Seabright attack flyer

The following flyer was posted in the Seabright neighborhood, detailing the attack that the woman survived. The flyer has been torn down, possibly by the police, as it challenges conventional responses to violence against women.
" ATTACK
On Thursday, July 20, around 10:15pm, I was attacked on Cayuga between Logan and Idaho. A man in his early 30's with short (buzzed) dark hair, wearing a white hooded sweatshirt knocked me to the ground and pinned me down, with his hand on my throat. I fought back and screamed and he ran away. I ran after him for about block, yelling at him until he disappeared, and then ran to my home up the street.

Two other women have been attacked in this same two block stretch in the last two weeks, as my friends discovered while asking if any neighbors had seen or heard anything. One of the women gave my friends a description that sounded similar to the man who attacked me.

I did not call the police. I do not need a police report. This is my report, and it is for the community that I live in so that we can feel strong in our neighborhood, not for the police to file away.

The armed gang known as the police do not offer the type of comfort and compassion that I need to deal with my trauma. The last thing that I needed to hear was that I should not have been a woman walking alone at night. Police reinforce the very system that sees women as objects of violence. They respond to assault (and everything else) with intimidation and blame, and make people feel more violated. They function to make us feel afraid rather than to stop violence.

The "neighborhood watch" signs are a bad joke, suggesting we replace trusting and openness with becoming eyes and ears for the cops. In places where communal justice is meted out, the prevention comes almost entirely from the connections and relationships which keep people attentive to each others' health and situation.

Rather than living without trust for the outside, I want us to combat attacks like this by connecting with our neighbors and our surroundings, and building confidence in our abilities to take care of ourselves."

Flyers were posted to telephone poles and some taped over "neighborhood watch" signs. Many were torn down within a day of being posted up.

The Santa Cruz Sentinel ran a front page article in Wednesday's paper about another woman being held at gun point in an attempted rape on Sunday. Its article reprints police statements that they are taking the attacks seriously, but only mentions the ATTACK flyer in passing, not acknowledging the alternative perspective that it offers. The Sentinel article ends with a quote from a neighbor who 'avoids running in the early morning or late evening and never walks alone at night', a typical example of establishment views on 'prevention'.

The article unquestioningly reiterates police positions with the assumption that their interests and the community's are perfectly alligned. It states that police will be patrolling the neighborhood and posting signs. A "neighborhood watch" meeting is advertised as organized by a police community service officer for Aug 3rd at Cayuga and Haiwatha at 7pm.