Saturday, January 2, 2016

Settlement for 74 Black Men Sexually Assaulted by Police

Edward Earl Wright says he was near his parked truck outside his mother’s house in Milwaukee after midnight when Officers Michael Vagnini, Jacob Knight, Jeffrey Cline, Gregory Kuspa and Jason Mucha stopped him and asked if he had drugs or guns.
When Wright said he did not, Vagnini allegedly accused the man of lying and began searching his truck without his consent.

“After searching Mr. Wright’s vehicle and finding nothing, Officer Vagnini put plastic gloves on his hands and reached inside Mr. Wright’s pants, grabbing and searching Mr. Wright’s genitalia; once again without Mr. Wright’s consent; without probable cause; and without a reasonable basis to do so,” the complaint states.



http://breakingbrown.com/2015/12/milwaukee-settles-74-black-men-say-illegally-fondled-cavity-searched-police/

The sexual assault charge was dropped, but it sounds to me that this is exactly what happened. That 26 months in jail is not long enough and the offending officers will not have the sexual offender tag on them for life like they probably should have.

Outside of the prison setting, what happened in this case is likely the closest many heterosexual men will get to being raped. The power differential between rapist and rape victim is usually based on men having power over women. But in this case, the power differential appears to be between white males as police officers and black male citizens.

I can't help but wonder if some men, not so empathetic with the fact of just how parallel the systems of sexism and racism are, will rethink their position on sexism and "false accusations of rape" if they identify with the male victims who were violated in the article above

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