A key point in last year’s Academy Award nominated documentary “The Invisible War” was that the military was structurally incapable of adequately policing sexual assault in the armed services. As if to bolster the filmmakers’ case, the Air Force officer in charge of its Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Branch has been arrested and charged with sexual battery.I am not particularly surprised.
“The DoD estimates that, on average, there are more than 50 sexual assaults involving military personnel each day. The only thing unusual about this particular assault is that the accused was actually arrested and charged, and that senior officers in his chain of command cannot intervene to prevent his prosecution,” Kirby Dick, the director of “The Invisible War,” told CQ Roll Call. His film’s key tenet is that the military does not follow standard criminal justice procedures in sexual assault cases, keeping them within the chain of command, and that this has helped lead to an epidemic of sexual assault in the armed forces.
Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski was arrested by Arlington County, Va., police on Sunday in a Crystal City, Va., parking lot, as first reported by ARLnow. According to the police report “a drunken male subject approached a female victim in a parking lot and grabbed her breasts and buttocks. The victim fought the suspect off as he attempted to touch her again and alerted police.” Krusinski was arrested, charged and held on a $5,000 unsecured bond.
The US military has long history of (at best) indifference to issues of sexual assault, as evidenced by the recent spate of get out of jail free cards issued by senior officers.
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