guilty until proven innocent

this is a true story. two years i ago during my senior year of high school this happened to me. and i still struggle to show people im innocent this is my story of how my year of hell began

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

 

she described, this 8-year old blonde headed girl, there at the Madison library central with her mother, uncles, and many more family members, who hang out there almost every day, said that I had told her she was “hot” and “sexy” and that had continued this even after she told me to stop, and at one point had had said to her “your my baby” and “I want to touch you [insert obscene would for female private part here] and finally reached over and using my hand ”cupped her buttocks” with it, with my hand in a cup as if I was trying to hold water in it, and my palm facing upwards, all after rubbing her back for an unspecified amount of time..

            It started off like any other day. I woke up and got out of bed. I was planning on spending that first Saturday of spring break at the Madison public library working on school work. Unfortunately, while I was there, a little girl accused me of sexual assault and police had to get involved. I admit that while I was at the library I had been on some dating “hookup” sites. While talking to the police, I told them that, then went home that day with little accomplished.

Later that week they decided to come to our house and talk in person.

That Thursday, morning I was woken by my father. He told me that there were some police officers downstairs waiting to talk to me. After he left I got dressed and went downstairs. Sitting in the front room were two officers in full gear. they introduced themselves and we sat down me in a Queen Ann wing chair and they on the couch and loveseat. they started off by saying that I was not to worry. I was not in trouble or being arrested for anything. They were only there to get my side of the story

We talked for a bit about what happened until the asked if I could come down to the station to verify some of the sites I had been on. And since he knew I needed to use computers for school and I couldn't use the ones at home, he promised me that if I cooperate and told the truth that he would make sure I could go back to the library once he got back to his HQ. Overjoyed that they would help me complete my project, I agreed and I was asked to empty my pockets once we stepped outside in case of weapons. In my pockets were several flash drives. I said that they had school work on them and I had been using them at the library to store my schoolwork on. I Agreed to let them search them in case of child porn was found on them.

            Driving to the police station I felt more awake then I had before, my ADHD meds had taken effect and I had time to wake my brain up. We arrived at the police station and led me into a small room after allowing me to use the bathroom. I sat down at the couch while we exchanged a couple jokes back in forth about how uncomfortable the backseat of the car was. Setting down his stuff next to the other officer he began to ask question like, “could he assume I came voluntarily” and “you weren’t dragged, or handcuffed”. I confirmed this and he started digging thru his belongings. Thinking about his next steps he decided because I was on my vacation and due to my age what he was going to do to make it quicker was read me my Maranda rights, saying because I was at the police station at the time and I wasn’t exactly free to leave. So pulling out his card he causally read them off like it was more of a required thing than anything else and sat down in the couch adjacent to mine.
            He started by asking me what was on the flash drives I gave over, I told one was empty and the other had my school work on it. He asked me if they could take a look and after I agreed he walk over to his stuff and started getting consent forms. He told me he was thankful that I had been honest with the police and then casual went on a small tangent explaining that in these kind of situations you kind of have to be honest, that if I had been on something I wasn’t supposed to be there goanna find it anyways most likely, so I’d be better if you just admit it right away after a bit of casual get to know you talk we moved into the actual interview. He told me he was going to be straightforward and that reviewing my history he thought I had some urges that may be out of control. He asked me if he thought I was addicted to pornography or child pornography or both.  I said defiantly not child pornography. He asked me if I ever google or get onto any child porn, even if by accident, say if I had been automatically redirected to one when accessing a page. I said maybe years ago referring to when I was in middle school. He began to ask me about what sites I was on at the library, saying that I had told them at the house that when I moved from the IPad to a larger computer I had accidentally been on child porn, I quickly corrected him by stating I said “IF” I had unintentionally it would have been there. He clarified the question by saying when we were at the house I had said that sometimes a site will redirect you to a child porn site. I clarified and said usually it sent you to a spam site more often than not, and that I don’t think it ever sends me to specifically a child porn site.

            he began to tell a story as I finished signing the consent forms. A while ago he had a case where a man had looked at child erotica and when he explained to me that child erotica wasn’t illegal, he said that that was what he thought at first what MY case was about. He asked me if that had been what I was looking at instead of, accidentally, the “other stuff”.

