Taken at the Newport Aquarium.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
*standing ovation*
There are two women from San Fransisco I'd like to applaud today.
Hannah Bridgeman-Oxley and Karri Cormican work at Noe's Bar, as a bartender and waitress, respectively. And they are, quite simply, heroes. Cormican was serving a couple on a date when she noticed that when the woman got up to use the restroom, the man slipped some white powder into his date's beer. Cormican then went to Bridgemen-Oxley and told her about it, and together the women worked out a plan to foil this man's attempt to drug his date.
From the article in the San Fransisco Chronicle:
Cormican returned to the table and told Szlamnik and his date, whom the court identified only as Tatiana K., then 34, that the woman's beer had come from a fermented keg and that they were going to replace it. Cormican brought her a Stella Artois.
Cormican carried the adulterated Hefeweizen to Bridgeman-Oxley and out of sight into a back room. They held it up to the light and saw, unmistakably, a white powder. At a preliminary hearing last summer, Nikolas Lemos, chief forensic toxicologist at the San Francisco medical examiner's office, identified the powder as zalepron, a prescription sleeping drug sold as Sonata.
After seeing the white powder, Bridgeman-Oxley said she "panicked a little bit. We had to figure out a way to keep her away from this man."
Their chance came when Tatiana went outside to smoke a cigarette. Cormican grabbed the beer with the white powder and followed her. ....
The bartender rushed outside to tell the two women that while they had been talking, Szlamnik had dropped two pills into the new beer Tatiana had left behind on the table.
"He did it again," she said.
All three women looked through a window and saw Szlamnik trying to wipe up beer that had foamed over the edge of Tatiana's glass and was fizzing as if there were Alka-Seltzer in it.
In fact, as Dr. Lemos would later testify, the pills were alprazolam, commonly sold as Xanax, a central nervous system depressant prescribed to relieve anxiety. "In combination with alcohol," Lemos testified at the preliminary hearing, the two drugs "are encountered frequently in drug-facilitated sexual assaults ... without giving the victim the chance ... to even realize what's going on."
If the story ended there, with the restaurant employees informing the woman of her date's attempts at drugging her, it would have been brilliant. But they didn't stop there.
Again, from the article:
Bridgeman-Oxley stalked back into the bar with Tatiana following, swiped the foaming glass off the table and looked the stunned Szlamnik in the eye when he began to protest that she had served him a second bad beer.
He said to Tatiana, "Let's go."
"Your date's over, mister," the bartender told him. "She's staying with us."
The women then called the police as the man fled the scene. Smartly, they saved both beers for the police to analyze.
The man clearly intended to date rape the woman - there is no other logical explanation for him drugging her drinks. And he didn't do it once - he did it twice. He had extra drugs on-hand to carry out his plan for the evening. Aside from wearing a t-shirt that said "I'm a date-rapist," I don't think his intentions could have been more clear. It sucks that they could only charge and convict him on drug charges - personally, I would have liked to see him in jail for years.
In this day and age, when it's much more common to look the other way when things happen, I can't explain how much these women rock. They absolutely saved that woman from rape and abuse - at the outside. A man who has a back-up plan to drug his date could easily have killed her once he was finished. And they deserve kudos and cheers for their bravery and quick-thinking. I can only hope that in a similar situation I would have the courage and wit to do the same (or, conversely, that someone would do the same for me).
Sometimes, people remind you that faith in humanity isn't a lost cause. Thank you, Hannah Bridgeman-Oxley and Karri Cormican, for reminding me of that today. And thank you, too, for having the ovaries to stand up to that asshole and saving that woman's life. You both kick major amounts of ass.
A link to the full article on the incident is here.
Hat tip to Shakespeare's Sister for posting about the article.
Hannah Bridgeman-Oxley and Karri Cormican work at Noe's Bar, as a bartender and waitress, respectively. And they are, quite simply, heroes. Cormican was serving a couple on a date when she noticed that when the woman got up to use the restroom, the man slipped some white powder into his date's beer. Cormican then went to Bridgemen-Oxley and told her about it, and together the women worked out a plan to foil this man's attempt to drug his date.
From the article in the San Fransisco Chronicle:
Cormican returned to the table and told Szlamnik and his date, whom the court identified only as Tatiana K., then 34, that the woman's beer had come from a fermented keg and that they were going to replace it. Cormican brought her a Stella Artois.
Cormican carried the adulterated Hefeweizen to Bridgeman-Oxley and out of sight into a back room. They held it up to the light and saw, unmistakably, a white powder. At a preliminary hearing last summer, Nikolas Lemos, chief forensic toxicologist at the San Francisco medical examiner's office, identified the powder as zalepron, a prescription sleeping drug sold as Sonata.
After seeing the white powder, Bridgeman-Oxley said she "panicked a little bit. We had to figure out a way to keep her away from this man."
Their chance came when Tatiana went outside to smoke a cigarette. Cormican grabbed the beer with the white powder and followed her. ....
The bartender rushed outside to tell the two women that while they had been talking, Szlamnik had dropped two pills into the new beer Tatiana had left behind on the table.
"He did it again," she said.
All three women looked through a window and saw Szlamnik trying to wipe up beer that had foamed over the edge of Tatiana's glass and was fizzing as if there were Alka-Seltzer in it.
In fact, as Dr. Lemos would later testify, the pills were alprazolam, commonly sold as Xanax, a central nervous system depressant prescribed to relieve anxiety. "In combination with alcohol," Lemos testified at the preliminary hearing, the two drugs "are encountered frequently in drug-facilitated sexual assaults ... without giving the victim the chance ... to even realize what's going on."
If the story ended there, with the restaurant employees informing the woman of her date's attempts at drugging her, it would have been brilliant. But they didn't stop there.
Again, from the article:
Bridgeman-Oxley stalked back into the bar with Tatiana following, swiped the foaming glass off the table and looked the stunned Szlamnik in the eye when he began to protest that she had served him a second bad beer.
He said to Tatiana, "Let's go."
"Your date's over, mister," the bartender told him. "She's staying with us."
The women then called the police as the man fled the scene. Smartly, they saved both beers for the police to analyze.
The man clearly intended to date rape the woman - there is no other logical explanation for him drugging her drinks. And he didn't do it once - he did it twice. He had extra drugs on-hand to carry out his plan for the evening. Aside from wearing a t-shirt that said "I'm a date-rapist," I don't think his intentions could have been more clear. It sucks that they could only charge and convict him on drug charges - personally, I would have liked to see him in jail for years.
In this day and age, when it's much more common to look the other way when things happen, I can't explain how much these women rock. They absolutely saved that woman from rape and abuse - at the outside. A man who has a back-up plan to drug his date could easily have killed her once he was finished. And they deserve kudos and cheers for their bravery and quick-thinking. I can only hope that in a similar situation I would have the courage and wit to do the same (or, conversely, that someone would do the same for me).
Sometimes, people remind you that faith in humanity isn't a lost cause. Thank you, Hannah Bridgeman-Oxley and Karri Cormican, for reminding me of that today. And thank you, too, for having the ovaries to stand up to that asshole and saving that woman's life. You both kick major amounts of ass.
A link to the full article on the incident is here.
Hat tip to Shakespeare's Sister for posting about the article.
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