that him and I are both entitled to do process, which I get it because I do think that people are innocent until proven guilty, but that's kind of annoying. She had told me that once I submit everything and she runs it by the Title IX people, I can either do an informal resolution or a formal resolution and the informal would be just to let it go. And then the formal resolution is to go through a hearing process with a hearing officer who's like a retired attorney or a judge or something like that and they would have to do an entire investigation on him, on me, on our backgrounds, on the situation. We'd have to give all the evidence that we could give. They would question him. They would question me. I would have to have a lawyer. He would have to have a lawyer. We would get cross-examined. She described it in a way that turned me off of the idea almost completely. The language that she was using, she just kept saying, well remember, you can always do an informal resolution. She kept saying how common it was for people to do an informal resolution, but I'm like, first of all, it shouldn't be common to have to do Title IX at the school at all. And second of all, I just feel like you don't want me to move forward. You don't want to have to work hard enough to do the investigation because you don't want this on your record. So that was kind of the first conversation we ever had and then she printed out a paper that had all of my rights on it and made me sign it to show that she technically like explained all of the conditions to me and all of my options and then she sent me on my way and told me that I should send her my written statement whenever I had time and that we could go from there. Then I saw him. I was walking back in after my meeting actually with the dean to grab some of my stuff from my dorm to go back home. He was coming back from my assumed class or something. He saw me in the common room and he started talking to me. He kept saying my name over and over again and I just kept trying to speedwalk as fast as I could away from him and up to the staircase. So I just had to get to the locked door and I was freaking out because I don't know what you expect me to say and I was trying to call my roommate as fast as I could to have her come meet me because I don't even want to be in the vicinity of this guy anymore and he kept yelling to me and being like, we mad at me. Why are you ghosting me now? I can't believe you're not talking to me now. I finally got away from him and I got upstairs but that was just a re-traumatization. He should have at least been temporarily removed while the investigation was going on and I kept bringing that up but the dean of students just kept telling me, oh well you guys are both entitled to do process so he has just as much of a right to be here as you do. And when do you think that was? That was the Tuesday that I was on campus when I had my meeting with the dean. So a couple days before they probably contacted him? Yeah I think they talked to him two days after that. On October 19th 2023 it says the Title IX office met with the respondent meaning Cody to review the relevant policies and procedures etc. So essentially they notified him at that juncture that this was happening and you also pursued a no contact order and spoke with the police. When did that happen? I think the first thing I did to facilitate police contact was the night that I got home from school after the hospital and after I talked to the dean my mom actually had been reaching out to lawyers in case I want to move forward with the formal resolution process. Then I definitely want to have a lawyer because I don't know what I'm doing and my parents don't know what they're doing. We've never really had legal issues before. So my mom had been reaching out through a bunch of different resources that we had gotten when we were at the hospital and we finally found an attorney. She had done a phone consult with my mom and she encouraged us to go to the local court in the area where it happens and try to file for some kind of protective order or a restraining order. Otherwise I thought he was going to keep chasing me down in the school or in the parking lot. We did that on Friday the 20th. My mom took the day off. We went to the courthouse and I had to do an entire affidavit where you write this big thing out. I had no idea what I was doing. I'm sitting in this courthouse with my parents. I remember it was raining so that made it even more depressing. They took us upstairs to this courtroom. I had never been in a courtroom either so this was just a horrible experience in general. They were doing a couple cases before me but then they announced me and they told me to come up and say my name for the record and the judge had a copy of the affidavit that I wrote out. I know that this is not really how court is supposed to go but they let my dad come up and stand next to me because I think they honestly just saw the size of me and the look of me and they were like she's nervous. She needs help. But there was a lot of people in the courtroom. I am forever indebted to this judge. We walked all the way up to the bench my dad and I and he put the sound machine on for the entire courtroom so nobody could hear what we were talking about and he looked me in the face and he said I'm so sorry that this happened to you and I was like wow thank you so much and he was like I'm absolutely granting this order. I'm ensuring you that now you're going to be safe. That