Interview with Marina Garrett

[Amy Kamp] [00:00:01] So let’s get started. My name is Amy Kamp. I'm with the Texas After Violence Project. It is July 21st 2021. I'm here with Murphy Anne Carter--also Texas After Violence Project--and we're here with Marina Garrett. Marina, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?

[Marina Garrett] Yeah. So my name is Marina Garrett. I am 25 years old and I am a rape survivor.

And I have [00:00:31] been advocating in the community for about the past five and a half years. Kind of about six months after my rape was when I went to city council for the first time and really fell into this role of advocating for survivors rights in the City of Austin.

[Kamp] Great, thank you. And so one of the reasons that we are doing this interview is a part of Reimagining Public Safety in Austin. And I know [00:01:01] that, you know, based on like, what I've read about you, it seems like you've been taking like a really big role in public advocacy. Can you talk about some projects that you're working on right now?

[Garrett] Yeah, I think that the biggest thing that I've been doing for the past three years has been the lawsuit against...currently, it's just against APD. It was against the Travis County district attorney as well but they settled few weeks ago,

So currently it is just against APD for their mishandlings [00:01:31] of rape cases for decades. You know, from not investigating properly to flat-out telling survivors they think they're lying to, you know, the DNA lab was under them that just completely was shut down for, you know, not following procedures, and not correctly storing DNA, and things like that.

So kind of being the Survivor a part, the lead Survivor a part of that group, [00:02:01] that's done most of the interviews and things like that. That's been the largest piece that I've been doing for the previous three years. We've done some side things with city council as far as passing the resolution to look at cases that had been exceptionally cleared and what that means. Yeah, it's been it's been a very long six years since my rape.

[Kamp] So, can you talk a little bit about what led you to become a part of a sponsor?

[Garrett] Yeah. So my case [00:02:31] was mishandled by Austin Police Department. So, I was 19 years old. It was like two weeks before my sophomore year of college. I had moved here from a really small town in Texas and I was super excited to be here. I loved Austin. I felt so safe in West Campus. Like, I don't know. It just was such, I just felt at home here.

I felt like I had moved to somewhere that would just, you know, I didn't feel understood in that small town [00:03:01] and all of that. And so, I just, I didn't really have any worries here. And I went to Sixth Street with a friend and a guy, it was after 2:00 a.m. And we were waiting for our friends to come pick us up in their Lyft and a guy came up and asked us if we wanted to buy weed, we told him, no. And then he asked us if we wanted to buy cocaine, and he said he would take me in the alleyway to try it.

And then me and my friend were both pretty black out at that point-- [00:03:31] blackout drunk-- and he takes me through the alley to a parking garage where two other guys were waiting that kind of...I don't remember them touching me. I think they were just there to kind of keep watch and he slammed my head against the parking garage wall and raped me vaginally and anally.

And I was able to find a guy that gave me a ride home because I was literally walking on the side of 35 trying to make it back to campus. [00:04:01] And a guy gave me a ride home and I mean I had a black eye and like my forehead was scabbed and I ran into another woman that lived at the co-op that I lived at. And she asked me what had happened and I told her in that moment and she was the first time I'd ever heard about a rape kit and she was like, you need to go get one. So, I went, I mean, I had my rape kit within 24 hours and that was, you know, sitting there with advocates from SAFE. That was also the first time that I realized [00:04:31] that a crime had happened to me. You know, they were like you can call 911, you can report this and it just had not occurred to me, I don't know if it was because the drugs were involved or just the way rape culture is in America that it's not really like, you know, I feel like I was really taught like if a relative touches you, tell me. Like it was never taught, like, what if a stranger does?

Like what if I'm grown? What if I'm not in my mom's house anymore? What do I do then? [00:05:01] And you know so the advocate told me she was like you can call 911. I was like of course I want to call 911. Why would I not? Why would I not want someone to catch this guy and have him not rape someone else? Because it felt very calculated. It did. And apparently I don't really know the full details of this so I've never claimed to, but apparently, an officer showed up in the middle of my SANE which if you know anything [00:05:31] about rape kits, you know, they take hours, which these officers know that. And they’re evidence collections, you can't just stop in the middle of it and he showed up in the middle of it and left. He didn't want to wait the whole time and so he left. So I never talked to an officer that night. I talked to one by phone, like three days later, I want to say, and then kind of about that time I had given my phone number to my rapist and he texts me that he wanted to see me [00:06:01] again, and I responded and just kind of made sure it was him, even though I knew it was him. I haven't given my phone number to anyone else and [I] kind of implied...I said that I said, no, you know, I implied that I had said no and you know, he was like, of course, “but that's not what happened.” And so at that moment, I stopped and gave it all to my Detective. I had also the friend that I was with, I tried to call them but their phone was dead. And so there is a voicemail [00:06:31] of me screaming and saying no, an actual voice mail and I was interviewed, that friend was interviewed by my detective within a month of my rape. They were able to set up a fake drug deal and bust him and bring him in for that and were able to question him about my rape for the while he was in for the drug deal. He described what I was wearing still that night to a T and just described a completely different scenario that [00:07:01] stated, it was consensual that his story did not match the injuries to my body which mine did and they just let him go. They never questioned him again and then it was kind of like oh we're waiting for your DNA to come back from the rape kit. So I waited for, I would call my detective all the time, and it was kind of like “oh it will be a couple of months,” and then it was “oh it's going to be six months” [00:07:31] and then it was like finally that last call was “the lab is shut down. We have no idea when we're going to get your kit back.” And I was also just told that my kit hinged on this DNA, which is kind of not true. DNA is needed to prove that the suspect, who the suspect was, where he has himself admitted it. So DNA was never needed in my case to prove anything. And so it was at that point. And I want to say that that was I was hooked on August 9th, 2015. [00:08:01] And that was probably about April of 2016, and I just started to lose my mind every day waiting. And just the trauma was compounding and just reaching out to the detective and thinking that every day, like when is it going to come back? When is the DNA going to come back and I dropped out of college at UT.

I couldn’t focus. I stopped being able to talk to people, like I couldn't even speak to my mom and my sister. Like my trauma was just [00:08:31] overwhelming, but I realized like I wasn't the only one this was happening to-- like that there were so many other people whose kits were also in this lab and I somehow stumbled across an event on Facebook, by Survivor Justice Project, that was going to be speaking out at city and city council against the DNA lab being shut down. And so I contacted one of the women and said, you know, I wanted to speak too and I didn't really know what I was doing. I didn't know what I was getting myself into and all but I was just [00:09:01] like I need to tell someone what happened.

So I went and told to Council my story in front of everyone for the first time and ultimately my kit sat on the shelf for two years while you know, nothing happened. And then the detective was returning my call, she wasn’t even reaching out to me and let me know that my kit came back with no DNA. And I just, I immediately knew what that meant. [00:09:31] Like I just did and with all of the problems that I've had with them so far, like, I just knew what that meant and, you know, I was just, I mean, it was awful. She chose to tell me over the phone, you know, that's not something you tell anyone over the phone, she didn't know where I was. I immediately had a panic attack. She didn't know if I was in the safe space to tell me that information. She didn't she didn't know anything. She just told me and, [00:10:01] you know, I remember calling back, like the next day and saying that I wanted a meeting with the district attorney, and I was just like, this is they're not going to tell me that this means that I can't go to court and they did. They told me that sure I could meet with an assistant district attorney but that my case wasn’t going to go to court, no matter what. And so, I met with an assistant district attorney. And she basically looked at me in my eye and told me that because there was no DNA [00:10:31] that there's this, the “CSI effect,” which is that too many Americans watched too many crime shows so that if their jurors that they're going to need there to be DNA for them to say someone's guilty. Which it's like...that's your job to argue against and to prove, not mine-- it's not my job to make sure I get DNA at a crime scene. And that's also, when I found out that my detective went to the wrong parking garage, there were two parking garages beside each other, [00:11:01] and she went to one and not the other just assumed that it was one of them. And two years later, tried to go back to the right correct one.

