As Mayor, Palin Charged Victims for Rape Kits

clipped from www.motherjones.com An interesting catch by the folks over at AMERICAblog. They found an article from the Wasilla newspaper dated May 23, 2000, that notes the city of Wasilla was one of a few Alaskan municipalities that charged women claiming to have been raped for their own forensic tests. As you probably know by now, Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla from 1996-2002. While the Alaska State Troopers and most municipal police agencies have covered the cost of exams, which cost between $300 to $1,200 apiece, the Wasilla police department does charge the victims of sexual assault for the tests. In the article, Fannon admits that halting the practice of charging alleged rape victims for their own tests would cost the city... wait for it... $5,000 to $14,000 a year.

Fannon is Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon.

What happens when you don't have enough money to report a rape? Should "not enough money to report a rape" even be a string of words that are ever uttered in the United States?

While Palin was saving $14,000 a year tops, she spent $1 million on a "emergency communications center" that "local law enforcement has said is redundant and creates confusion" -- paid for with pork.

Nice set of priorities you got there, Sarah...