Three years ago, a woman was raped at gunpoint, in the presence of her two small children (ages 3 and 5), in a Marriott-owned parking garage. Marriott has decided that *she* was negligent in this matter. See USAToday story.
The Stamford Advocate has a lengthier article, describing how the woman gave the guy her wallet, told him to go, and he proceeded to assault her while threatening to assault one her children.
Another article on the case.
Here's a letter I'll be mailing to Marriott Corporate today:
Corporate Headquarters
Marriott International
To Whom It May Concern:
Enclosed please find a Marriott pen I received as a free promotional item at an event I recently attended.
Upon reading that Marriott has decided to level allegations of negligence against a woman who was raped at gunpoint, in the presence of her two small children, in a Marriott-owned parking garage, I found myself so disgusted with your corporation that I don’t even want your freebies.
Because I felt it would be negligent on my part to fail to alert people with whom I communicate on a regular basis, I’ve made a point of posting links to the articles regarding your treatment of rape victims to every social networking site to which I hold membership.
I don't even know what to say about that one. Oh, urgh. I'm going to look into this some more, then figure out what to do -- writing is a good first step, I guess.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to doing everything short of saying "She was asking for it," Marriott has pulled some dirty tricks in their "investigation" of the attack. I've seen comments from a woman who lives about 1 mile from the Marriott in question, and she says the news articles are slanted to make it look like the woman failed to report the guy's presence earlier in the day. According to her, other people at the hotel noticed the guy. But Marriott claims no one reported him.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to be watching this story closely to see how it plays out. Marriott should have settled. I suspect that they'll suffer a lot of damage b/c of their stance.