Boston Store Herberger's, Yonker's No lock on dressing room door! I was seen semi nude by stalker male.Upper management doesn't care, won't talk to me about it. Madison, Wisconsin

I can’t believe my eyes. You don’t blame the victim. Every changing room I ever walked into had locks. This is for security reasons. The store has liability here for not having a secure environment. Then they treated the situation that happened poorly. I see this sort of blaming and rationalizing a lot. It is simply wrong. They don’t need to give her a gift card. They need to take steps to ensure her this will be prevented from happening again as best they can. Their actions in this event hardly compare to ones best. I would have offered to have her sit with me in my office and go over the security tapes to identify the man. Then call the cops with our evidence. I would work with the local TV station to identify this man. Someone knows him. Of course the name of the victim and her picture would be omitted from the press to protect her identity from public harassment. The end result she would have her day in court with the DA having all the ammo they need to put this guy away. In the end, I would hope I made a negative experience in my store a positive outcome. That would go a long way to rebuild her trust once she saw the new locks on doors to boot.

We can’t rationalize in society. Something is ether right or wrong. What this man did is wrong. It is about boundaries. He crossed one. The next time he may cross another that includes rape. When you are a victim you are in shock. You don’t think of everything. That is the job of the manager of that store. Since she was a woman she should have known better how to handle another woman in shock after such an event in her store. Bad leadership in this situation may have led to other women being abused in the area. Blaming the victim should have ended with “women’s suffrage” when they got the right to vote. I bet when you get sick pal you run right to your woman acting like you just lost 40 years of maturity. This is how you thank our angels.

FYI how can she get the cops to do anything useful without evidence that the store failed to help her with….. she did contact them to get help in dealing with this matter. Cops are not miracle workers. We have to do our part to help them solve crimes. That fell on the store failing to do so.

-Concerned Army Veteran

Dear Victim, 

Sorry to hear of your experience in the dressing room in Madison, Wisconsin at Boston Store. Obviously this situation shook you up to the point where you felt you needed to get away, and fast, and stay as safe as you could. 

Allow me to suggest what I picture Boston Store staff doing in order to handle this better. The employee who heard and saw you and then possibly saw the man should have immediately called store security. If there were two employees nearby, one should have immediately positioned themselves between you and the man, or at least attended to you directly, perhaps asking you to have a seat and then staying with you to calm you down or provide some comfort, if possible. Security would have, ideally, been there quickly at which point they should have talked with the man and asked him where he meant to be. There is a chance he was lost or confused or drunk and needed to be redirected out of the store if the latter. Based on your description, it's more likely he was a pervert, so let's say the security tries to escort him away from the area. I do believe the next step would be for them to get the police immediately. If they thought he was a danger they should follow whatever procedures are to be followed such as escort him out of the building and wait for the cops. Possibly their procedure allows them to escort him into a secure area - away from other customers - and stay with him til police arrive. He should then be issued a ticket  -perhaps for disorderly conduct. At the same time, any other employees or customers who'd been in the area should speak with the police to report what they saw and heard. A store manager should probably have been called at the same time as well.

Boston Store doesn't owe you anything, in my opinion, but the best possible customer service would have involved them taking it seriously, and acting immediately at the time it occurred. I've never seen a lock on a changing room that I can recall. Nowadays businesses are quite concerned with getting sued so they do and say as little as possible that could "haunt them later". Tell me you at least received the gift card? Again, I am so sorry this happened to you. And I do believe you. 

You never once attacked the Boston Store. All you have done is attacked me. Bottom line is, Boston Store did not provide a safe place for me or any other women to try on clothes. You dont seem to care that they didnt supply a simple lock on a dressing room. Not one dressing room in the entire store has a lock on the door, you dont seem to think thats a problem.

Because of people just like you many women dont report things of this nature. All you want to do is attack the victim. Ive heard of the victim blaming phenomenon, but never experienced it until now. Blaming the victim is traditionally emerged especially in racist, sexist & classist forms. I think we know which one applies here.

I have nothing more to say to you.

The questions above were not to "pick" apart your story.  As I said I was not saying it did or didn't happen to you because of this missing information.  Whether or not you believe it, if this did happen to you I do feel for you.  However, there is a big difference between posting an anonymous complaint on the Internet and filing a Police report. 

You talk about warning others, and that is good.  With that said I think You, Your Father and your Husband are wrong in one point.  They should not have told you to file this complaint..they should have told you to contact the police.  Yes, you could have even done it when you got home, or even stopped at another "safe" business.

So let's say because you don't call the police this person goes and does the exact same thing again.  But this time instead of just standing there, he tries to rape that person.  How are you going to explain to that person that you could have stopped it by calling the police but didn't want to get involved?  Do you want to really help people or just be a bystander?

Just something to think about.

This can't be happening! I say this because it was a very traumatic experience for me. Now it sounds like you are in defense of a store that doesn't even offer a simple lock on a "dressing" room door!

Sorry, I didn't provide 30 pages of detail. It's a brief summary.

Yes, It was a random man. I don't know where he came from. I am an attractive woman, for all I know he was following me. Attractive or not, this shouldn't happen to anyone...ever!

There is a large open entryway to dressing rooms. down a short hall they offer 2 or 3 dressing rooms. The other side is blocked off. The dressing room furthest from entry is the largest room, that is why I used it.

I don't know if he opened other doors. All I know is, the opened mine. When I heard the mans voice getting closer, I became frightened because he was in the "women's" dressing room, not outside the dressing room , but inside! All that was between me and him was a door without a lock! I didn't know if he would open the door, but I wasn't taking any chances so I started to dress. Apparently I had every reason to be afraid, because he did open my door!

 When I came out yelling, he just stood there in the dressing room hallway smiling! I believe the clerk had to ask him to leave the dressing room. I heard her yelling at him, but don't know exactly what was said.  It happened so fast, I was in a state of shock.

I went to my car in tears. I called my husband. I asked if I should call the police. He said "no come home" We live 20 miles away and he didn't want me sitting in the parking lot waiting for this creep to come outside. Madison is not a small town, it may take a long while for the police to arrive.

Would it be OK if this happened to your mother, sister, daughter or wife? It's not OK with my husband or father. They are the ones that suggested I file a complaint.

I filed this complaint to help others. Sadly, this man would rather pick apart my unfortunate story rather than empathize with me.

 

I'm not saying that this did or did not happen to you.  But there seems to be a lot of holes in your report that perhaps you can clear up.

Was this man just some random man or was he an employee?

Were there other dressing rooms in use?  If not why did you go to the end room?  If there were did he open up any other doors?

When you heard the man's voice, what did he say that caused you to frantically look for a way to lock the door?  Did he give you any indication he was going to open your door?  

When you came out yelling there was a man in the dressing room, where did the man go?  Was he still in the dressing rooms or did he run out?

By the way what did the police say when you called them to report the stalker?