As the Everett Herald reported earlier this week, authorities in Lynnwood, WA have been forced to reopen a three-year-old investigation into the rape of a Lynnwood woman who police bullied into pleading guilty to charges of false reporting because they "didn't believe her story."

This week, Lynnwood police reopened the case after detectives in Colorado found photos of the Lynnwood victim on a camera belonging to Marc O'Leary, who has been charged in two similar cases in Colorado.

At Shakespeare's Sister, a national feminist blog, Melissa McEwan expresses her contempt for the department's assumption that the woman was lying, rather than that there simply wasn't enough evidence to sustain charges. Noting that the main similarity between the Lynnwood rape and the cases in Colorado was that the rapist was meticulous about not leaving evidence---wearing gloves and a mask, taking victims' bedding and clothes with him, cleaning the scene with wet-wipes, and forcing victims to shower and brush their teeth after the assaults---Melissa writes:

[Lynnwood police commander Steve] Rider seems to be implying that Lynnwood police "made the wrong conclusion" because of the lack of evidence, but I would argue that concluding the woman was lying, as opposed to simply concluding there was not sufficient evidence to sustain an open investigation, is attributable to something decidedly more nefarious than a lack of evidence. ...

It's a case of he said she said! That's what the rape apologists always say. You can't RUIN A MAN'S LIFE just on some woman's word! As if rape convictions on nothing but witness testimony happen all the time.

(They happen never. And men who are wrongly convicted of sexual assault are virtually never the victims of false reporting, but of mistaken IDs, shoddy or corrupt police work, and/or legal railroading.)

But what is happening, over and over, is women's lives are being ruined because their word can't be verified. And the takeaway lesson here, I guess, is that if rapists are careful enough to destroy all the evidence, not only will they get away with it, their accusers will be accused of committing a crime if they report it. Swell. Let's definitely keep supporting a practice that empowers rapists. Great idea. Very cool.

Well, what do you want the police to do—just let women who make false reports GET AWAY WITH IT?! Yes. That is exactly what I want. Because I frankly think that most reports called "false reports," which constitute less than 2% of rape allegations, aren't actually false reports in the first place (see: this story) and that the tiny remainder of authentically false reports do not warrant the continuation of a practice that empowers rapists and discourages survivors of sexual violence from reporting the crimes against them, for fear of being arrested if their allegations can't be proven.

I don't guess I need to point out that when survivors are discouraged from reporting the crimes against them, rapists go free. That not only empowers rapists, but creates more victims.

The Herald's editorial board offers their own outraged response to the story here.