NY Times Story on Lack of Jameis Winston Investigation

[Ggee87]

The police didnt buy her account from the get go. After speaking to witnesses they came to the conclusion that she wasnt being truthful. Instead was bitter about the video and JW basically "hittin & quittin" it. I agree that they should have gone along with her wishes and continue investigating, but can u blame them after hearing a different story from everybody else involved besides the accuser? I highly doubt they thought it would get this out of control. If JW wasnt the Heisman winner and on the NC team, It wouldnt be a big deal at all.

 

[takethepoints]

Since nobody seems to want to answer Cheese's first question, I will.

It was a coverup from the gitgo. There was no way the Talahassee PD was going to put Winston in a situation where he might have to be arrested when FSU was poised to win the MNC. That the complaint came from someone of, shall we say, dubious reputation made the rest easy. Further, given that it involved a PD in a college town, I think we can assume that the Talahassee cops have had plenty of experience with this kind of thing. Shoot, the police in Hahira would have down a better job of investigating this matter. That not even the most elementary investigative and evidence collection procedures were followed tells me that there was never an intention of putting Winston in jeopardy of a criminal prosecution. And, sure enough, when it finally did get to the prosecutors they couldn't do much with it.

Now, all that says nothing about whether the young man was guilty of rape or not. We'll never know. But let's call the "investigation" what it was: a straight coverup by the Talahassee cops and nothing else but.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

To counter
-The accuser denying she was uncooperative does not mean she was not indeed uncooperative. Recorded interview with her would pretty quickly answer this question.
-Three solid leads......these leads very well may have provided the ID of these subjects but thats not a definite. (should have been investigated more thoroughly regardless)
-This point was basically same as above..might have identified the subjects but not definite. Accuser only knew first name of one of the three subjects and I'm guessing there are a lot of black males in the Tallahassee area using the name Chris. The card swiped for discount was the best lead by far....could have been from a lost or stolen card but a decent lead regardless. Assuming the card swipes actually do link to card owner names that is....I have no personal knowledge of that particular system. The incident did not occur at the bar but may have shed better light on the accusers conduct. Video would not have been able to prove or dissprove the alleged incident however because that occurred at a residence not the bar. (would have given screen shots to help identify the parties but the value there is in the quality of the video which is unknown to me).
-Police waited additional 2 weeks to interview suspect after being identified 30 days after the incident. Hard to argue this was not very timely but I'm not sure you can say evidence or information was lost at this point.
-Contacted Winston by phone rather than face to face etc. This supposedly allowed the suspect to avoid an interview with the police....he basically stonewalled him. He could very easily have done the same in a face to face encounter. His lack of cooperation here should actually have been harmful to him in exonerating him. He avoids saying things that might implicate him in wrongdoing but also surrenders any ability to exonerate himself and actually makes it easier to make a charge on him.

Article continuously harps that Winston's DNA was not taken immediately.....that is laughable. That can be obtained at any time unless he disappears from the face of the planet. Again, I'm not saying the investigation was handled properly but I am pretty doubtful this was truly a sexual assault.

I'm not sure if that's meant to counter anything I said or not, I agree with you. The DNA thing is laughable, but it does point out the TDP's procedures are horrible. If the accuser was the governor's or mayor's or school president's daughter, do you think they wait? Finally, how do you draw that conclusion (highlighted)? The facts as we know them don't support one way or the other.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

One other thing of note the article completely seems to overlook. The victim underwent a sexual assault exam. These are conducted by Nurses and are often very important in helping to determine whether an assault occurred. The article indicated the assailant's sperm, thus DNA, was obtained in this exam but no other information regarding the exam was conveyed, injuries etc. That is very likely due to privacy laws preventing the journalist access to that info but the journalist certainly could have obtained the accusers account of what the exam did or did not indicate. Once again, I'm not arguing that the investigation wasn't botched but nothing in the article leads me to believe a sexual assault actually did occur.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

That not even the most elementary investigative and evidence collection procedures were followed tells me that there was never an intention of putting Winston in jeopardy of a criminal prosecution.

