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Students to rally after LSUPD 'hurtful and heinous' comments

7 years 11 months 2 weeks ago Thursday, April 07 2016 Apr 7, 2016 April 07, 2016 12:45 PM April 07, 2016 in News
Source: WBRZ
By: Kristen Althouse, Kevin Dupuy

BATON ROUGE – A group of LSU students are planning to rally Monday after a LSU Police Lieutenant made comments to the Daily Reveille about campus rape statistics. 

In an report with a Daily Reveille reporter about football game day sexual assaults, LSU Police Public Information Officer Lt. Kevin Scott made a statement about the national average of rapes on college campuses and compared it to the statistics at LSU.

"If you surveyed 100 girls, or 1,000 female students on LSU's campus, will you really see one in five that say they've been sexually assaulted, if they're really being honest?" Scott said. "Is that accurate? I mean, look at the numbers."

The comment sparked outrage among some students who met Wednesday night at Highland Coffee to plan a protest over the comments.

"On Wednesday LSU PD Spokesperson Lt. Scott made unsupported claims which insinuate that the women of LSU might be engaging in lying about surviving sexual assaults/rapes on campus," the rally's Facebook event reads. "On Monday at 6 p.m. we are responding to these hurtful and heinous comments."

Scott released a statement through LSU Wednesday night: 

"Regarding my quote in The Daily Reveille, I feel compelled to explain to the LSU community that the quote, and the way it was used, was not at all what was intended in my conversation with the student reporter. As a police officer, former investigator, and someone who has worked with survivors of all types of crimes, including sexual assault, I would never question the honesty of a victim. In fact, I have worked throughout my career to encourage the reporting of such crimes and to make the LSU campus a safer place for all. In our conversation, the reporter asked about research regarding sexual assaults on college campuses. My comments were meant to address the challenges of getting survivors to come forward and report these crimes; they were not meant to question their honesty."

Another student, Carroline Rodgers said she was not offended by the comment. Instead she thinks her peers, are overreacting to the comments.

"I think he was correctly portraying his opinion that it's not a number that you can apply to everybody," Rodgers said.

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