[Kamp] So, when they were collecting evidence, you had to go to like the building that the police have?

[Garrett] Mhmm,

[Kamp] It's like kind of...these off of [Martin Luther King boulevard].

[Garrett] Like, it's in a weird place. Yeah, it's off yeah..

[Kamp] But they never took you like to the crime scene to walk through it or anything?

[Garrett] No they never [00:11:31] did that. They they just, I mean, they interviewed me partially over the phone or random-- I don't even know--random officer, I guess, and I mean my detective did one interview in the room and that was like it and then they did one interview with him when they brought him in and that was it. And I mean, you would think two stories that do not match up, you would interview both people again to see who changes their story and who’s lying, they never, never spoke to either one of us again.

[Kamp] Like, it seems like such a wealth of evidence.

[Garrett] Yeah. [00:12:01] I mean if he's describing you know a complete different scenario of consent that doesn't involve someone's--it doesn't involve me having a black eye is essentially the story and yeah I think that was always something really difficult for me but they never thought to speak with him one more time to see if he changed his story at all.

[Kamp] So, if you [00:12:32] could live in a world where something like this could still happen, but people treated these cases like with the seriousness they deserve, what do you think should have happened like before and after your rape? Like for you to be able to get justice?

[Garrett] Yeah, I definitely think that I mean, there's just this culture at APD that you know, already makes you blame yourself [00:13:02] just the way they treat you. The way the interviews are set up. The way, the way you have to reach out constantly. It's not like they care, you know, you can feel that they don't care that they know that your case isn't going to trial, and so, they don't care. And, you know, it's, you shouldn't have to be constantly reaching out to a detective to be like, hey, this really violent thing happened to me, by the way, and where are you at on that? Like it shouldn't be months and months of that. So I would love [00:13:32] outreach from...to make survivors, feel cared for and feel like there's not that disbelief, because all of those little things, you know, other than outright saying, you know, “well, you were the one drinking on 6th Street,” and things like that. There, there are all of these little nuanced things that they do that add disbelief and, and make us feel like that, no one in that room is actually there to care for us.

You know I think the district attorney that listens to survivors to know what [00:14:02] they want. You know, there are I think, you know, only about 80 percent of sexual assaults are someone you knew. You know, I am in the very small percentage that is a stranger. You know, I myself don't even wouldn't even want a 20-something year sentence, you know on a someone I don't know. But most people that it's someone that they know, they just want an apology, you know? They just want those things and I think a district attorney that understands that there are so many different [00:14:33] meanings of justice to a survivor is also a really important piece too because you know just because you're going through the system. It doesn't mean you want someone to rot in prison at all. Because, I mean survivors are, you know, people that have opinions about the criminal justice system already, you know, and not just, I don't know. I think it's been used in this argument against defunding the police that what about rape and it's [00:15:03] like, well, first of all, I have a lot to tell you. First of all, they’re not doing anything in the first place. There are no rapists in jail, unfortunately. And, you know, just second of all, that's not that's not what we want. And I think that when so many survivors do realize the cycle of violence and what likely happened to their perpetrator for their perpetrator to do this to them, I think that it's really just a want for, [00:15:33] you know, it to be unlearned in that person so that you can have a confidence that it's not going to happen again.

[Kamp] Yeah, and I know that, you know, this is a stranger to you. But what do you think it would take? I mean, do you have an idea of what it would take for that person to unlearn that, for him to have an understanding of like the harm that he's doing?

[Garrett] Yeah, you know, I think that I think it was such a nuanced thing especially with this stranger, you know, I don't know [00:16:03] anything about him and have for my safety always throughout this lawsuit, and throughout speaking out, I have never named him. I have never done anything like that for my own safety.

And so, you know, I don't have the privilege of being able to pinpoint, you know, “and some things his mom did this” or “he saw his dad do this to his mom and learned it that way.” But, you know, I think that when people hear the word Rehabilitation, they think that it's like a 30-minute [00:16:33] therapy session where we just kind of you get to say whatever you want and then walk out and go rape someone again like that's not what I pictured as rehabilitation, you know.

I picture it being this intensive--very intensive--kind of almost outpatient thing where consent is learned, you know, empathy is instilled. And, you know things, I do believe that, you know, people are capable of learning those things at any age. Yeah. [00:17:03] And it's unfortunate that I would have to go through what I went through, you know, but he's also probably gone through something too that has never been talked about in his life and has created this idea of what power and control look like and how he gets power.

[Kamp] So, another question I had about kind of like an alternative universe where this still happens but other things were different, you know, one of the things that you've mentioned, like I think you just [00:17:33] mentioned it right now--like not knowing what a rape kit is--like what kind of education do you think people need like as children and teenagers to understand sexual assault?

[Garrett] I think it needs to be so much education. First of all it's even been like a weird thing for me I have an 11 year old nephew. Who has I mean been around for like 6 years of me doing this. And I, you know, he's my nephew [00:18:03] and it's still kind of like where are those lines you know. I feel like he's an age where I want to tell him what's happened to me and I want to let him know what happens to girls because it's probably already happened to some of the girls in his classroom, you know, and like trying to find those boundaries with his parents, as well is such an interesting thing. But no, I think kids have the ability to learn about consent at such a young age in ways other than [00:18:33] without speaking about sex. I feel like prevention is such a hard thing because people are immediately like oh you want to talk to my kids about sex when they're so little. When it doesn't have to be about sex. I mean even I'm not a kid person. I don't like kids and people will tell their kids to come hug me and like your kid didn’t ask me for consent! Like, you know, teaching kids that you don't have to get that kiss from your aunt, or uncle that you don't [00:19:03] want it from. And, you know, those are little things that instill consent.

And I mean I think you know, I grew up hearing “yell fire not rape” and those things like that. I think just I would hope that my generation of moms and dads are taking some of those little things out of parenting as we grow as a society. But I mean, there's just so much that we can do prevention-wise that it doesn't, it's because because rape isn't sexual, it's not there's nothing, [00:19:33] it's about power, it's not sexual, you know? And so there's so much we can do with prevention for children I think that would take this away and also create a space where the amount of trauma that a woman or a man endures from an assault, it's just so much more minimalized than what I had to go through, with all this added with the police, and with the Travis County DA, [00:20:03] and all of this stuff. Yeah.

[Kamp] So you talked about having to drop out of school because you felt like you couldn’t concentrate. Could you talk a little bit about that time, like after you dropped out of school and what happened after that?

[Garrett] Yeah, so I just..I mean, I got--I was a language--a Russian language major. So that is like consistent speaking in class around and I just was so, I mean, all my walls went up, I mean, I was raped by a stranger so it was just like [00:20:33] I felt like I couldn't trust anyone with any piece of me at all, even just my intellect. Like, I felt like, I couldn't give that to anyone and so I just stopped being able to speak.

It got to a point that I couldn't get out of bed either. I mean I just was so scared of the dark that I would wait until 7 a.m., I would stay awake all night just in bed terrified, trying to watch TV until the sun came up [00:21:03] and then I could safely go to sleep. Once I knew that everybody else was awake and doing things, and would know if something else happened to me. So I would just sleep through all my classes.

And finally, the last semester, I attempted--I literally went the 12 days of like that, you get to withdraw and drop out and not have to pay. And like I had to pay for an entire semester that I didn't even go the 12 days, I was just enrolled the twelve days. So I have a whole additional loan for that semester that I didn't even learn [00:21:33] a single thing. I'm like, I don't even know my professors name, like,

[Kamp] So--so no one at UT was like “you know we understand--”

[Garrett] No, no.

[Kamp] That’s...that’s incredible to me.