was crazy. I think he'd saw right through me. I felt like I was transparent. I think you could just see the hurt in me. It must have felt so validating. It really did especially for a male judge to say that to me. That was the first time that I had a little bit of hope that it was going to be okay. Everything else had been so scary and bleak and unknown before that but that was my guaranteed safety so that made me feel so much better. My faith in humanity was restored a little bit. Here's Luna's parents. We went to get the harassment the court was not even going to let me stand up there with her because she is not a minor anymore but luckily a nice judge was there and he let me stand with her because she has no idea how it works, how court works or what to do or say and I was able to help her with that. She was so nervous. What was the judge like? He was great actually. He let us approach him so she didn't have to talk out loud because the courtroom had people in there because it's an open courtroom. He read her statement and he granted her one year I believe it was no contact, no calling, no texting, no third party contact. That went really well. Then he got served that. That's where the school comes in. The school never enforced any of it. What was that like for you guys to manage that emotionally being that she's on campus with him during that time? Times of worry. Unbelievable. She reported this to the RA. We knew that the school of the wear at this point of what happened and there was nothing happening and he lived literally underneath her. She had to go through his level of the building to get to her dorm and knowing he was still there. All the school said as he couldn't go up to her floor and that was it. It was just so mind boggling. Did this surprise you about the way that the school handled it? Would you have anticipated that they would have handled things differently? Absolutely. As soon as the allegation was made, he should have been removed from the school until everything was worked out. Obviously you're innocent until proven guilty, but something like that. You can't just let the person stay in the same building. It was infuriating for me. Here's Luna. We went home and then I tried to have a normal weekend and catch up on my homework. Over the weekend is also when I submitted my written statement. I went back to school on Monday. I had to have another check-in with the dean of students. She wanted to see if I had any kind of direction that I wanted to move in. The informal resolution, she kept hammering on that fact that that was always an option to just let it go. And at that point, I felt like I had already done a lot because I had already gone to the courthouse and I had gone to the hospital. So I was like, what's one more thing gonna do? So I told her that day that I wanted to do the formal resolution with the hearing process. And she was like, okay, we can do that, but remember at any time, if you change your mind, we can always drop it completely. It's at your convenience. I'm like, okay, thank you. She recommended that I talk to the director of public safety at my school when I was done talking to her. At that point, I talked to my family about it and I had figured if I don't say something, he's gonna keep doing this to people at school or maybe just out in the world, I don't know. Hey, it's Zoe Ball and Joe Wiley here from the Digit podcast and we're currently sponsored by the Woodland Trust. The Woodland Trust lets you dedicate a tree, a bench, even a whole area of woodland in someone's name. Plus all of the Woodland Trust sites are free to visit, so you can go and see it anytime. It really is a gift that keeps growing and every dedication directly supports the Woodland Trust's vital work. So if woods are your happy place or theirs, this is just a beautiful way to celebrate a birthday, a wedding anniversary, anything really. Visit woodlandtrust.org.uk-digit. Full terms and conditions can be found on the Woodland Trust website. I went to the public safety director and he was really nice. He reminded me of my dad, so that was kind of weird to talk to somebody like that, but I told him enough of the story for him to understand and that I sought out a harassment prevention order and I had gone to the hospital and I told him that he had questioned me in the common room and that he was still around and asking my friends about me. I just really wanted it to be done and I wanted to be left alone and he was like, okay, if that's how you feel, then your best bet is talking to the police department about it. I was like, that's kind of scary, but if that's what you think, then guess I'll do it. I don't know how this works, but he was in Cahoots with one of the chief police officers of the town. He called them and within 25 minutes, they came to pick me and my roommate up. Thankfully, they let my roommate come with me for emotional support and they took us in this unmarked cruiser to the police station, which was terrifying. I felt like I was a criminal. They put us in the back of the police cruiser and I'm like, this is terrible. This is just getting worse by the minute. And then they separated my roommate and I, which was really scary because for some reason, I thought that she would be able to be there with me, but they made her stay in the waiting room. There was this female detective immediately when I walked into her office. I don't know if she just didn't want me to be there or if she just didn't want to do anything, but