            Moving on he asked me what the names of the sites I had accidentally got on to at the library and I again explained the sites I got onto were the so called “hookup” sites. there was a brief moment as I saw the detective collect his thoughts. He turned to me with a very stern look on his face. I could feel the mood turn into a very serious one. He asked me that when they look at that computer will they find any child porn at all. I responded, none at all, but the second I said that I thought again. I clarified, if by accident it would be because someone lied about their age and instead of being 18 like they would say, they would in reality be instead 15, or 16, so that I would have had no way of knowing that they were in fact underage. I could see a small look on confusion on their faces and after saying I couldn’t remember specific details he asked how my memory was. I had a somewhat selective memory, I don’t always remember specific details, but I do remember larger events, so I may not remember what color shirt someone is wearing, or the exact conversation, but I will remember that I had talked to that person and what the conversation was about.
            We decided to move on. They began to ask me about what happened at the library and again I explained it to them, how I was at the IPad station when she came, how I noticed her parents were nowhere to be seen so after verbally trying to get her attention but failing I tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention. I explained this is where it gets “fuzzy” where it becomes harder to remember specific details, so when they had asked me whether I had tapped her shoulder or just her hand, why I could remember specifically what I had done, cause I remembered both just tapping her finger but at the same time I also kinda remember possible rubber her shoulder to get her attention I just know what I had done and what I hadn’t done. I moved on to how I left and finally how the family found me an hour and a half later and began to threaten me. They asked me the mother would tell the police that she had seen me rubbing the girls back. My first thought was that I wasn’t entirely sure what exactly happened, but as I had been doing this entire time, I wanted to make sure what I said couldn’t be later turned around on me and later have someone say I had been lying, or worse yet, be telling information that wasn’t true, so I told that that I wasn’t going to deny that it was a possibility that I had rubber her shoulder, but I don’t quite remember for absolutely certain, if it had happened it would have been in a “can I get your attention” way, and thankfully the officer understood what I meant.

The detective gathered his notes, he explained to me that the account I gave was basically the same as what I had given the last Saturday as well as what other people had been saying. I felt that it was a done deal, not only was I claiming this but others were as well. What I did not expect was what came next. Drawing in a deep breath he asked me what I thought the little girl had told them. I had no idea, I barely even knew that the family had claimed that I did this, let alone what the girl herself actually said about it. What he said shocked me

            Before moving on he stated that on Saturday while talking to the police I had given them a DNA sample to check to see if any showed up on the girl’s cloths. I could feel this feeling as if my whole world was going to end soon. I stated “I have a bad feeling about this”. He continued that sometimes when people in my position, or anyone’s position for that matter, have urges they can’t control, they do things they would never do normally, and sometimes when I look at “porn” or hookup sites as much as I do, things get out of control.

I could feel that something was wrong, the room had changed from interview, to a trial where he was judge jury and executer. I have been judged by my classmates for the majority of my life, I knew at that moment I was being judged by these officers, but he continued on making my dread grow larger and larger.
            he moved on, stating that when he reviewed my history and saw all the pornography I was “clearly addicted to”, it’s like alcohol. He went on to state how he views this and an alcohol addiction the same, but I wasn’t listening, all I could see was the same prejudging I had seen my entire life, but still I held hope. I had done nothing wrong, no matter what he felt personally whether or not the online dating sites were porn or not, I was still innocent, there had to have been a mountain of evidence, including all those people that were there at the time who could testify what I had said, they obviously had talked to them right? This was just a stern lecture he was giving me about life choices.
            he concluded and I knew I would never do anything like this, I told them I’m only attracted to people my own age, they pursued, asking if maybe my subconscious was attracted to this, I could say with absolute certainty that wasn’t true, I’m attracted to, well, b***s, and that doesn’t develop until much later, but they would accept that asking again if maybe part of me saw her as a women or an 18-year-old, that my subconscious saw her as that, again I denied it.
            they asked if there was any way my DNA could have reached her lower back, could I have accidentally moved my hand down as fat as, say, the buttocks? I said it was entirely possible that I could have accidentally touched her lower to mid back, but nothing past that. after more than a half hour of this “website checking” he moved on and what I heard has hurt me more than any words I had ever heard could hurt. He explained what she told the police I had said and did to her.

