By Christine Clarridge The Seattle Times
SEATTLE — Julia Marquand says she isn’t above a little Internet shaming when confronted with a groper and a police officer who doesn’t seem to care, and now her efforts have paid off.
The man suspected of groping Marquand in downtown Seattle is now being investigated by police in other similar crimes after she took to social media to call attention to the Sunday incident.
The 36-year-old Kirkland man was taken into custody Wednesday for violating probation.
Police had said he was a person of interest in the groping, but detectives now call him a suspect.
He was recognized by Department of Corrections officers as a Level III sex offender.
He has a record of at least four other instances of sexually grabbing women he didn’t know.
No accident
Marquand, a 28-year-old Belltown resident, was walking near Westlake Park on Sunday afternoon when she said a man groped her as she entered a store.
Had it happened in a crowd, she could have believed it was perhaps an accident.
But Marquand said there was no one else within a 10-foot radius when she felt his hand on her rear end.
“There was absolutely no reason for him to be standing that close and absolutely no chance he just bumped into me on accident,” she said.
She yelled at the man, who “nervously” apologized before quickly walking off, she said. Then she went into a couple of clothing stores.
She began having second thoughts about her reaction and wondered whether she should have created more of a scene.
Marquand, the owner of Seattle Wags Dog Training, walks almost everywhere.
Constant comments
She said not a day goes by that someone doesn’t yell out something inappropriate to her or make a comment about her body.
“I get harassed on a daily basis, and it’s getting old,” she said.
“One time, this guy yelled out, ‘Hey, nice ass!’ and I yelled back, ‘[expletive] off,’ and he said, ‘Hey, I meant that respectfully.’
“It’s not a compliment, and it’s not meant to be nice,” she said.
Marquand decided to confront the man again if she could find him.
She said she wanted to make sure he understood what he did was not cool and maybe discourage him from doing it to someone else.
Marquand said she was somewhat surprised to see him nearby, outside Westlake Center.
Cellphone shot
As she walked toward him, she took his picture with her cellphone, she said.
The man started apologizing as soon as he saw her, she said.
“He promised he wouldn’t do it again and said, ‘Please don’t take my picture,’ and I said, ‘Too late! If you don’t want your picture taken, then don’t grope women.’”
Marquand said she yelled at him, making sure others could hear.
“He looked terrified and ashamed, which is exactly what I hoped he would be feeling,” she said.
She wasn’t concerned for her safety because there were people nearby and she had recently started a self-defense course.
Marquand decided to file a police report since she had the man’s photo and thought the incident should be on the record.
But when she went to the Seattle Police Department’s West Precinct and asked to make a report, the female officer at the front desk seemed uninterested and told Marquand it was unlikely the man could be charged.
The officer, however, took down the basic details.
“Then she asked me to describe his appearance, and I’m like, ‘But I have the photo right here. Do you want to see it at least?’ and she didn’t even want to see it,” Marquand said.
She finally persuaded the officer to look at the photo.
Takes to social media
Marquand came away from the encounter completely dissatisfied. That’s when she decided to turn to social media.
On Monday, she posted the man’s photo on her Twitter and Facebook accounts, saying, “This dude groped me in Seattle yesterday. Cops didn’t want the pic.”
In her tweet, she mentioned the Seattle police Twitter handle and that of a few media outlets.
Within a few hours, Seattle police contacted Marquand and said her case, along with the alleged groper’s photo, had been assigned to a detective.
Police spokesman Drew Fowler said Tuesday it wasn’t the tweet itself that caused police to re-evaluate her case, but rather it alerted the department to a “deficiency” in the way her case was handled.
Fowler also said it was a mischaracterization for Marquand to say that “police didn’t care about her case; it was just that the officer Marquand talked to didn’t care.”
He said he believes the incident had been discussed with the officer.
Marquand doesn’t quite believe that, but that’s OK. She’s happy she confronted the groper and took his picture.
She’s also happy at the thought that her actions eventually provoked a serious response from police.
In a tweet back to the department, she wrote: “Thank you so much and please continue to follow up on ALL cases of harassment & sexual assault, regardless of whether they tweet.”
