Alleged Police Serial Rapist Roger Golubski Found Dead Before Trial Begins

Roger Golubski was a Kansas City, Kansas police detective.  He recently committed suicide rather than face trial.  His attorney says it was because of the media coverage.

From CBS:

"Golubski was accused of sexually assaulting one woman starting when she was barely a teenager and another after her sons were arrested."

The scope and scale of crime that Golubski was accused of was much worse, though.  He was said to be one of the many police officers that women in certain circles know to avoid, because he will try to corner you into coercive situations.  It's called "the deal. "

It's all too typical of such people to kill themselves rather than face accountability.  Golubski was accused of trafficking women out of an apartment complex while working as a police detective, for example.  That's a control trip.  It's about the ability to pervert power and keep people under your thumb.  Of course he won't answer to anyone else.  I remember when Ariel Castro killed himself rather than face justice for everything he did to those three women.  The power trippers don't like to give up control.

What frustrates me about this situation is that I saw a possible end game, a way back into society during my lifetime for me personally as a rape survivor.   And now he's killed himself before the conversation could've been had in court.  This would've been the perfect case to litigate.  Because yes, having a police detective coerce someone into prostitution probably does violate their civil rights, I would think.  It would've been good to get this out and done with.

And of course in America everything is very patchy  on a state-by-state basis.  So the laws are always unevenly applied.  Donna Castleberry's murderer got acquitted twice, because nobody cares what the police do to women like her in real life.  Not in America.   The police can do all kinds of things to women in America.  It's not a problem.  It's really not, no matter who they are.  An on-duty cop can rape a teenage white girl who works at a fast-food place and get probation-only through the miracle of plea bargaining.  I have receipts on this blog.  (St. Joseph, Missouri)

The only reason Holtzclaw went down is that he also attacked Jannie Ligons -- a respectable woman who just happened to be out late at night while black.  Had he left her alone, he'd be officer of the year today.  I don't believe the community would have rallied around Holtzclaw's other victims without Ligons being among them.  In fact I'm sure they wouldn't, because hey, they're not.  The white community doesn't circle around white women who get attacked by the police, nor does any other ethnic community that I know of.  The Holtzclaw thing was a one-off, and this Golubski opportunity.

The constant racialization of every discussion of sexual violence in America makes it, for me, a virtual non-conversation most of the time.  In my dream world, we can approach every issue regardless of the person's demographic. I wish that were the way.

Unfortunately sexual violence was very much interwoven with racial violence for African-Americans at the outset of this country, and the genesis of their ethnic community.  And thus many people are either unwilling or unable to allow other white people to have other conversations about sexual violence outside of that context.  First of all the idea of "other white people" can be a lot for people, that my family arrived in 1922 and is entirely unrelated to plantation culture, is a non-starter for a lot of African-Americans.  It simply doesn't seem to feel true or right to them. 

I feel like having every conversation about sexual violence being about race first and foremost is a hijacking of the conversation.  At that point it's about race, not sexual violence.  And I found that completely overwhelming starting in 2019.  America can't have more than one conversation at a time.  And we're in our Ibram X. Kendi phase, where race is the one and only problem. 

I remember Holtzclaw's survivors' supporters (OKC Artists for Justice) -- who identified as African-Americans, not rape survivors -- asserting that police rape cannot and does not happen to white women.  They went on Democracy Now! and claimed that when a rape victim is white, the criminal's bail is higher!  This is the kind of bird law you learn at art school in Oklahoma.  There are actual books that determine bail guidelines, and race of either accused or victim is not one of the determining factors. 

Don't take it from me, I didn't go to art school.  Wirth Law Office in Tulsa has this whole list of exactly what the bail is for which crime, per Oklahoma statute.  That's how it works, for real.  Race of victim is an actual non-factor IRL.  Thank you for trolling, nice art ladies.  Thank you for not requiring receipts, nice journalism lady. 

"Felony 21-1115-C Attempted Rape 1st Degree $50,000
Felony 21-1116-B  Attempted Rape 2nd Degree $25,000
Felony 21-1116-F Attempted Rape by Instrumentation $25,000"

Amy Goodman sat there and let that goof from OKC Artists for Justice talk such nonsense unchallenged, that you get higher bail if you're accused of raping a white woman.  This is how it works all over America.  You can look it up and see what the bail will be for what crime.   She didn't cite any examples.  She did say, "Police rape doesn't happen to white women."  You can look through this whole blog full of receipts and prove her wrong on that point.

The Golubski issue got reframed as a racial issue and thus became a civil rights problem.  Because of course having the police rape you isn't a problem unless you're black.   It may be that the OKC Artists for Justice are the only ones who believe that, but possibly not.  Now, I can be annoyed by the rudeness, or I can support them in doing the hard work, and profit.  Just like with bodycams.  If they want to put a bunch of men to work on chores that help me, okay.

It's a very strange position that I find myself in as a survivor.  I automatically empathize with and support other survivors, until their conversations become too toxic and I have to turn away.

For example, there was a man who was protesting at a school.  He had parked a camper on their lawn to draw attention to the way they'd mishandled his sexual abuse complaints when he attended there as a child.  I want to say he was in Ohio.

My first thought was, wow, good for him!  How powerful that would be, if everyone who got abused and shoved under the rug would pull up campers on the lawns of all of these schools and force them to take accountability.  I was so proud of him.  And he'd gotten attention from the local news.  Great job, dude.  My heart was so full for him.

The news  anchor showed him in his camper, and he explained that he'd been abused.  Then he was interviewed, and he said, "... and they didn't help me because I was black."  What he's saying is that people like me already got too much help, that's why he didn't get helped. But the white kids, when we complained, we did get helped. 

I wanted to ask him for some examples.  First of all, was this an all-black school?  Was he the only student assaulted?  I'm willing to bet that no and no.  Did the other kids get helped?  Can he give me some examples of the other kids at other schools who did get helped?  Any school in the world?  Like what, like a Catholic School, or a Mormon School, or what school full of little white kids where they get helpitty helped, man?  Help a white woman out with some receipts.

Like how white do you have to be to get some help?  How strong does your white-girl game have to be when you get molested, Amish?  Paris Hilton?  The army of little Olympic gold medal gymnasts that Larry Nassar did whatever the fuck he wanted to right in front of their mamas?  And they DID go to the police and nobody did jack shit?  Touch some grass, black man.   Step out of your camper, take a deep breath, and read a newspaper.  It will be good for you as a survivor.  Get some exercise beyond pushing other survivors under the bus.

Back at the ranch, I would have loved to see this whole Golubski thing get litigated.  I'd have liked to see all the skeletons pulled out of all of the closets, get some house cleaned, a little justice served on so much dirty business that obviously went on.  I empathize with other rape survivors regardless of their demographic.  I don't believe there will be justice for anyone until there's justice for everyone.  I'd like to get on with it.

I do feel like having the police run "the deal" is an obvious civil rights violation.  If this is what it takes to get people to wake up about it, fantastic.  Eventually maybe they will understand that it happens to all kinds of women, by all kinds of police officers.