Yost is the problem

The message attorneys who represented a Put-in-Bay police officer that Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost called a liar after she filed a complaint with the Ottawa County sheriff about a sexual encounter with a superior officer is straightforward and simple: Stop treating victims like criminals and start holding sexual harassers and predators accountable. Anjum Dunn Yost isn't listening, however, and he's shown himself to be more of an advocate for sexual harassment and sexual violence than an advocate for women who report abuse. He's shown himself to be ignorant on the topic, a man with a Neandrathal point of view who promotes sexual harassment and violence and leaves victims to suffer in silence. Sarah Anjum, a Toledo attorney, and Laura L. Dunn, an attorney in Washington, on Monday called on Yost to reform his views and reform how police and prosecutors investigate sex crime reports. They want Yost, his chief prosecutor, Carol O'Brien and the attorneys who work for Yost to get educated and support training Ohio law enforcement agencies on "how to avoid using biases and stereotypes to wrongly label reports as false." End Violence Against Women International is a nonprofit that trains law enforcement on the best practices for investigating sex crimes, something Yost and O'Brien desperately need, an education they haven't yet received. They did all Ohioans a serious disservice by pursuing this prosecution and were obviously ignorant about so many things. Their ignorance would be less offensive if they were accountants or in some other profession that didn't allow them to have this bone-chilling impact on victims of sexual harassment and violence. It would be fine to be ignorant if you weren't being paid by taxpayers and you weren't the top prosecutors in the state. Yost and O'Brien have refused, for months, to explain why they pursued this case when no other prosecutor in the state would touch it. They have refused to acknowledge their mistakes even as they labeled other women who reported alleged sex crimes as "wanting it" or being too unstable to be believed. Yost has a track record of blaming victims and using disgusting tactics to intimidate them. Yost and O'Brien are public officials granted enormous power. Ignoring legitimate questions of public concern is rude and irresponsible, and it should not be an option for them. It's past time to admit that mistakes were made and to take the steps necessary, including proper training for themselves and other law enforcement, where it's needed. For Yost and O'Brien, and for some policing agencies, including the Ottawa County Sheriff's Office, it's desperately needed. A legitimate review of the other rape complaints that became part of this case, as Anjum and Dunn have requested, also is long overdue. Not acting in response to their requests should not be an option.