Sepulveda Corridor Gains Notoriety for Rape

The typical rapist is not likely to spring from bushes to attack. He probably won’t drag his victim at knifepoint into a dark alley.

Buying the prey a shot of Cuervo is more his style. Or taking her to a movie or dinner. He might be an old friend, a cousin, a husband. Or someone she just met.

Whether the victim has just met her attacker or known him all her life, the majority of rapes are committed by people known by the victim--even in the most crime-ridden neighborhoods of the city. Sepulveda Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley is one such place.

Long known as a place to pick up a prostitute, the Sepulveda corridor is also one of the most frequent settings for rape in the city. The 51/2-mile stretch of Sepulveda Boulevard and the surrounding streets from the 118 Freeway to south of Victory Boulevard were the scene of 58 reported rapes in 2001. The grim tally was even worse than the notorious six-mile Figueroa Street stretch in South-Central, where there were 45 rapes, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Of the Sepulveda corridor attacks, at least 45 were acquaintance rapes.

“In most of the rapes we have, the victim knows the person,” said LAPD Det. Craig Rhudy, a 17-year veteran of the force. “We have very few stranger rapes.”

The rape of Tiffany seems fairly typical.

She had known Jason, her attacker, for more than a year. She knew his friends and family. She had partied with him, even kissed him several times. She never had to ask him twice to stop.

Then one night, as she was sitting on a chair, Jason picked her up and sat her down on a carpet.

Then things got vicious.

“When I tried to stand up, he pushed my shoulders back down really hard,” said Tiffany, 23, a North Hollywood resident who would not give her last name or details of where the attack occurred. “Then he said in a very calm voice, ‘You don’t want to even say a word.’ I was in shock.”

During the attack, Tiffany said she thought of an old Hollywood image of a rapist, someone with a gun or knife and a mask. Someone who would kill. But Jason had no weapon or disguise. She wasn’t even sure this was rape.

“When he finished, he didn’t even look at me,” she said softly. “It was like he was done and I was discarded.”

She credited the counseling she received in Van Nuys with saving her life.

“If it wasn’t for the Valley Trauma Center, I think I would have committed suicide,” she said.

A spokeswoman for the center, the Valley’s only rape crisis facility, said at least 66% of the 772 rape and sexual assault victims counseled there in 2001 knew their attacker. That percentage may be much higher because 14% declined to reveal the attacker’s identity.

The numbers do not surprise Constance Bryant, rape crisis program manager at the Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence in Ventura, who said about 75% of rapes in the U.S. are committed by a person who knows the victim.

What is deceiving is the term “acquaintance.”

“Most women know their attacker to some extent, but she may have only known him for an hour,” said Bryant, who has counseled hundreds of victims. “It’s a funny thing, but as humans, if we’ve met someone even just an hour ago, we stop thinking of them as strangers. But you really don’t know anything about them, even if you’ve been on one or two dates.”

Many rapes occur near the end of a night on the town, when a couple decide to continue the evening at a hotel.

“We have a high number of cases where the couple might say, ‘Let’s get a room and just do some drugs or drink or hang out for awhile,’ so they get a motel,” said LAPD Det. Gary Barthelmess. “Sometimes the night ends with a rape.”

At the trauma center, Executive Director Patti Dengler said the keys to reducing rape are education and accountability.

“When a women gets raped, the focus is often on what she did and how she could have prevented it,” Dengler said. “We need to focus on men and why some of them think it is OK to keep going when the woman says no.” Rape is one of the hardest crimes to prove. In 2000, there were 1,342 rapes reported and 191 arrests citywide. In 2001, in the LAPD’s Van Nuys Division, there were 74 reported rapes and 15 arrests.

Although Sepulveda is infamous for prostitutes, they accounted for less than 10 of the 61 reported rapes on the corridor. The actual number is thought to be much higher as prostitutes may be reluctant to report the crime.

“A lot of that comes from the prostitute’s belief that no one cares, so they won’t even report it,” Barthelmess said. “That’s not true. We will investigate their rape just like all the others. I think there is a high percentage of prostitutes that almost figure it’s a given they are going to be assaulted.”

Lisa is one of those.

“Hey baby, that’s just the way things are here,” said Lisa, a vacant-eyed Sepulveda Boulevard hooker who would only give her first name. She started walking away into the night, smiled at a man sitting in a parked car, then turned and explained her philosophy. “You got to do what you got to do on Sepulveda.”

Tiffany, the rape survivor, urged victims of sexual attacks to seek counseling.

“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about what happened to me,” she said. “But now instead of being ashamed, I’m proud I got through it.”