I could tell that her attitude was not very warm and inviting and supportive for somebody like me whose emotions are very raw and I'm very scared and isolated. It had been like a week, so everything was still very new. She sits me down and it was just the two of us. She's not smiling or anything, and I'm smiling because when I'm nervous, I smile a lot. I'm thinking she thinks I'm nuts because you know, I'm sitting here to talk about my assault. It literally felt like I was in a movie. She put the little like interrogation light on in her office like a little lamp. She turns on her recording device and she's like, I just want you to know that you're being recorded. State your name for the record and spell your name for me. And so I did and she asked me what happened and that's the most in detail that I had ever been about the story. More than I was with the RA, more than I was with my parents or the nurses and doctors at the hospital, that in my written statement were probably as detailed as it could possibly get, which is really really hard when somebody's sitting across from me with their arms crossed at a table waiting for you to finish talking so they can have lunch. She asked me so many questions that I know are standard procedure, but I never realized how they make the victim feel dirty. She was so hyper fixated on what I was wearing, not that that even matters and it really shouldn't. That just set me off on the wrong foot and you know what I thought was really weird. She was like, what kind of underwear were you wearing? Because I'm like, do you even believe me? If I tell you that my underwear was black, are you going to think I was trying to be seductive? They have to do this because you know it's evidence, but they took my underwear and they took my bra and a little bag. The ones that I was wearing the night that it happened, I had to keep them. She just kind of looked at them like, hmm okay, I would gesture when I was talking about the things that he did to me because I didn't want to say it all out loud. If I say it out loud, then I give it power. Because it was only an audio recording, she's like, could you use your words? I'm trying to figure out how to comfortably tell you that I was violated. I don't know what you want me to say. So it was just a really negative experience and then when we finished up with all the questioning and the kind of belittling and stuff, she was like, okay now I have to take a picture of your injuries for the record and I was like, what do you want me to do? She's like, you need to lift up your bra. So yeah, apparently somewhere out there there's a picture of my whole chest. So that was humiliating and I was like, can I at least cover up the other side and she's like, no, I just need you to lift up your shirt. I don't want to be exposed again. I already had to do that at the hospital and before that I was in a very vulnerable spot but I ended up giving her everything she needed. When I left the hospital, they gave me a ticket number for the rape kit. I guess they store it so that if I ever wanted to pursue charges, I could. So I gave her the ticket so they could access the rape kit and then I gave her all the screenshots and all the emails from my school and all the text between my roommate and I and then I went back out to the waiting room and thank God my roommate was there. So that made me feel a lot better and they dropped us back off at the school and I went home to my parents and I was home again for a couple days. If you could speak to that officer again, what could they have done to make that experience more humanizing for you? That's such a good question. I just wish she smiled at me. I think a smile goes such a long way. There was no warmth. The lighting was fluorescent. The room was cold. It was made out of brick. She's in all gray. She's got this big badge on. I don't know if maybe she had been like, how are you feeling after all of this? Do you need anything or just explain the process? Why do you need to take a picture of my chest? Why do you need my underwear? Why do you care what I was wearing? Why do you care what movie we were watching? I don't get why that matters. Just a little bit more compassion. I think would have gone a longer way but maybe she learned from that experience. I'm not really sure. Here's Luna's parents. How much were y'all involved with the police process? Not really at all. We weren't with her during the police interviews or at the police station. She had just said, I'm going, I was like, okay, do you want me there? Do you want us there? And she was like, no, I'm good. So they didn't reach out to interview you for a statement. Not at all. No, here's Luna. There was one point where I was heading into the library and the way that the library set up at my school is there's the first floor and then there's a really big beautiful staircase and it leads you up to the second floor, which is where all the tutoring is. That's where everybody goes to hang out when they study. I had been going up there with my friends to study for one of our exams. There's this little like island area off the staircase before you go down to the second floor. Cody was sitting there talking with a female student. He saw me and I saw him. We were probably like 10 feet away from each other. In the conditions of the harassment order, he's supposed to get up and leave as soon as he sees me and work in close proximity. He's not supposed to stick around or anything. But instead, he stands up