[Garrett] They also when I started--because you know I was at a place before and after my rape that I was speaking about being a survivor in my classrooms--and so Title IX got involved with me but it was like “oh come in tell us your entire story.” Even though I told them he's not a student, y'all can't do anything. It was still like [00:22:03] “but we have to follow our rules and you have to come in and tell us everything.” So I have to go in and tell them my entire rape for them to just say “he’s not a student we can’t do anything,” as I told them.

And so then it was just like me and the Title IX coordinator knew each other because it was like every new professor that I added myself in a paper would reach out to them and saying “hey no I'm fine. Yeah and I don't need anything. Thank you.” Like I did have after I went back I did get my--[00:22:33] you know they have all of the accommodations that you can get for student with disabilities about taking longer on tests and maybe, maybe getting a few more absences but those are still up to a professor.

So I did have I would reach out to some professors when I was struggling a lot and let them know. And most of the women professors were like, I mean, some of them even told me they were survivors themselves and they understood and to take my time and tell them what they needed-- tell them when I needed. Some were kind of like, okay, but still gave it to me. And I have [00:23:03] one male Professor that I was not expecting it from, because he was so kind, and I was in Liberal Arts and like, I just, he was like, “well, you should withdrawal.”

I like, he just straight up told me to my face. He was like, well, if you're going through all that you should withdrawal. And I was like, okay, I will take the incomplete in your class, I guess. Yeah. So I finally tried to live here in Austin. My parents [00:23:33] are like, that's fine. We're not going to keep providing you money, but you can stay in Austin if you don't want to go to college. So I tried to work for a little bit and I started trying to go to therapy.

And it just...me and the therapist were not clicking. I was dissociating and she was wanting to talk about my childhood and I'm like, no, I’m--sure, I have problems for my childhood. That's not why I'm here, I'm here because I was raped and I can't talk and dissociating before our [00:24:03] appointments and she's still like wanting to talk about my childhood. So I mean, eventually it got to the point that I couldn't work because I couldn’t get out of bed to even work and

And my mom came to visit me and like I could not speak to her anymore. So she took me home and I did. I went back home completely and I got into EMDR therapy, which changed my life. And is the reason that I'm alive and here and, [00:24:33] you know, feel like I--don't feel like I will ever be the person I was before my rape, but I was able to build a whole new personality and a whole new me through EMDR.

And, you know, it wouldn't have happened I think that like, it was back home with my parents like a week and my mom came in my bed and just wanted to talk to me. And me and my mom are like best friends all through high school. So it was a lot that I couldn't speak to her and she literally like reached out to like, try to comfort me and ask me [00:25:03] like why won't you talk and I like ran out of the room from her touch. And so that's when I was like okay like I have to go get help.

And yeah, I mean, EMDR just, I know that it...the first few sessions do really pull up your trauma back to the surface. I know it's really hard and it's not the type of therapy for every survivor. But I know that is life-changing for a lot of survivors. And yeah, I mean, about eight sessions, I was [00:25:33] starting to be able to speak again a little bit and I went back to school and was able to

Do..I even did my honors thesis. I I was not like on the honors route prior to my rape. Like I was messing around in school, I didn't study, I was partying and all of that and like I came back and got my GPA up and was able to graduate with departmental honors in Anthropology [00:26:04] and write an entire thesis that I would not have expected myself to write. So, I mean, it was school was a lot a lot better once I came back and I mean

And just over the years. I've seen myself, develop and gain back more things from EMDR than I ever would’ve.

[Kamp] So, before that it seems like there were a lot of different systems that, you know like, public systems, they were failing you. Like UT. [00:26:34] And then also, you know, just like having no safety net, you're talking about not being able to work, but it's like how could you, how can you be expected to work after that? Yeah, so like when we think about, you know what, the City of Austin could be doing differently, what do you think like they specifically could do to, you know, make things, you know, less painful for survivors, you know, [00:27:04] have less material consequences?

[Garrett] Yeah. I mean, even just thinking, of it that way you know I didn't have a car at the time. So riding a bus riding the city bus the way transportation is in, Austin, is terrifying too to be around strangers. I mean, every, every system needs to change to be something that is helpful to survivors and not harmful. I mean there's it's when it is added in, it always seems like it's just [00:27:34] like an afterthought of like maybe let's not traumatize you as much, where it's not it's not focused on let's help them heal and I think that like that's definitely where UT’s system could use some help. And I know over the years, they have had some survivors themselves go in as students and be like let's add this and this when you know UT should have something set up for the survivors that are going through their school that they know have all this extra trauma and [00:28:04] how much more difficult it is to study and do all these things when you're walking around with PTSD on campus that your rapist might be on. So I mean I think that there's there's so much that they could add in for for it to be a healing environment and not a traumatic one. I mean there's just there's no system that is healing for survivors. There's really not, everything is traumatic to to access [00:28:34] and I mean I think that there are so many ways that you can change that and you know I think even in the social work world's, I know that, you know, a lot of new age, social workers are kind of changing that as idea, but in the social work world,

You know a lot of them are survivors, but there's this, like, professionalism of you can't tell the survivor when sometimes that’s all the survivor wants to know is that they know someone that is now, [00:29:04] you know, able to sit on the other side of it and talk you through your trauma and has moved on, and has this job and this career, like sometimes that's all survivor needs. And so, even that of social workers like not being able to say like, hey, like I was raped as well. Like I get it. Like that small, you know, those things I think need to change in our systems. I think all professors need some sort of education on you know what someone with trauma [00:29:34] is going to need because it was, it was all up to me to approach when I needed those accommodations.

It was up to me to approach my professor and I can tell them is, like, I can literally just hand it to them and they can decide if they want to accept that I need three more absences or that I need to take my test outside of the room to be able to focus, like it's up to them to say, yes or no, which shouldn't even exist. And then it's up to me if I want to plead with them and tell them, no, I [00:30:04] was raped last year and I need this, this, and this. And it shouldn't be that system, you know, it shouldn't-- all the burden is on the Survivor in every system and it shouldn't be.

[Kamp] So I was wondering, you know, you mentioned the thesis. I was wondering if we could talk about it. First, like, just the gestation of it, like, how did you--I don’t know if you want to just give a quick explanation of what it is and how you came to write it?

[Garrett] Yeah, so [00:30:34] my thesis is...so I graduated with a degree in Cultural Anthropology. So it is kind of looking at rape culture in America, and it's it's called Reconceptualizing Aphasia. So it's well, the full title of it is A World Without Words: Reconceptualizing Aphasia, looking at rape culture in America and essentially I just I realized that I wasn't the only one that couldn't speak and I realized [00:31:04] that this was a thing with PTSD and I started to see it in pop culture. I started to see references and there's a show that is about, it's about I want to say that it's about Darfur.

And the genocide over there and that one of the rape survivors has someone with her because she won't speak. She can't speak from all the trauma that she's seen. And I just started to see it around me and hear [00:31:34] it from other survivors. And I realized that it was a piece of trauma that, that no one talks about and PTSD isn't talked about for survivors.

So, when I was experiencing my silencing, and when my trauma was growing, and when my paranoia was getting larger, and all of these things were happening, I had no clue, again, that I had PTSD. Like that's, that was something I could get. Like, I mean, I was looking at it like [00:32:04] am my bipolar?, like, is my, am I having my first break? like those things were, what was coming up on Google more when I'm trying to look at what's going on in my brain, then realizing a rape Survivor could have PTSD because it is so much only talked about for war veterans and things like that.

