Reply #14: Authorities failed to help protect this young woman, totally...

[countryjake]

Rebecca Griego, 26


Two UW departments failed to report stalker threats
By Sanjay Bhatt - Seattle Times staff reporter
Thursday, April 5, 2007
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003652289_uw05m.html

~snip~

University Police and the College of Architecture failed to follow well-established procedures by not reporting Rebecca Griego's pleas for help to a high-level safety team that could have taken steps to protect her, a top University of Washington official acknowledged Wednesday.

Mindy Kornberg, vice president of human resources at the university, said her department should have been notified that Griego had received death threats from her ex-boyfriend at her office in Gould Hall. She said the HR department also didn't know Griego had filed a report — including a copy of a domestic-violence protection order — with University Police.

On Monday morning, Jonathan Rowan shot Griego to death in a university building before killing himself.

Had HR been notified of Rowan's threats, the workplace violence-prevention assessment team would have met, talked to Griego and developed a plan to reduce the short- and long-term risk to her safety, Kornberg said. She ticked off possibilities such as changing Griego's phone number, moving her to a different building or stepping up police patrols near her workplace.



Protection order can't stop person hellbent on doing harm
By Christine Clarridge - Seattle Times staff reporter
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003648622_protection03.html

~snips~

About five years ago, state legislators increased the penalty for violating an order of protection.

What used to be a gross-misdemeanor offense is now a felony offense with higher penalties.

"It now has the same penalty as kidnapping in the second degree or rape in the third," said David Martin, lead prosecutor of King County's domestic-violence unit. "It's a pretty serious crime."

He said that last year, approximately 5,000 temporary protection orders were issued in King County Superior Court.

Studies done by the U.S. Department of Justice, the University of Washington and others have shown, however, that legal remedies, such as the filing of no-contact orders, restraining orders or orders of protection, can sometimes spur offenders into lethal action.

Bradshaw tells the story of several men he's prosecuted who killed their family members after orders of protection were granted.

"Given the access to weapons, and the determination of some men, there is realistically nothing that can be done to stop them from doing what they did," he said.