            this shocked me, until now I had thought that the girl had lied to her parents and that her had believed her entirely judging by how angry they all had been at me, this was far worse. My mind didn’t know how to coup, how should I react? I was in shock at this. But I still felt safe, I had been told that I was not under arrest, that they only wanted to get my side of this, and there was still the matter of the video surveillance, so I was innocent. Plus, I’m innocent until proven guilty, so I couldn’t be arrested, not until we were at least informed I was being charged with something.
             I couldn’t believe that an 8-year old girl would know these kinds of words so obviously something was wrong. I asked them this, he responded he didn’t know, that she had heard this from me and that this why the mother was so upset., he went on to explain this wasn’t some police tactic, in fact he restated that he can’t lie to me, that he’s required to take eyewitness accounts, and look at video. I could defiantly see now why the family was so angry at me and I was relieved, there was a video in there, plus since he can’t lie, once this was over I was going to go home, and it wounded like that would be soon. Plus, they hadn’t even done the DNA test yet, so once that was thru it would be over and I could put this behind me.
            they kept on asking me why she would say this, and the only reason I could think of was that she was being told to make this up, he explained that this family would do that, how their not pressing charges for this, they don’t even have enough money to do that, so he asked me again. the only reason only other reason I could think of was that someone else, maybe that uncle or the person on the other side had done this, and maybe she had gotten confused on who it was, or maybe had been told to blame me instead, but I didn’t say anything, I didn’t want to be that person who went around assuming the worst of situations so I kept quiet, and responded by saying I didn’t know

            I could feel it was about to wrap up, they had asked me about my iPod and concerned that I was getting on child porn on it, feeling impatient to get back home so I could enjoy the rest of my break, I offered to show them how it works and the agreed and after a small “how to use a 1^st gen iPod touch” for dummies seminar I handed it back to them so they could fiddle around with it.
            seeing we were about done I asked if I could get a copy of what the girl said so I could both show it to my parents later as well as look it over myself so I could try to figure out what happened. Bending over to get up the detective assured me that he would in a moment, that first he and the other officer was going to step out so he could put the flash drives in a bag so they could look at it late. Feeling that it was all behind me I asked how long they would have them, he stated that it would only be until he had a chance to look at it, then I would get it right back. Then he and the other officer left the room, leaving me by myself to look at me as a distraction as I put my marching band member jacket back on.

            exactly 00:05:20 seconds had pasted the entered the room again. He walked in and immediately started to quickly gather up some of his stuff. Without turning he asked if there was anything in in my house they should know about, dvd’s, secret computers, anything. There were a couple flash drives but that was about it. They asked me where they were and after I revealed the location, they were in the room next to mine. The second I asked that he asked if I would give consent to search my room. I knew for a fact there was nothing in there so I said no, taken aback from my sudden unwillingness to colply he asked why I told him the truth, my room is so messy they wouldn’t be able to find anything (they laughed) but I did tell them where the flash drives where.

That was the last decent and conversation we ever had as equal members of society.

What happened next is the single worst thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life, hearing what that girl said to me is so far from touching the surface the surface it isn’t even in the stratosphere yet. And I still have bad dreams about to this day.
            uncaring he tossed the phone over onto the table next to him, opposite from me. I noticed a change, gone was the understanding officer I had been talking to for the last half hour, I heard little compassion, no understanding in his voice, and about just as much resent in him. he had been replaced with something different, something not bitter, but something that seemed more attuned to a duty bound military man then a compassionate understanding friend. standing in front of me was instead a judgmental and hard man who was done playing “nice cop”.

Plainly, without any care in how he sounded, He told me that even thou he hadn’t looked at the computer in the library yet, he was guessing that there was going to be child porn on there. I felt confused, what the heck happened? I knew he suspected me but he sounded different, unsure of how to react I decided to keep nodding and agreeing. He continued.

He said the bigger issue for me was touching an 8-year old girl, looking up from me he said he was going to arrest me for the

I didn’t know what to think. I was confused. I had been told that I wasn’t in trouble. That I was only giving my version of events. Hell I wasn’t even sure he had actually said that, or if I was just misunderstanding the situation. I thought maybe I could convince him otherwise, stating that there wasn’t any evidence, he said yes there was, he just hadn’t told me it. he told me I’m going to jail.

After sitting there silently trying to mentally figure this out, he asked if I understood, I understood the reason, but I didn’t understand why, he stated it was because of what I told them and what she said I rresoonded by saying I never said anything like that but he said that yes I did, I admitted to touching her.

I was confused. I clarifyied that I hadn’t done anything like that, and he asked was it apprate to touch a girl I didn’t know.

I thought to myself and concluded that yes, I was trying to help, if I’m trying to get her attention then yes it is. He kinda just brushed it aside by saying that “theres a difference on opinion on that”. He asked if I was going to be a problem or If I was going to go politely. I said the only thing that could come to my mind

“I guess I’ll have to go politely”

Guess you don’t have much of a choice do you”

 

Author's Note

i want to possible make a book out of this, please, be BRUTALLY honest with me, i dont get offend easily. i WANT you to tell me what is wrong (in fact i usually tell people that i like them to come at this as if they were trying to hurt my feelings, in a constructive way so i can learn from it)