and he starts walking towards me, trying to like size me up. I was like, get me out of here now. Thankfully, my friend jumped between us and walked me inside the library and then I saw Cody packing up his stuff and trying to get out of there as fast as he could. But I don't really know why he did that. And I think he wanted to talk to me, but I think he thought twice about it. He was not supposed to do that. Then a little while later, this is the same day. I go into the dining hall to have lunch and he's sitting at the entrance of the dining hall right where I have to walk in. And I see him and I'm like, I don't want to go near him, but I'm hungry. And he had already been eating. Maybe he'll just take his food and he'll go. If he sees me walk in. So I walk in. I walk right past him. I don't look at him. I don't make eye contact with him. I'm expecting him to just get up and leave. And he just sits there and he just stares at me again. And I'm like, what the heck is going on with this guy? So that really freaked me out. So then I left, didn't even eat. And I called my parents and I'm like, he is sitting everywhere I want to be. And then when I get to where I'm trying to go, he won't leave. He's supposed to be getting up and leaving. I don't want to have to not eat because he's just sitting here trying to like put the fear of God into me. So my parents were like, why don't you call the public safety team at your school and talk to them about it and see what they think. Technically, it's a violation. You guys can't be within this many yards of each other. And he's not doing anything about it. So I called the public safety office and they didn't answer. Then I called them again. And I left a voicemail and I was like, hi, I'm one of the students here. And I'm just calling because I have an active harassment prevention order against another one of the students here. And he's not respecting it and he's not leaving. I don't really know what to do. So please call me back. Nobody ever called me back. That's really upsetting because if I was having a true emergency, there is nobody that would have come to help me. I ended up telling my parents that they never called me back and my parents wrote them an email and were like, what the heck is wrong with you guys? And we included my lawyer in that. There's no reason that you can't answer the phone twice. And then if you get a voicemail, I understand if you guys are busy, but call me back. So then they finally responded to the email the next night and the public safety director, the same man I met with before I talked to the police. Apologize and said that the line was down or something, but they said, if you called us, meaning that I didn't even call even though there's a voicemail on the voicemail system. So they handled that really poorly too, which took away a lot of my faith in my safety at the school. Here's Luna's parents. She was told, you're safe here on campus. If you see him or if you feel afraid, all you do is call campus safety. Someone will come and meet you and walk you wherever you need to go. She had cloudings that he's literally here at the library where I am right now. And I remember saying call campus safety right now and tell them that you are afraid and that you want them to come help you and walk with you back to your dorm. She's like, Mom, they're not answering what do I do? And I'm like, did you leave a voicemail? She's like, yeah, there was no option to talk to anybody. And I'm like, well, this is ridiculous. We had a meeting with the president of the college and the dean of students. And we said she called public safety and nobody answered. They were questioning if she even called like she was lying about it. I was so mad. After the accusation was made and after we learned that there were other victims that were reported to the school and he was still remaining on campus and she still was running into him. At that point, we decided we need to like really do something about this. Next time on something was wrong. My phone rings and it's the number of the police department and then they told me Cody has been arrested this morning. Thank you so much to each and every survivor and guest for sharing their experiences with us. And thank you for listening. Something was wrong is a broken cycle media production created and executively produced by Tiffany Rees. Thank you endlessly to our team associate producer Amy B. Chessler, social media marketing manager Lauren Barkman, graphic artist Sarah Stewart, and audio engineers Becca High and Stephen Wack. Marissa and Travis at WME, audio boom and our legal and security partners. Thank you so much to the incredibly talented Abiyomi Lewis for this season's gorgeous cover of Glad Rags original song You Thank You from their album Wonder Under. Thank you to music producer Janice JP Pacheco for their work on this cover recorded at the Grill Studios in Emoryville, California. Find all artists, socials linked in the episode notes to support and hear more. If you'd like to share your story with us, please head to something was wrong.com. If you would like to help support the show, you can subscribe and listen ad free on Apple podcasts. Purchase a sticker from our sticker shop at broken cycle media.com. Share the podcast with a loved one or leave us a review. Want to stay up to date with us? Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at something was wrong podcast. As always, thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe friends.