And that it is not, you know, I would argue that pretty much every Survivor has PTSD. How do you not have PTSD from that? But they want to say that it's only like 45% get diagnosed [00:32:34] with it, actually. But, you know, I would argue that everyone lives with that trauma, and that paranoia, and all of those things. And so I just, yeah, I began to research it and look into a lot of, a lot of the anthropological text that was

Written about mostly about, you know, war trauma was what I was looking at because people haven't really done a lot of research on just rape itself and things like that, in the anthropological world. [00:33:05] And so I--a lot of what I was reading just happen to have like side stories about someone that was raped in war or things like that and just was able to pull it out and realize that you know…

So Aphasia is essentially the--when there is physiological trauma to the brain for, like, a car accident or something, and causes the person--that person to lose their ability to speak because of actual brain damage. And [00:33:35] I argue that there should be a psychological understanding of the word, that when the brain goes through psychological trauma, that survivors also lose that ability to speak and there are different forms of aphasia.

And when it happens in a physiological way and I just talking to all the survivors that I interviewed, I realize there were different forms with them as well. Like some had lost the ability to do math, like they said, they were really good at math and now they could they just couldn't [00:34:06] focus enough to do that and it comes out and stuttering. I mean, just complete lack of speech for some and jumbling words for others. I mean, it was just every Survivor I talked to had experienced it in some way.

And yeah I mean I think it's just you’re taught not to tell people and just how much rape culture in America is just so silencing and, you know, when it is in [00:34:36] the media, it is, you know, a rapist that's getting confirmed to Supreme Court and you're having to hear Republican family members around, you say she's lying and things like that. So, whenever it is in the media, it's

Always, you know, it's never something powerful or empowering and to be like, wow, like you know, if that happens to me and, you know, here's all these options and it's always in the media in such a negative way, I feel [00:35:06] like for for young younger girls coming up to see and I think that that just is going to make you be silent when it happens to yourself.

[Kamp]Yeah. And I think one of the things that I found interesting in the thesis was, you know, talking about Collective Aphasia and how there's a silence around rape. And then when so many people would try to talk to family or friends, like, they wouldn't know how to respond, or they would just like flat-out [00:35:36] refuse to discuss it.

[Garrett] Yeah, yeah. I think that it happens a lot more with male family members, for sure. You know, even though, my dad is so supportive of me and comes to all my press conferences and is at like...will ask me to send him the news articles that I do and has read my thesis and stuff like that, he still can't talk to me about it. I mean, he'll ask me, it's like a few questions but [00:36:06] it’s like “that's conversations for mom.” Me and my brother have like, never talked about it and I think that's just such a common thing with survivors is that, you know, we want to talk about it. We want to tell people what we live with daily.

And you know, not every...sometimes we do need to break down to somebody but it's our lives. It's never going away. It's a piece of us and, you know, we want to be able to speak about it just in conversation and move on and [00:36:36] have responses without someone having a complete breakdown. And us having a breakdown, you know, like I said, sometimes we are looking for that. But other times, you know, we just want to say, oh yeah, well this that involves my rape and then move on.

And yeah, one specific survivor I interviewed that, she pretty much lost a whole friend group because they, they asked her, how she was doing, and she was like, well fine, I'm going to actually tell them and told them about the rape and just that everyone got quiet. Someone was like, why [00:37:06] did you bring that up? And that was like, the last time they ever asked her to hang out. And I mean, it was such a thing.

I lived in a co-op with a hundred and twenty people at that time and it felt like the only people that wanted to talk were the other survivors there because everybody knew what I was going through and yeah, I mean people...sometimes my sisters get weird about it. You know, I just--no one knows how to deal with it when you tell [00:37:36] them, “oh I haven't slept in three days because my rape” and you're just, you know, tell them how you're doing. They freak out. You know, where if I said, you know, “I haven't slept in three days because my breakup,” I'm sure I would get an answer, you know? So...

[Kamp] What--I mean, in that moment, what do you think is like, a better response for somebody who may not have like a ton of emotional intelligence--for like a lack of a better term. [00:38:07] What would you tell them? Like would be a better, more supportive response.

[Garrett] Yeah, I think that, I think personally, when I bring it up, I'm ready to talk about it. I'm so--I think that if you don't know what to say, like, survivors are going to guide you through the conversation and that it's okay to say the wrong thing, like saying the wrong thing, and letting a survivor teach you, I think, is better than, you know, and it's gonna create more progress in the relationship in the end, than just shutting it [00:38:37] down.

So, I mean, even if you just have to say, like a, “well, what, what's going on?” even just a “so what's going on?” to have the survivor prep to say the next thing and, you know, I think we are going to lead you to the conversation and teach things. And you know, we we know that this is the rape culture that we live in and then not everybody has the answers and you know, I'm not heartbroken when my sister, you know, might hurt for a second and I might be like, wow, I wish they hadn't said that but you know, typically with our loved [00:39:07] ones, we know it's not coming from somewhere malicious. We know that it's coming from an ignorance and I, you know, I think just being prepared to ask us, you know, how we want to talk about it and what we need.

Because there are some survivors that will tell you, you know, this is what I need if I'm triggered. I need you to do X, Y, and Z when I'm triggered. And, you know, I think just being prepared to be open [00:39:37] with someone and not shut them down is really important.

[Kamp] Another thing that you mentioned was feeling like you were unsafe in your own body and talking to another person who said that she felt like that she was suicidal because she felt like she could no longer live in that body. I think that was like “no longer compatible.” The living conditions are no longer compatible with life. [00:40:07] How do--what did--you know, you talk about going to EMDR therapy and stuff like that. What allowed you to feel like safer in your body again?

[Garrett] It took a long time, a very, very long time. I mean, I didn't go to EMDR therapy until about two years after my rape. So in this timeline, it seems like I got my therapy, like, in six months and started advocating, and it was great. But I mean, like, I was going and advocating and everyone was seeing me out in public and thinking I was fine-- [00:40:37] all the advocates I was around. And then I was going home and not eating for days at a time and not getting out of bed for days at a time.

EMDR therapy is really interesting because--so, it stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. So it like makes your eye movement mimic the way it is when you sleep when you're in REM. So, that way that like, you know, it's supposed to bring up, you're supposed to think of the rape and actually [00:41:07] feel the way you felt and what you saw during the rape, so that you can reprocess it with memories around, you know, a lot of mine was taking back my power.

So, instead of being so scared and feeling like he had taken my body and he had taken pieces of me. You know, I would think of...that I feel empowered because I have done X Y and Z afterwards, and I really, I mean that's what changed everything for me, [00:41:37] was, you know, being able to take back my power and therapy and, and being able to, you know, because it is so--the way it puts you back and kind of into that REM sleep pattern it does feel so real.

You know, it almost in a way it felt hypnotic for me in a way that it does feel like you're back in those moments. And so, to be able to kind of be back in that moment and say, no, like, I'm not going to let this take all of me was how I [00:42:07] was able to feel safe in my own body again. I mean, I still don't a lot of the times, I mean, as women, I mean, I am terrified all of the time that I will be raped again. I think that that's a really, I think that when you haven't been raped and you don't know the statistics, you know, it's not something--we all think of it. And every woman that walks with her keys in her hands, and all these terrifying things. But like me, knowing the statistics all the time. I'm like, what is stopping it from me being the statistic, [00:42:37] again, you know, I do have that fear a lot. So I definitely wouldn't say I in any way feel completely, you know--I have paranoia still, one of my strongest symptoms of PTSD that I feel.

But yeah, that was one of my favorite things that I heard any of the survivors say was that she didn't feel compatible with the conditions of life because I don't think any survivo does, you know, you feel [00:43:07] that you're thinking different way that you're moving differently in the world. And I mean that's all you think about. I mean it really is. It's and it's all you can think about when you're really in that trauma and it just

It doesn't feel like your body's yours. There's so much that just makes you feel like that you can't do life anymore. And, you know, it's really hard to reach out for help as well.

[Kamp] [00:43:40] Another thing that you mention--I’m sorry I’m just going to pull this up to find this--

Oh, yeah, “we never actually believe will be the victim of rape, especially the day it does occur. There's something about the suddenness of violence that changes how we hear interactions with strangers, or how we interact with significant others.” It does, I mean it does feel like so much of what prevents [00:44:10] people from taking rape seriously, is that, there's just this refusal to believe that it could happen to you that it can happen to someone deserving, that it must be something that you can prevent.

