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Kim Case: I was 19 and I met a friend for breakfast, and at that restaurant, there were four men. They saw us in the parking lot and kind of heckled at us. But it was a fairly small town and so we just thought, you know, it's some stupid teenagers. And unbeknownst to me, they followed me home. I saw the car pull up, I saw somebody get out, and before I really knew it, he was struggling to pull me into his car. They started the sexual assaults right away, and the incident lasted almost 16 hours. And I was able to run to a house and go for safety.
When you call 911, you go right to law enforcement. So your engagement and involvement with them sets the tone for the way that you view the whole system. And in my personal case, the number one thing they did is said, "We believe you. We are here for you. It is not your fault. We will help you." Just those words make you feel like the system is working with you and not against you.
My victimization happened in three separate counties, and so each county handled things quite differently, and that was new to me. I thought the system was the "system," and that you went through it the same as you would anywhere. But it wasn't the case. The idea of serving a victim and treating them as an important part of a case rather than just as a witness to the case was really a new idea in 1990 when I became a victim.
One of the counties, Cass County, had a victim advocate, which I had never heard of, and their role was to support me as the victim and my family. The other two counties didn't have their services set up, and I kind of had to beg for help. And that really began my urgency to stabilize the State and to level what was happening for victims.
Breaking into law enforcement as a law enforcement-based advocate was a little difficult.
I’d like to talk today about how victim services…
But they were willing to listen to my personal story, and I think they were inspired that I chose to go ahead and survive. I work with victims to encourage them to make that choice everyday. My biggest place of refuge is my faith. To be able to walk with someone in their darkest hour and just knowing and understanding that this does not have to define them, that they can have some triumph on the other side, that this is not their story--I love that.