This is all you had to say.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Since nobody seems to want to answer Cheese's first question, I will.

It was a coverup from the gitgo. There was no way the Talahassee PD was going to put Winston in a situation where he might have to be arrested when FSU was poised to win the MNC. That the complaint came from someone of, shall we say, dubious reputation made the rest easy. Further, given that it involved a PD in a college town, I think we can assume that the Talahassee cops have had plenty of experience with this kind of thing. Shoot, the police in Hahira would have down a better job of investigating this matter. That not even the most elementary investigative and evidence collection procedures were followed tells me that there was never an intention of putting Winston in jeopardy of a criminal prosecution. And, sure enough, when it finally did get to the prosecutors they couldn't do much with it.

Now, all that says nothing about whether the young man was guilty of rape or not. We'll never know. But let's call the "investigation" what it was: a straight coverup by the Talahassee cops and nothing else but.

Lazy police work no doubt. But that laziness manifested itself long before, 30 days before, Winston was named as the assailant. Not a cover up but apparently a shoddy investigation from beginning to end.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

One other thing of note the article completely seems to overlook. The victim underwent a sexual assault exam. These are conducted by Nurses and are often very important in helping to determine whether an assault occurred. The article indicated the assailant's sperm, thus DNA, was obtained in this exam but no other information regarding the exam was conveyed, injuries etc. That is very likely due to privacy laws preventing the journalist access to that info but the journalist certainly could have obtained the accusers account of what the exam did or did not indicate. Once again, I'm not arguing that the investigation wasn't botched but nothing in the article leads me to believe a sexual assault actually did occur.

I thought the "rape kit" would be very telling way back when this story first broke. Then I realized that there would be no evidence of a struggle if the girl was incapacitated during the assault and that is what she claims. The cell phone vid might have backed that up, we'll never know.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

And the accusers "dubious" reputation really matters very little. Prostitutes have dubious characters and put themselves in bad situations in conducting their business. They can still be raped and offenders rightfully do get charged and convicted or rape in these cases. Even if the accuser has used questionable judgment by societies standards in the past....that has really no bearing on whether she was assaulted or not. Though I do doubt she was.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

I thought the "rape kit" would be very telling way back when this story first broke. Then I realized that there would be no evidence of a struggle if the girl was incapacitated during the assault and that is what she claims. The cell phone vid might have backed that up, we'll never know.

Being incapacitated does not necessarily mean there would not be injuries from and evidence of an assault. You are correct that it's possible for assaults such as this alleged one do not always lead to visible physical injuries. But they can. My point is the journalist is either a bit lazy as well or overlooked a very important piece of information in this incident. No idea if that information would now be part of the public record. I believe that information would be part of the investigative report and thus an open public record now.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

Being incapacitated does not necessarily mean there would not be injuries from and evidence of an assault. You are correct that it's possible for assaults such as this alleged one do not always lead to visible physical injuries. But they can. My point is the journalist is either a bit lazy as well or overlooked a very important piece of information in this incident. No idea if that information would now be part of the public record. I believe that information would be part of the investigative report and thus an open public record now.

I don't think the intent of the author was to suggest JW's guilt. I think it was to suggest TPD's incompetence which I think was done very well. I also think a side intent was to show FSU's reluctance to pursue this and to comment on what they perceive as putting football and reputation protection above the welfare of it's students.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

I'm not sure if that's meant to counter anything I said or not, I agree with you. The DNA thing is laughable, but it does point out the TDP's procedures are horrible. If the accuser was the governor's or mayor's or school president's daughter, do you think they wait? Finally, how do you draw that conclusion (highlighted)? The facts as we know them don't support one way or the other.