[Garrett] Right, right. Yeah, absolutely. I mean and I'd gone downtown so many times you know. Like that was--like you feel safe in the present, you know, you just, you feel safe in the present and there's something about it. That [00:44:40] I mean, I was with I was with a male friend, it wasn't even, you know, I've always said that I'm thankful that I was with a male friend that if I was with another woman that had been blacked out, we probably both had been raped and you know, so I said I'm so glad it wasn't my sister or best friend that I lived with at the time. But I mean, yeah, I just--

You know, it's not like it was this dark and gloomy scary night that I just had a bad feeling all day, like, it was such a normal day. Like, [00:45:10] you know, we went to a party before we went downtown, me and him split french fries at Fat Sal's on campus. Like, I mean, it was just such a normal day.

And yeah, there is this just this idea that you know, they must have been doing something, whereas you know even, you know, probably other women that were downtown with me that night would probably say that I must have been doing something differently than them. And you know and people saying [00:45:40] that “what was I doing on Sixth Street as a 19 year old” or that I was--I will say my detective was great about that. She was like, I don't care that you were trying to buy drugs. She was like I don't care about that piece at all. So don't feel like you're going to get in trouble or like you can't tell me things because of that. Like so I will say she was great about that piece but you know there are tons of people. I've actually been shocked that I have not been victim-blamed from the public more about that piece. I don't know if [00:46:10] it gets lost in the journalism or what, but I have been really shocked that people haven't tried to like pull that out and and try to, you know, say what was I doing as a 19 year old on 6th Street? I don't hear that a lot.

But I am kind of alone in that, you know. I know that you know, other survivors that are in the lawsuit with me that whose stories I know very ntimately and you know almost know the details [00:46:40] like they're my own rape. You know the cops were saying awful things to them and you know, just talking about women and their sex lives and things like that. And you know, I don't know if it's because I had a female detective and I didn’t get that as much.

But yeah, I mean no one ever, ever….It's such an odd concept to me. I think, especially when it comes to women because we are so [00:47:10] afraid all the time. But then there is this idea that it won't happen to us, that it's not going to be us but then what we are so afraid all the time, but it's such an odd thing.

And I mean I think that I mean, no one--the the comments, I, you know, I always read the comments on Bill Cosby articles or things like that. Just a little bit just to see, you know, kind of how nasty rape culture still is. And it [00:47:40] always shocks me and when you know, women say things or people say things about what the women were doing and their actions and “they should have just done this” and I might have talked about it, I don't know if I took it out of my thesis but one piece that I really do not like is people saying, you know that, well, “my wife or my girlfriend.--” I've even seen women say, “well, I have a gun, so it won’t happen to me.” Like or like, “oh well my girlfriend has her mace, so that's not going to happen to her.” Like it’s just this idea that [00:48:10] I could have reacted differently. Even like--forget what I'm wearing forget what I was doing there, but that, even in the minute of the rape that I should have been thinking differently to get myself out of it better and when it's like--those are your instincts…

So your instincts, like fight flight and freeze are your instincts and I cannot help that I froze. You know, I can't help that I didn't scream. I-I did scream but I can't help that no one heard my screams. I can't help that I didn't run, that I didn't think to punch him. Like [00:48:40] and that there's just this idea of like “if that guy comes up behind me and Walmart, I'm gonna do this, so he won't grab me” and it just...I don't think people realize how how victim-blaming that still is and how that does trigger survivors reading those things.

[Kamp] I think part of it is like if you thought if it happened to you all the time, like you’re saying, it would make you feel very unsafe and it would make it hard to get things done. But I also think so much about that with, you know, the previous [00:49:10] DA we had and the fact that, you know, we not only had a female DA but she had a lot of women working for her and they did not seem to be any more inclined to take rape seriously than any of the people at APD who aren't taking it seriously.

[Garrett] Yeah, that was what was--that was awful. Um yeah.

Margaret Moore, Mona Shea was the assistant district attorney that told me to my face. You know, all of that and tried to act [00:49:40] like she cared. Mindy Montfort, you know, was the one that had the 48 minute phone call with--so it was one of the other plaintiffs and her next door neighbor happened to be the first assistant District Attorney's ex-sister-in-law and so she had called to be like, “why is this girl that I know that went through this trauma in Corpus Christi that was raped in Austin. Why are y'all not accepting [00:50:10] her case?” But had no, had been given no, like, the survivor had not called and said, “yeah, you can talk about it with this person!” and Mindy Montfort just tells her everything about the case in a 48 minute phone call, and proceeds to lie like 11 times and say the survivor lied and told the police “I just don't want my parents to know what I was doing that night. So this is all a lie,” so it made it seem like the police and the DA, and the survivor were all in this lie together, just so her parents [00:50:40] wouldn't know what she was doing that night when she never once said that. I mean, we have the audio recording of her interview. I mean, it was just shocking that a woman would, I mean yeah I think that was a really difficult and confusing piece to be hearing.

And some to wonder, like, do you--do you not have someone in your family that’s gone through this? Because I can't think of too many people that I know that don't have someone in their family that understands it. Like it was [00:51:10] just such a odd piece of that, that, that that office was full of powerful women that were just so against taking us seriously and believing us. And I mean someone has her on record saying that that when drugs and alcohol are involved that it's not a criminal event, that it's just a traumatic thing that you need therapy for. That it [00:51:40] shouldn't involve the criminal justice system. I mean, she's literally said, I mean, she just doesn't take it seriously at all, and it's just so hard to, you know, think that she can't sit there and imagine this herself. And imagine if it was her own body or her daughter’s or granddaughter’s, or anything like that, that she was just so removed from it. And so, I mean, spiteful, you know like it felt like she was angry at us. I mean she was, I mean she was. There were interviews [00:52:10] where she was just so mad at us and you know, it was just such a weird time to have a district attorney be so angry at a group of rape survivors that are asking for her to take rape seriously. Like it was such a weird time.

[Kamp] And so now it seems like there are lots of ways in your life that you do besides just, you know, being part of a lawsuit [00:52:40] and you know, doing interviews like this that you do advocate for survivors. So, like in your work--could you talk a little bit about that?

[Garrett] Yeah. So I worked at SAFE for about two years, I worked at the hotline. I was a manager on the hotline for a while so that was directly, you know, sending survivors to go get rape kits, staying on the line with survivors for 45 minutes when they wake up at one AM having a panic attack out of nowhere, you know, things like that. [00:53:10] I'm currently--I left SAFE--and I'm currently at the Texas Association Against Sexual Assaults and I'm the Survivor Liaison intern. So they have a Survivor Advocacy Board that is essentially... It was created under kind of the Sexual Assault Survivor Task Force that Donna Howards passed--her office was able to offer the bill after kind of citing the documentary [00:53:40] that I was in for exceptional clearance. Basically saying that our, you know, our state needs to be doing something better, that we're dropping the ball for sexual assault. And they were not letting survivors on this board that they had passed this legislation for survivors and they were not--they denied my application which felt very political.

[Kamp] Why did they deny it? Did they give you a reason?

[Garrett] No, they just said that I couldn't be on the board. So it felt very political that, and, you know, [00:54:10] being in this world, I know things. I know that Mindy Montford's close friends are already on it, and all of these things that so they wouldn't, they let one Survivor that they like on the Board on this task force, and were not letting other survivors. So TASSA created the Survivor Advocacy Board, to create a group of survivors that are kind of doing side by side work and can kind of, and we were able to get all the survivors of from the Survivor Board into the task [00:54:40] force. So I'm kind of the liaison for TASSA’s Survivor board to help them stay informed with the task force, and all of that. ‘Cause, yeah, it was, it was really hard to get survivors in on a task force. That was created for us. It was, yeah.

