The San Diego Unified Port District Harbor Police have issued a second and final press release in regards to the case of the injured cosplayer at Comic-Con, and it has been ascertained that her injuries were most likely sustained as the result of a fall, not an assault.
BACKGROUND:
Shortly after 1 a.m. on Sunday, July 27, 2014, a juvenile female was found with significant injuries in the pool area of a hotel at 333 West Harbor Drive in San Diego. The juvenile female had attended Comic Con earlier in the day and still had her costume on. She was transported to a hospital for evaluation and treatment.In connection with the case, Harbor Police arrested a 29-year-old man early Sunday morning, July 27 at the hotel. He was booked into San Diego County Jail at 11:20 a.m. on charges of sexual contact with a minor and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The Harbor Police Investigations Unit has been investigating the incident, including the cause of the injuries to the victim.
INVESTIGATION RESULTS:
After the incident, Police began a thorough investigation of the facts, including a review of footage from multiple surveillance cameras, as well as the assistance of community members and Comic Con attendees who provided extensive information and sent photographs for review. The investigation concluded with a finding that the juvenile female’s injuries were not the result of a criminal assault, and were likely the result of a fall. Her injuries, and physical evidence at the scene, were consistent with a fall from the distance of approximately six feet.This finding does not affect the charges against the 29-year-old male, which will be forwarded to the District Attorney’s Office. Because this case involves a minor, no further information will be released about this incident.
While the number of accidents that occurred at the con should not be downplayed, the true facts of the case are not nearly as dire as suspected.
While our heartfelt wishes for her recovery are in no way changed, I can’t help but think that a wave of relief has flooded over the Comic-Con community. It’s also notable that 1 am Saturday is a busy time at the con, and that a lot of people must have seen what happened and helped police put together an accurate report.
Once again, all good thoughts to the injured girl and her family.
Good work staying with the story, Heidi.
Agreed, thanks for keeping the heat (and proper information) on this.
The sexual assault is STILL an issue.
What assault? Sexual conduct with a minor does not ipso facto mean assault. If the encounter was consensual (which is the implication), it wouldn’t even be a crime in a state with an age of consent lower than California’s.
Assault or not, crime or not, this sort of behavior with younger people is not acceptable if you are an adult. Conventions are as dangerous of a place as any musical event or venue and we should probably have a big community wide stink about coming down on people engaging in this sort of behavior.
When I was seventeen, I had a girlfriend who was twenty-one (this was in a state where the age of consent is sixteen, which goes for most of North American states and provinces/territories). I suppose by Californian standards she was committing unacceptable behavior? Yet again, we don’t know what transpired.
Best that we wait until the facts arrive and are communicated to us.
I maybe wrong but it seems like she may have had too much to drink, smoke or something else and took a pretty nasty fall. It could have been worse if she had fallen from a greater height or into the hotel pool and had been unable swim. Teens fooling around with sex, drugs, and/or alcohol and getting in over their heads happens way too often. I believe her FB has quite a few pics of pot and references to getting faded. Not to blame the victim but you play too much with fire and you’re likely to get burnt. Same with the photographer, fooling around with young girls is likely to result in a lot drama at least and jail time or death at worst. I’m sure that the police will follow up appropriately with him and if there is something actionable there they will continue with the case against him. Best thing to come out of this, SDCC and attendees will probably be more vigilant in looking out for the safety of participants particularly minors. It’s good that someone didn’t have to die or be assaulted for that to happen.
It’s to bad that comments can’t be edited! It goes without saying that fooling around with young people may also result in trauma or worse for the young people involved. Its very sad to me that there are an awful lot of people who too quickly take advantage of youth and don’t consider the affects of their behavior on the young people around them.
The thing that sort of freaked me out about the other (closed) thread was allll of the people who said they were calling the police to find out if the incident even happened — I’m fairly confident that police are busy trying to solve crimes and stuff without a bunch of unrelated people calling them?
Or is that just me?
-B
No, I thought the exact same thing. The police are fielding questions from multiple random people calling for information about a case they have no connection to? Strange.
It’s interesting how this story has evolved. The first reports were that a cosplayer and been brutally beaten and left at the side of a road. That’s certainly very different than this poor girl having tried to climb a fence next to a hotel pool and falling and hitting her head.
Welcome to the world of social media.
From last Sunday on, People kept pinging me about a story of a cosplayer being attacked at the con. There was much misinformation being spread including by friends and family of the victim. That is how things are now. I tried to be as skeptical as I could at each step, but that might not be apparent. My main worry was that the information on the girls identity and her mother’s contact information would go tremendously viral. Hopefully that was somewhat avoided. And my main concern now is that they be left in peace.
People suspected the worst for a variety of reasons — some of them human beings natural inclination to drama. This was a more violent Comic-con than many but by and large it was a peaceful fun gathering. And I actually plan to stay at the Marriott next year!
I’ll leave this thread open for a bit more but will soon be closing it. Please stay respectful.
On the ANN coverage of the story, it states that she fell well climbing a high gate – Possibly from a height of 6 feet. At that height and failing onto concrete, I’m not surprised at the trauma.
Glad multiple sites are following and updating the story. Might be awhile before we hear anything else though.
As more info comes out, and if the worst suspicions do come out to be foundless, then thank God it may not have been as awful as thought. Her injuries sound terrible and I hope she makes every recovery, but at least that’s… something?
Also, Heidi, thank you for staying on top of this story as best you can. I’ve been to other sites, sites I hugely respect, who blared the beginnings of this story but then buried the updates deep on page 3 when word came out that the guy in question may not have done what people thought he did. I know that a story like this can give MRA d-bags ammunition for their wanton dipshittery, and it was kind of understandable that “girl cosplayer + injuries + con + guy she was hanging out with who was 12 years her senior” set off ALL KINDS of alarms for a lot of people, but as things progress and it seems like there’s every chance that the guy didn’t do what people thought he did (and of course there’s no indication that he’s in the clear), it’s important that we take new information into account.