Woman seeks ID of groping suspect via social media
A Winnipeg woman who says she was groped on a public street has taken to social media to find the alleged perpetrator.
Lauren Cox said a man came up behind her and groped her while she was standing at the Osborne Street and River Avenue intersection Friday evening. She followed the man into a nearby restaurant and filmed him, later posting the video and a screenshot of the man to social media, seeking his name and encouraging people to share.
The video has spread widely, inspiring more than 100 comments, with many sharing their own experiences with sexual harassment, and 2,500 shares on Facebook alone.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Lauren Cox was groped by an unknown man near the intersection of Osborne Street and River Avenue Friday evening and shared her experience on social media in hopes of warning others.
“The intention behind the post was just to keep other women safe, honestly,” Cox, 35, told the Free Press Tuesday.
“I didn’t want him going out, because he literally just walked free. He walked back through the intersection where he grabbed me. It was like, how many other women is he going to grab on his way home?”
Cox located several Sabe Peace Walkers members, a local organization that holds safety patrols in the neighbourhood, and called the non-emergency police line three times while the man was in the restaurant.
She said the Walkers waited with her and the suspect remained in the building for over an hour, but police never came and the man left.
Later that night, a Winnipeg Police Service officer visited her apartment and took a statement.
“As soon as I phoned non-emergency, the first phone call, they said that they would try to send somebody… as time went on, and I repeatedly phoned them, it just felt like they didn’t care,” she said Tuesday.
The WPS declined an interview but confirmed its sex crimes unit was investigating the incident.
Cox said the Facebook post has resulted in several tips, which she has forwarded to police.
Meantime, she is angry.
“I think I’ve had my share (of incidents), I think we all have,” Cox said. “I don’t know if I’m just fed up with it enough that at this point I’ve had enough of it, and that was why I filmed him — and that was why I just wanted other women to be aware.”
In a society where women are often not believed in cases of sexual violence, social media can become an evidence-gathering and sharing tool, University of Winnipeg women’s and gender studies associate professor Sharanpal Ruprai said.
“Not every woman can do that, and so it becomes this kind of situation where you start thinking about, which women can simply have a phone with the video on it or have the courage to follow somebody?” she said. “I don’t know if I would have that courage. So I think the burden is placed on us, and it’s ridiculous.”
It also becomes a tool for solidarity — an important resource for women to let others know they aren’t alone when they do experience harassment, Ruprai said.
“There’s something to be applauded about that, but there’s also something to be angered about, that women still have to do that.”
Ruprai said the fact the incident was reported to police and is being investigated, but the perpetrator was still allowed to leave freely after it occurred, speaks to a failure in the systemic response to sexual harassment.
“I wonder why we have these peace officers walking around Osborne, I see them all the time, all the police cadets. What good are they, if they can’t do any arresting?”
Ruprai pointed to the work of Indigenous advocates and resources in Manitoba as a primary tool for combating sexual violence in the province.
“Women, grassroots women organizing, Indigenous women organizing, they have been pointing this out, over and over and over again, that they don’t feel safe walking downtown, they don’t feel safe in all of these areas… That’s where money should be going, that’s where I think organizing needs to happen.”
Manitoba and Saskatchewan had the highest overall police-reported rates of intimate partner violence in the country in 2019 Statistics Canada data.
Manitoba had the single highest rate of intimate partner violence in remote and less-accessible areas in all of Canada.
Cara McCaskill, a sexual assault resource co-ordinator for the Brandon Women’s Resource Centre, has seen that need present itself, particularly in recent years.
“While we saw domestic violence and sexual assault rates increase drastically over COVID, I’m not sure that those rates have gone down,” she said. “I think they’ve remained high, and levels of gender-based violence, it seems, are higher than they’ve been in recent memory.”
McCaskill attributed this to several factors, including what she calls a persistent “culture of impunity” that leaves perpetrators feeling untouchable and a resulting reluctance to access the justice system within victims who feel they will not see results.
When they do seek help, it can be hard to find — McCaskill said the Brandon centre’s domestic violence counseling program has a wait list, and their specialized sexual assault counseling program is always full.
“There’s space to improve. I think, especially over the last few years, those of us who work in the anti-domestic violence, anti-gender-based violence sector, have really seen how underfunded we all are,” she said. “There’s so much gender based violence happening, and while all of the organizations that currently exist are doing their absolute best, it’s really a matter of everybody being stretched so thin and being so underfunded.”
Should you become the victim of gender-based violence, McCaskill recommends keeping any records you can, as they can be submitted to police. If it’s a reoccurring incident, people can seek protection orders. Resources in Winnipeg such as Klinic and Heart Medicine Lodge offer longer-term support.
Whether the incident occurs behind closed doors or on the street, are no “small” incidents of gendered violence, McCaskill said.
“What that (mindset) actually serves to do is just normalize domestic violence and gender-based violence and sexual assault and, really, all forms of violence. It serves to normalize it, and it serves to make excuses for it,” she said. “It goes toward fostering that culture of gender inequality.”