Even--and then, and once we fought to get them there, they wouldn't let us on the law enforcement working group and we had to fight to get a survivor a seat at that table. [00:55:10] And yeah.

[Kamp] So with a lot of this work, it seems like you're kind of on the other side. Where like, of course, you’re a survivor, but you're also helping other survivors. So what are some things that you feel like you, you know, having personal experience has helped you with dealing with people who are going through like something similar to what you went through?

[Garrett] Yeah, I think it has help so much that, being rape Survivor [00:55:40] and how having the positions I've held, you know, I think that working in the hotline being a Survivor myself I think that that helps so much because we didn't have that boundary because we were just hotline Advocates, you know. So we didn't have that boundary of not being able to say if we were a Survivor.

So you know, there were times that I'd be like, hey like I had a kid too, like I know how traumatizing that is and I think that that just helps so much or being able to [00:56:11] you know, talk them like, here are so many scenarios that were so similar to my own like telling your mom for the first time or telling a new boyfriend for the first time or things like that and being able to walk them through what worked for you, or what didn’t work for you instead of just kind of, you know, not being able to come at it from personal experience. And, you know, being able to, you know, I think it made me be able to be a bit more innovative with my [00:56:41] thoughts about safety planning for survivors than some people that do that work that aren’t survivors.

Yeah, and at my current job, I think it, you know, it definitely helps all of the survivors feel like they can talk to me, come to me about whatever and there is still like this...I would say when you're an advocate in the professional world that's also a Survivor, there is still like this idea that you're like broken and [00:57:12] thats something about you isn't a professional. I don't--there's just like you're not taken seriously still and so it takes a lot of work to make those people in power believe you.

[Kamp] That’s so interesting to me because I feel like, of course, not all of us have been raped, but I feel like everyone probably has gone through something that's less than ideal.

[Garrett] Right.

[Kamp] That's interesting how we kind of separate that. It's like, oh, you know, [00:57:42] no, like my husband he has like a scar on his face for a fight that he got into when he was a teenager and it's like, that's one type of thing that's no big deal. But this other thing is such a big deal that you're like shattered, you know, glass or something. Just--I don't know. It's interesting to conceptualize.

[Garrett] It feels like, you know, in the larger meetings with the full task force that's like Advocates are in the room and law enforcement's in the room.

And there are like-- [00:58:12] therapists are there and the executive directors from centers are there. It feels like when a Survivor speaks that they're just kind of like okay yeah uh-huh. Good job! Like and then go back to their main ideas like it feels very much so like they have a point and a way that they want everything to go and that they're not listening to us tell them what the actual problems with the system are, what we actually need. Like we are a group of really powerful badass women who have gone [00:58:42] through a terrible trauma and have grown and have power.

And sure we're still going to have breakdowns sometimes, but that doesn't mean that we don't know our story and our experience and what change needs to happen better than anyone else. Like it just it baffles me that, you know, they feel like that their board, that that task Forces is theirs, when it's ours. So...

[Kamp] I read a new story recently where they're talking about [00:59:12] the settlement of the Travis County lawsuit and you said that you were going to use the settlement money to help pay for law school. So is that something that you're still planning on doing?

[Garrett] Yeah. Yeah, yeah I am. I kind of always wanted to...I've always been very into like cultures and politics and I originally majors in Russian and had like a weird obsession with that for a while. So I’ve always kind of wanted to do something like law and politics type stuff.

And then like that just [00:59:42] really there was a period in my trauma that I was so deep in it that like, I stopped believing that I ever had the ability to do everything. I mean, you lose your hopes, your dreams, like you forget everything that you ever wanted, and are just in your trauma and it took me a little bit to, you know, being in this case again, and all of that to kind of fall back in love with some of my passions. And remember what I wanted to do and what I wanted to be. So yeah, I definitely am [01:00:13] gonna buy whatever. I mean we still haven't gotten the money but when we get the money. Yeah the first thing I'm doing is get an LSAT study course and I'm hopefully going to law school.

[Kamp] Have you met with our current DA or anyone from this office?

[Garrett] Yeah, yeah! Jose and I have a--Erin Martison and I have a really great relationship. I was originally wanted her to get elected as DA cause you know, she was she specifically her whole career has been about survivors of sexual assault and domestic [01:00:43] violence. So I of course wanted her to win and she has all the other same ideals as Jose as far as Criminal Justice Reform and drugs being, you know, mental health issue and that the death penalty should not be a thing. You know, they have all of those same beliefs and so I really wanted her to get it. But when she lost, you know, Jose and I did start working, and we already knew Jose was great because the way he interacted with Erin on the campaign trail, he was great. [01:01:13] And, you know, he immediately called and asked me and had a conversation about how I felt about endorsing him and all of that, and we've kept a close relationship since then.

So I’ve had a few conversations with him before the settlement about things his office can do. I helped make pretty much any press release he's put out about sexual assault, he has consulted survivors. And so, I mean, I think he's great and [01:01:44] I think so far he has held up to a lot of the things he said campaigning. But I mean, that doesn't mean we're gonna stop paying attention.

[Kamp] Right. What are some things that his office does differently? Besides, you know, obviously talk to you.

[Garrett] Yeah, yeah, I mean,

They're taking cases, they're taking cases. They're actually, I mean, first of all, I went back to SARRT, that was one of the biggest pieces for me, which is [01:02:14] a whole ‘nother 20-minute conversation, but they, they went back to SARRT, the Margaret Moore had left the community response team that everybody else sits at.
And so, Jose returning back to that was a really big thing for me, that he was back at the table, with survivors, and with Community Advocates that have the best ideas and can tell you where the problems are and yeah, taking cases is a big thing.

And my favorite thing that he's doing is [01:02:44] that they are looking at reformative justice and transformative justice and what does healing mean to you? What do you want as a survivor? Not having just one plan for every survivor that comes in the room that okay you want--not that we're going to try for jail time, not everybody wants that, and so, I think that that's my favorite thing that his office has done is given survivors options as well.

[Kamp] [01:03:15] At a city level, you said APD hasn't settled the lawsuit yet. But, are there things at a city level that you think, since you started advocating for this, that people have done that made a positive difference?

[Garrett] In some ways, yes. And in some ways, no. Because they have changed, APD has changed things, but it doesn't feel heartfelt to me. Like this settlement with Jose, it feels real. [01:03:45] It does. While I do think that there should have been more money involved, and I'm not going to be shy about saying that, I mean, that was kind of, and it felt like they ran down the clock to our appeal date so that we didn't have time to negotiate. It was kind of like take this or we're going to the appeal. Yeah. So but it feels all the policies feel real and feel heartfelt and feel like it's because [01:04:15] his office genuinely wants survivors to have a better experience and to get what they need, to have less trauma, to get some sort of justice to heal, and to do what they want with their lives. Whereas, it feels like the few changes that APD has made, that they have done so to seem like they're less culpable and to seem like that they want to make change but it just feels so forced. And there are things that they haven't done, they've changed [01:04:45] the interview room so they're not these awful, terrible rooms to be in. They've made them into, you know, more comfortable interview rooms. But like, that doesn't, it's just all things that…

[Kamp] It feels very cosmetic...

[Garrett] Yes! It feels like that they are trying to make that outside of it look good, the image look good. Like “sure, we care about survivors.” When inside the culture is still we don't care about these people, get them in the door, get them out the door, and that's it. It still feels like that is the [01:05:15] culture there, whereas in the DA's office it feels like that’s changed from Margaret Moore. I don't have a lot of hope yet with the city at all.

[Kamp] We talk about how the police could have responded differently. What would justice look like for you? Like what would justice look like [01:05:45] I guess in general for people who are victims of sexual assault?

