Police officers, by their very job description, are likely to come across all manner of unusual, bizarre and depraved human behaviors. What’s illegal about those behaviors is defined by the “eyes of the law.” Sometimes, however, it’s also in the eye of the beholder. Cops are — or tend to be — conservative. Not that they all start that way. As the saying goes, “a conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged.” Cops see that. A lot. Muggings, I mean.
One area where things get fuzzy fast is, to be diplomatic, the area of sex acts and their companion, sexual assault. Police are notoriously bad on these. Too often they side with the assailant. Something about women “asking for it.”
(courtesy Alaska State Library)
In Alaska, things are slightly different. There is often a “nod, nod, wink, wink” tolerance toward sex workers. When Robert Hansen expressed the idea that you “can’t a rape a prostitute,” for example, he was sternly admonished otherwise. By the police. In the late fifties, when B-girls were seen by some as a menace, a grizzled state representative named Robert Sheldon had to remind Alaskan legislators of their own colorful history.
B-girls are simply an updated form of Gold Rush-era dance hall entertainers, he explained. “Some of them are among our leading citizens and grandmothers today.”
Alaska Representative Robert Sheldon, Fairbanks (1958)
Anchorage Streetwalkers
The cop I know best (RIP) was Walter J. Gilmour. I used to accuse him of having a “professionally dirty mind.” He could spot a potential crime before it happened. Even when it didn’t happen. On my first investigatory trip to Anchorage after the Hansen murders, he took me on a “tour” of Fourth Avenue, where all the streetwalkers plied their trade. The lesson?
When the streetwalkers stayed east of the downtown Sheraton Hotel, they were reasonably safe from arrest. As they inevitably wandered further west, they invited scrutiny. By the time they approached Hotel Captain Cook, it was time to bring out the paddy wagons.
That Dirty Mind Sex Act Thing
I reveal this background against the questioning of one Cindy Paulson in her post-assault interview regarding Robert Hansen. Yes, I’ve written about this before. This is all about Inv. Bill Dennis. How he asked Cindy “several pointed questions” about various sex acts.
The first question was exactly how many times she was sexually assaulted, and how. As, in conversation on the day of the incident, she had told me she had been sexually assaulted three times, twice vaginally and one rectally. Her [follow up] answer to this was only one time and that was vaginally.
Inv. Bill Dennis, Anchorage Police Department, June 14, 1983
Critically important here is how Dennis didn’t go much beyond knee jerk trust in the prominent citizens Hansen enlisted as alibi witnesses. The ones who called Cindy a liar. Yes, he had doubts about witness number two. But he barely pressed the issue, even as the evidence coming from Cindy was seemingly beyond reproach.
For example, she gave a detailed and accurate description of Hansen’s house. Inside and out. She wasn’t guessing. But somehow… See above re: “asking for it.” And “siding with the assailant.”
There is a larger story here.
At The Trooper Academy
When Walter Gilmour led the Trooper Academy in Sitka, Alaska, one of his innovations was to bring in counselors from Seattle’s Rape Relief organization to better train officers-to-be in handling rape cases. It was not an idle exercise. Sexual assault in Alaska, then as now, was at epidemic proportions.
The training involved more than dry lectures. Role playing a victim encounter was critical. A woman from Rape Relief portrayed the rape survivor in a predetermined scenario. One of those scenarios was a rape that involved anal penetration. In one case, the recruit was briefed, then proceeded with his victim statement. Here’s his first question:
“I understand the man who assaulted you demanded annual sex. Is that right?”
Ah, no, that’s not correct. Not even close. The poor befuddled rookie didn’t know a damn thing about sex. Yeah. He wasn’t alone.
Copyright Leland E. Hale (2023). All rights reserved.
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