Criminal Invasion of Privacy -- One Illegal, One Legal

When I landed a job in Public Relations at the renowned University of Chicago in 1972, no one could have convinced me I wasn't the luckiest young single mother in Chicagoland.


Instead of driving 60 miles a day commuting between Downer's Grove, a  western suburb of Chicago, and the Southside campus in the Hyde Park neighborhood, I took advantage of my eligibility to lease a two-bedroom flat in one of the University-owned apartment buildings just a few short blocks from my new office on the University's quadrangle.

Life was looking up.  The sting of my divorce was fading, the new job offered an increase in salary significant enough to allow me to replace my utilitarian car with something a lot sexier, and I had even met a six-feet six-inch insurance salesman who enjoyed wining and dining me.  His name was Richard. He was kind of strange, but what the heck.  He would do for a while.
 
One day I was preparing to interview one of the U of C's most famous professors, economist Milton Friedman.  The youngest PR specialist on the staff at 28, I was pretty nervous about meeting Friedman, and I was getting tips from the others, who had been around a lot longer. I only had two days more to bone up.  Richard had called that morning to arrange a lunch date.

About five minutes before Richard was due to pick me up for lunch I went into the ladies room to spruce up a bit.  For once it was located just outside the suite of offices we occupied.

As I turned to flush the toilet with my foot, I glanced up when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.  There was nothing there. Then I glanced down.  Under the wall to the stall to the immediate right of me was a pair of very large black wing-tip shoes.

I had noticed the door was shut when I entered the restroom, but when I looked at the floor behind it before I entered my stall, there was no one there.  Or so I thought.  I figured it was out of order and, therefore, locked from the inside.


Nearly paralyzed with fear, it took a few seconds for my training to kick in.  Leaning against the door with my back to secure it even more than the lock did, I let out a blood-curdling scream that Jamie Lee Curtis would have envied. The wearer of the wing-tips, who had been standing on the toilet seat and peering down at me as I used the toilet,  could be heard running from the rest room and down the hall toward the stairs.


Shaking and crying hysterically, I was terrified to leave the stall.  My co-workers heard the screams and came running in, but I was so shaken I couldn't maneuver the lock on the door.  Still not sure what had happened to me, one of the women crawled under the door and led me out into the office.


In the meantime, Richard had been walking up to the building to keep our lunch date at the exact moment that I screamed.  He heard it and claimed to have recognized it as mine.  Seconds later, the pervert went running out the door and down the frontstairs in Richard's direction.

Remember I said Richard is 6'6" tall? Well, he grabbed the pervert and beat the living hell out of him.  The police arrived just in time to save the guy from being beaten unconscious. 
I wish I could say the story ended there.

After I composed myself, the police asked me to go with them to the local precinct to give them my statement.  Richard insisted on going with me.

"I'm Officer Smith.  Why don't you tell me exactly what happened today?"

I told him pretty much what I've written here.

"What were you doing in the stall?"

"Excuse me?" What was he asking me?

"What were you doing?"

Richard cleared his throat.  "What the hell do you think she was doing, man?  What kind of question is that?!"

Officer Smith ignored him.

"Did you remove any clothing?"

Richard stood up.  I started sobbing all over again.  Is he actually trying to imply that I somehow caused this to happen?

"Sir, if you don't keep quiet we're going to have to ask you to wait outside."

That pissed me off.  The tears abruptly stopped.  I sat up straighter and leaned toward the cop.

"I went into the bathroom to take a piss, Officer.  Since I am a woman, it was necessary for me to pull down my panties before I sat on the toilet.  When I finished peeing, I had to take some tissue off the roll and wipe myself dry, which caused me to hike up my skirt.  After that I pulled my panties back up, reached under my skirt and pulled down my blouse.  Then I pulled down my skirt.  How's that?!?"  I hissed.

A few days later I was summoned to court for the pervert's arraignment or some sort of hearing.  This was the first time I had seen anything other than the man's shoes.  He sat and glared at me as I was sworn in.

"Please state your name and address for the record."

"Your honor, with all due respect, I am not comfortable saying that in front of the defendant.  He could come looking for me."

"Alright then, just state your name, please." Duh

I found out later from a friend in the Police Department that the guy had a record of sexual assault and other incidences of whatever they called standing on toilet bowls and peering down on unsuspecting women.  He was sentenced to some jail time, but was out within weeks to prey on his next victim.  And there was one.

I was not physically touched by this freak, but I felt violated in a way that kept me awake at night for weeks afterward.  And Chicago's Finest, in my opinion, were every bit as guilty as the pervert was.