[Garrett] Yeah, I think that an apology, in general for survivors. Yeah. I think that all we want is some sort of an apology, and to know that the other party knows what they did [01:06:15] was wrong and doesn't believe that we did something to ask for it and then to know that it's not going to happen again to another woman. And I think that there's so many ways to make those two things happen without jail time, and I have had conversations with folks, with abolitionists about, you know, that there’s... I don't know, I know this one survivor that [01:06:45] her co-worker raped her, they were friends and that her and her--and then there was problems because different co-workers believed him and different co-workers believed her. And they were able to sit down and have a healing circle with the whole workplace where he came out and said that he did do it and he was sorry and she accepted it and the co-workers talked through it. And it was this great amazing experience. But that those scenarios can't happen a lot because then the rapist also believes that it could [01:07:15] be used against him to then come out as, “well, oh you just said, you're guilty, you're going to jail.” So then there's also taking away that component of, you know, it's a weird thing to think of is that you have to think of, how do we make rapists feel safe to admit that they raped and say they're sorry and move on and and and learn not just move on, but learn and do these things so that a Survivor can heal and move forward. So it's a, you know, you do have to put yourself in a rapist’s shoes and I think a lot of people don't want to do that [01:07:45] work.

[Kamp] Yeah I think that’s a really interesting point because sometimes I think that the reason why people don't want to admit to raping someone else is because we disbelieve that so many things are rape, but the things that were willing to call rape, we just completely demonize person who commits the rape and act like they're inhuman. And so it's like, I know so many guys where it’s, like, I don't think that you are getting consent every time...You’re, you know, alone with [01:08:16] a woman and it's like, but I understand why it's hard for them to admit that to themselves.

[Garrett] Right. And even I mean, I think so many women have even--I've had so many experiences that I wouldn't, you know, I think every woman considers her experiences differently but I myself wouldn't call them exactly rape because of my my rape but that, you know, I didn't say no because I didn't feel comfortable saying no, you know, do I think that those guys would have stopped if I said no? Probably, [01:08:46] but I didn't feel like I could say no in those moments.

And like, you know, I guarantee those guys don't even feel comfortable admitting those things and wouldn't feel comfortable saying, well, you know, I did put you in an environment where you felt like you couldn't say no and and things like that. So yeah, I think there's all of that that's kind of standing in the way of of a lot of people getting what the closure that they need and getting the justice that they need to move forward. And yeah, I think that that's a big piece because, you know, I [01:09:16] I look at my justice very differently now that mine’s turned into like this huge lawsuit with all of that. I think that in some ways it was helpful for me to kind of take the pain of the rape and put it on, you know, I mean, I do they they're different, they are, they're very different, my trauma for my rape and my trauma with APD and the District Attorneys. But you know, that's closed for me like that's a closed case. I'm never going to get to go to court, I’m never going to get those things. I'm never [01:09:46] going to--all of that's done.

So, you know, but the trauma still with the city and with APD and with the District Attorneys. And, you know, now with some City Council Members, as well it’s just like, you just want an apology. You just want an apology and to know that things are going to be different. And I think that a lot of people don't understand that that the money piece is like accountability because how are they going to, they can say they're going to change these policies all day. But [01:10:16] how are, you know, how are you going to actually hold them accountable to those policies and to know that we're not going to end up in the same place with the next district attorney with the next chief of police. Like it is a really large payout for them to say, “okay, we can't do this again.” Like and I think that that's what people are not understanding, although most of the people that I talked to about the settlement and seen comments was that we did [01:10:46] not get enough money from it. So...

[Kamp] Yeah, it just--I mean, to me it's just like you did lose so much from them mishandling it, and so they should compensate you fairly for the time you lost and things like that. Another thing that I wanted to ask was, [01:11:16] so you're in an unusual situation where on the one hand you did not get justice. But on the other hand, many people have paid attention to this. And you've been interviewed many times. What are some stories you liked? What are some stories that you felt like wow, this journalist is, you know, maybe not doing the best job that they could do?

[Garrett] Yeah. My favorite one is the Mark Greenblatt the Exceptional Clearance little mini documentary [01:11:46] thing. Well, my favorite, favorite one is the larger documentary. I mean I've spent years with her, she's been in my house through--I mean she was with me when Jose got elected, like she's been there for everything. So that was great. She's amazing. And then, Mark, Greenblatt is a really amazing investigative journalist that like, I don't know, just the way he words things and thinks about stuff is great.

I had one journalist. [01:12:16] I can't remember who it was from? She ended it by asking me if I could say one thing to my rapist, what would it be? And I was just like, why...what? And I was in a very different place in my trauma, but it was about how I felt about the DNA lab being cleared that they had announced for the first time that it was officially cleared even though it wasn't actually cleared. And was asking me how I felt and how it felt for other survivors and all of that. And then at the end was like, what could you say to your rapist [01:12:46] if you could say anything to him? And I was like this...why are you asking me that?

And then, of course, there's been some that don't even like, at the press conference, I remember one she didn't even like, introduced herself to me, or what news station she was with, and it just felt weird. But, yeah, I've had two that thankfully, I didn't do them and was told that they were like possibly trying to come at it from like bad angles [01:13:16] and like one of them that is was like from a like Trump funded like new source and thankfully declined that one. So I haven't had anyone that's been like too terrible, but yeah. Yeah.

[Kamp] So you talked about the EMDR therapy. What are some other things that, you know, like allow you to find comfort? That allow you to find joy in your life? [01:13:46] Like obviously you're working on this a lot.

[Garrett] Yeah, I do it a lot and I mean my whole professional life is my rape. My--like it's like my hobby is my rape because I'm in like so many different groups and orgs and everything it’d every part of my life.

My relationships with my family and my friends are the most important thing. I was very lucky to have the mom that I have and have the dad that I have that [01:14:16] just, I mean, never asked any questions. Like, it was just immediate belief and like, immediately got in the car and drove here, three hours away. And, I mean, now it's a resulted in her being, I mean, she is terrified for me all the time.

Like she definitely doesn't think about me the way she thinks about my other siblings. Like it's a very different thing now. But those relationships with my family and friends being so supportive and [01:14:46] you know, learning my trauma and learning what I need from them and learning when I'm shutting down and not speaking. So that they can if we're in public can speak for me to strangers and say something or things like that.

I just started crocheting like three weeks ago and it's my favorite because it helps with my anxious hands so much and takes my mind off of my paranoia and gives me something to focus on. I play Animal Crossing a lot. I love Animal Crossing [01:15:17] and I mean, I still am 25, like it didn't, I know that it wasn't my fault, and I know that me being out on 6th Street wasn't my fault and that me being a party girl wasn't my fault, like all of those things.

So, I mean, I do still go out and have always still gone out and done all of those things. I tried very much to not let it change my lifestyle or anything. I'm not going to not have fun. I'm not going to not grow up, go out with just [01:15:47] a group of women and fear that because we don't have a man there was something is going to happen or you know I'm not going to change anything that I do or what I wear or how much I drink because of my rape. So that's definitely still a big part of who I am. I like to have fun and yeah.

[Kamp] Thank you. Are there any things that I didn't ask that you would want on this video?

[Garrett] No, I think, I think just the only thing was like, exceptional clearance. Yeah. I think that that's [01:16:17] a really big piece of why we had such a problem with APD. And that was something that, you know, we found out after the lawsuit was that they were wrongly clearing cases. You know, my case was exceptionally cleared but there was nothing you know, they're supposed to use it as the exception to the rule when a case isn’t normal.

