Tucson is hopping on the Slutwalk bandwagon, a raucous-sounding trend that is sweeping parts of the Western World in response to an idiotic remark made by a Toronto Police Service Officer.
He said women should not dress like sluts if they want to avoid being raped.
Nice. And men shouldn’t dress like police officers if they’re going to make such inane statements.
The cop, Constable Michael Sanguinetti, made the remark back in January at a university campus safety event. The area’s local Excalibur newspaper reported he even prefaced his statement with something like “I’ve been told I shouldn’t say this.” Sanguinetti has since apologized, according to CBS, but he was merely disciplined and not fired from the force.
Meanwhile, people lose their jobs in a heartbeat for Tweeting they’re bored at work.
Although his apology was much delayed and the dude is still serving a community that he evidently neither respects nor understands, the Slutwalks are serving him a fine slap in the face.
They’ve already popped up all over Canada, England, at Arizona State University, California and Maine and one is scheduled in Tucson at 5 p.m. Friday, May 13 (today!).
The location is in front of the main Tucson Police Department station, 270 S. Stone Ave. While the location is prime for rallying against law enforcement, it does seem a bit unfair to Tucson cops. First off, it was a Toronto officer who uttered the phrase, not our Tucson men and women and blue.
Perhaps a more fitting location might be in front of a Canada Dry factory, although we do not have one. But there’s always the Consulate General of Canada offices, just up the block at 33 N. Stone.
The protest is also unfair to Tucson police because budget cuts have already cut down on manpower and patrols. With a Slutwalk scheduled for 5 p.m. on a Friday, either overtime will have to be scheduled to patrol the Slutwalk or officers will be pulled from their beat on the streets. This means fewer police out catching rapists, Peeping Toms, other sexual assault perpetrators and perverts who flash their privates at small children in supermarket parking lots.
Bet Constable Sanguinetti would say the kids were asking for it by dressing like sluts.
Those two minor TPD twists aside, Slutwalks are a brilliant way to bring attention to the backwards thinking that obviously still prevails that victims of sexual assaults are somehow at fault.
We would expect such a mentality, perhaps, from 1950s small-town America, but not from a Canadian metropolis in the year 2011.
Sanguinetti needs to get with it. It’s incredibly sad and surprising he’s not more knowledgeable about his own career field. If he were he would realize that a rapist will rape, a Peeping Tom will peep and predators will continue to sexually assault, harass and batter victims based on opportunity, impulse, obsession and mental instability more than anything else.
This includes their mode of dress. Even if they are, as Sanguinetti so delicately puts it, dressed like sluts.
