Reggae on the River organizers are trying to sound a “safe, family event” note at the same time that they’re scrambling for more details about a reported sex assault in a campground south of the festival.
The scramble hasn’t been made easier by an apparent mis-communication between Humboldt and Mendocino county sheriff’s departments.
Back on July 21, Humboldt sheriff’s officers responded to a woman at Garberville’s hospital and took her report that two men forced her into a tent and assaulted her around 3 a.m. that morning. They gathered evidence that could be used in a rape investigation, according to sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Steve Knight.
But since the ugly mess unfolded at Cooks Valley Campground just south of the county line, they took the report as a courtesy to the Mendocino County sheriff’s department, and would normally have sent it on to Mendocino.
Instead, it sat, until the Journal and KHUM started calling asking about rape rumors, Knight said.
“It appears to be an oversight,” he said. “Evidence was collected but for some unknown reason the report was not sent to Mendocino County.”
The report was faxed to Mendocino this afternoon — more than a week later — “because you [the media] told us about it,” Knight said, adding he located the report more easily after getting the time and date of the episode from the radio station.
The buzz about the mystery crime report has frustrated Justin Crellin, general manager of the Mateel Community Center, a nonprofit whose biggest annual fundraiser is the 28-year-old reggae show. The Mateel-organized camping at Benbow this year was safe, said Crellin, and other camping wasn’t under the Mateel’s control. Crelling said the festival shouldn’t be tarred by things that happened miles away or by memories of older, rowdier years.
“Back in the day there were untold numbers of people,” he said. “It’s really been scaled back to a very safe, friendly event.”
Reggae has gotten safer, but women should stay alert and shouldn’t attend alone, said Sgt. Ken Swithenbank, the south area commander for the Humboldt Sheriff’s Department. “It seems like there’s almost always some sort of sexual assault reported at Reggae. That’s just the reported ones. I’m sure there’s much more. It’s an issue and I don’t see it going away anytime soon, due to the alcohol and drugs.”
This article appears in Cheap Eats.
It’s all tha [edited] gangbangers from Oakland that rape and rob people all over humboldt around the Reggae fest. So sad! I’ll never go again.
I was dancing in the crowd and a Black man put his hand up my shirt. He was smiling and offered me a drink from his canteen. I can’t believe it, it was probably GHB or another rape drug. People aren’t kidding when they warn others not to go.
Lovely you guys really don’t cover the event and then jump on the Mateel at first chance. Swithenbank I think used to date someone in the production company that lost Reggae he hung around there a lot. I’m sure he told you this before commenting on the event. And when you put a few thousand people together in a small space with a lot of booze this is news that something bad happened?
specially appointed peeps used to run pr cover for these types of things. The Mateel doesn’t do that anymore and it doesn’t have a director it has an operations manager or whatever they call it. What it does do that looks weird is from bumbling through stuff saying it isn’t their stuff, stupidly. And Cook’s Valley isn’t. Did anyone actually call the owner and developer of that campground, Tom’s buddy? Same guy who owns the treehouse thing in Piercy if I remember.
Rape is vile and disgusting. The fact is the sexual violence takes place everyday – behind closed doors of quiet neighborhoods, among family and friends, in cities and in the country. Sexual violence is NEVER acceptable and the people to blame are the rapists!
Frankly, Sgt. Ken Swithenbank’s attitude as portrayed by this blog post is unacceptable for a law enforcement figure. He of all people should know that rapists are the perpetrators, not drugs and alcohol! And yes, rape / sexual violence isn’t going away anytime soon, but we should certainly try to rid society of it every chance we get! I sure hope Sgt. Swithenbank isn’t the one that is called to take reports of sexual violence, his attitude is disgustingly insensitive.
When a brutal crime is committed, the common sense thing for festival staff to do would be to warn other patrons that there are predatory rapists walking in their midst so that other people could take precautions. Why were we not warned?
The comment at 10:48 was obviously posted by some half-witted racist. It ought to be removed, along with the spam.
Thank you.