We both agree the investigation was shoddy. As for my doubts. Based primarily on the statements I've seen from the accuser and some familiarity I have with rape allegations in general. I know a number of people in police work and am somewhat familiar with a fairly high propensity of false allegations in these incidents. It is possible that this occurred as the accuser alleges, I didn't say I was certain it had not occurred. To believe that it did you have to believe that both of Winston's room mates are either accomplices or at least willing to lie for him to keep him out of jail. The accuser alleges one entered the room and told Winston to stop the assault. That whole part of the account just doesn't pass the smell test for me.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

I disagree about the article....I think the author does wish to convey that this was a true assualt and that the guilty has gone unpunished due to incompetence and cover up. Just my opinion on the piece.

 

[vamosjackets]

I live in Jacksonville and have a daughter in kindergarten and have already paid for her college with the Florida Prepay Program. Unfortunately, it requires she attend a Florida school. I guess I can cross one off the list.

Dude, what are you going to do if she wants to be an engineer?????????

 

[dressedcheeseside]

I disagree about the article....I think the author does wish to convey that this was a true assualt and that the guilty has gone unpunished due to incompetence and cover up. Just my opinion on the piece.

I don't see how you got that, but ok.

The article was all about the botched investigation, I can't find one line of commentary suggesting JW got away with rape.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

Dude, what are you going to do if she wants to be an engineer?????????

Good question, the Prepay Program does allow you to use some of the funds out of state, but there's a penalty. Right now she's into riding horses and singing along to Disney videos. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. One things for sure, she's gonna hear the riot act about appropriate conduct while away to school. Or crap, maybe that's sure to backfire.

edit: what about FIT?

 

[jeffgt14]

Dude, what are you going to do if she wants to be an engineer?????????

I was gonna make a UCF joke here, but apparently it's one of the top engineering schools in Florida if that means anything.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

I was gonna make a UCF joke here, but apparently it's one of the top engineering schools in Florida if that means anything.

By the time she's in college they may have one of the better football teams, too.

 

[thwgjacket]

NM

 

[vamosjackets]

I was gonna make a UCF joke here, but apparently it's one of the top engineering schools in Florida if that means anything.

Ummm.... yeah, that's a half-step above saying "UGA has one of the top engineering schools in ... Athens".

 

[daBuzz]

Since nobody seems to want to answer Cheese's first question, I will.

It was a coverup from the gitgo. There was no way the Talahassee PD was going to put Winston in a situation where he might have to be arrested when FSU was poised to win the MNC. That the complaint came from someone of, shall we say, dubious reputation made the rest easy. Further, given that it involved a PD in a college town, I think we can assume that the Talahassee cops have had plenty of experience with this kind of thing. Shoot, the police in Hahira would have down a better job of investigating this matter. That not even the most elementary investigative and evidence collection procedures were followed tells me that there was never an intention of putting Winston in jeopardy of a criminal prosecution. And, sure enough, when it finally did get to the prosecutors they couldn't do much with it.

Now, all that says nothing about whether the young man was guilty of rape or not. We'll never know. But let's call the "investigation" what it was: a straight coverup by the Talahassee cops and nothing else but.

Not necessarily. The "shoddy investigation" could be the product of police officers interviewing the alleged victim and determining her story doesn't hold water. Perhaps they wanted to immediately dismiss the case but were told to "continue investigating it" because of the high profile nature of the defendant and the potential for backlash later if it wasn't investigated.

Then, during the course of the investigation, more inconsistencies appeared or more conflicting testimony from witnesses appeared, so they just "dialed it in" and did a crappy job of the investigation because they were already convinced there was "nothing to see here...move along" or something like that. But despite their desire to end the investigation, their bosses wouldn't let that happen.

Again, I have no idea what happened....but neither do you. And to read stuff on the internet and to make up your mind about it based on 3rd and 4th hand accounts is not necessarily the brightest thing to do either.

Personally....I think your account is more likely on the police's line of thinking. But no way can I say without a shadow of a doubt that I or anyone else knows for certain what happened here.

Edited to add: I have seen the screen shots of the alleged Facebook page she took down. If those are real and not Photoshopped, then I would have found it hard to believe her story either.