When something, when the suspect is dead, when suspect’s already in custody, when there's like a weird something weird about the case it's supposed to be exceptionally cleared [01:16:47] and when they found out that they could exceptionally clear all these cases and that they could then present them to the city and to city council and in their FBI numbers as closed cases like they look like my case being exceptionally cleared is presented in the numbers as though my rapist was arrested and it went to the district attorney. That's what it looks like that I got what I wanted, you know that it happened when you know, [01:17:17] they didn't even arrest him for the rape. And that was what was really hard to learn from a journalist like he, he saw that we were suing and he'd been looking into it. He'd been looking into exceptional clearance across the United States and Austin had some of the highest rates of using exceptional clearance and they said, you know, he said, I have like these six, however, many so cases I'm looking at are any of these your clients and it was mine and like, [01:17:47] and that was a whole ‘nother thing to like, find out from a journalist and to understand from a journalist just a whole ‘nother piece of my story that they, you know, I didn't even realize until interviewing with him that they had probable cause to arrest him, you know, I always thought that they still, you know, they didn't have enough that I didn't do things that I didn't give them enough but like, they had enough to arrest him. But, like still…


[Kamp] Yeah it seems like they had so much, honestly.

[Garrett] They did. They did have enough to arrest him. And so you had just [01:18:17] that APD was and there's still that, you know, we had to take a resolution in front of city council to look at the numbers from the last 7 years to see you know how many cases were exceptionally cleared that shouldn’t have been exceptionally cleared and that these numbers, you know it looks like it makes their numbers over 50%. Like that every month that they have closed over 50% of the rape cases when they're doing none. And so it's just so frustrating that that was happening for, you [01:18:47] know, over a decade. And that an officer actually came out and said, you know, Liz Donegan said that she was actually told to go in and change them from suspended to exceptionally cleared. So they were doing this on purpose and I think that that's a really frustrating thing that people don't, you know, it felt like such a huge piece that we’d uncovered and it really didn't feel like it, like hit the city as hard when the news came out about it and I was like, we're being [01:19:17] lied to, by our Police Department very, very bluntly and like having an officer telling us--like a whistle blowing officer telling us--she was told to change this and told to do this and it just didn't feel like the city paid attention at all, but I think that's what makes our case against APD so much stronger still.

[Kamp] So when you say that the city didn’t pay attention at all, I mean, could they pass a resolution? Why could they do to change...

[Garrett] Well [01:19:47] when I say that, I mean the community kind of-- it didn’t,

It did not feel like the community of Austin saw it, cared, it did not feel... I just, I expected more because every time, I mean, every time we do, go to City Hall to pass something around sexual assault, it's our core group of survivors and Advocates. It feels like for me that they're all these liberal issues that we pack City Hall for all of them. Every one. All the different groups come [01:20:17] out--all of them--but when it's sexual assault it's just us there and like maybe a handful of people with a AJC that come out for everything.

But like all the other groups go silent and aren't there when it's just about sexual assault, which is really frustrating. But I mean the city, it took us, you know, reaching out and kind of I mean that that journalist had to really work to get Chief Manley on camera [01:20:47] talking about it. He really had to tell some people that they were going to be followed around with the camera on their campaign trail, if Chief Manley didn't sit down with them. And you know have Chief Manley admit on record that just within the last year there'd been like over like 1,400 cases that were exceptionally cleared and say on camera, so there's 1,400 rapists just, you know, walking around right now in your city that you had probable cause to arrest. [01:21:18] I mean, I think that the resolution was great but I mean it’s taken so long and they just put out the memo. So the resolution was that they had an independent third party is coming in to look at how many were exceptionally cleared and if they should have been exceptionally cleared and I mean that was years ago and they just put out a memo saying that they need more time and that they have nothing as of--

[Kamp] That feels hard to know it all, and if we’re going to be honest, the reason I didn’t as you a question about that is because that’s [01:21:49] such an alarming thing that you’re talking about, about the statistic of reading that, you know, how you think that like half of these cases have been solved, but it's actually like a much smaller number where somebody has been arrested. I just, you know, I kind of just assumed that like people would be angry about it. It's like right, you know, so it's shocking to me. I think...I'm sorry like, to say that to you,

But it's shocking to me that the--it [01:22:19] feels like the least they can do to have a memo and have them review it.

[Garrett] Yeah. No, I mean it...that was also what was very frustrating was when we fought for that resolution all of city council, you know, we were to make it known that we were all in solidarity. We had yellow bandanas on to go up and testify and all of city council asked for yellow bandanas. All the council members did and put yellow bandanas on their mic.

Like that they were in solidarity with the survivors who had been, whose cases had [01:22:49] been exceptionally, cleared and all of this stuff. And then now, here we are and city council's what's standing in the way of a settlement. And it's just like... that was, you know, it just feels like how fake that was, how fake that was to have that yellow bandana on their microphone. And yeah, but I mean this this little investigative resolution of seeing what numbers I mean that it--the the memo really was just like that, they need more time [01:23:19] and essentially said that they need better training and it was just like well we already knew...we already knew that they need better training, first of all. Like it just the memo felt like it was nothing and yeah, it just felt like there was a lot a lot more that could’ve been done and a little bit more of condemning them for doing this. And I mean, I think that's where we still come in with the lawsuit and being able to, [01:23:49] you know, I think a few more people paid attention since the the county settled and the Commissioner Court said what they said. But I mean, it still feels like there's so much work to do at the city and that they're pushing back really hard still.

[Kamp] Did you have any questions, Murphy?

[Murphy Ann Carter] Yeah. First of all, thank you. You're talking [01:24:19] or you're talking a bit about when you're speaking with journalists and going to the city council to advocate. And I would love to hear more about how you navigate that experience, even just like, getting ready to walk into a room and talking to people and how you've navigated because there's no, I'm sure there's no one way. And even, you know, it changes from time to time. Just like what that journey has been like, because [01:24:49] of the way that you have been telling your story.

[Garrett] Yeah. It's been really hard to navigate how I tell my story and when I tell my story. And it's really interesting, I learned in my thesis, one of the other anthropologists whose work I relied heavily on, she talked about the way that survivors tell their stories and that all survivors tell their story in the same way.

You know, the way that they open it up about kind of, [01:25:19] you know, who they are and how things were so normal. And then there was this sudden, abruption of violence and just the way that, you know, there is kind of a way that every store every survivor walks you through their story, that is kind of, you know, all fits the same style and I noticed that, you know, when I do, prepare a lot of my speeches, but I mean, the first time I spoke at city council, I like was sobbing.

For the whole thing like I was like I don't know how anyone [01:25:49] understood me or anything and I mean it took years of just like shaking and making myself just shaking go up there and you know, an hour before and not sleeping the night before. I mean sometimes I still won't if I know I have like an interview the next day, I still like don't get much sleep. And yeah, I mean, I had to like let go of feeling embarrassed if I cried or, I mean, I had to let go of [01:26:19] all of that. I had to let go of caring what I look like on camera and body Image issues on camera and all of that.
Like, seeing myself the very first time on the news was wild, like had to just let go of everything and you know, just that however, it comes out is authentic and me and my story and I'm not going to like care that I cried or care if I didn't cry or if I got angry halfway through it or whatever it is. I just let whatever [01:26:49] comes out come out.

[Carter] Yeah, so, I just had one more question. I wanted to ask you, to just, maybe it can be couched into you writing your thesis, but that process of reading and gathering information and then writing it all out and making meaning of something like this because the second you start summarizing your thesis, I was like, that's brilliant, of course, you know what I mean? Like, of course, this has existed. And no, [01:27:19] it's not like this is something that's being spoken literally into existence, right? And trying to deafen the silence with the story.

And so I was just wondering if you wanted to speak about how that process, how you consider it, or is it storytelling? Is it not in its own way too?

[Garrett] Yeah, writing my thesis was really interesting, and I am so grateful to my thesis supervisor, because she was so willing to let me do [01:27:49] kind of and to make it autobiographical in a way because, you know, anthropological work isn't.

And the work that is, you know, an anthropology that is using a person's story, like is typically not you know, doesn't hold up well in the anthropological community. Like that's not what you're supposed to do is talk about yourself. You're going into someone else's culture, you're not talking about your own in anthropology and so I was [01:28:19] so lucky to have her to let me explore that and let me do that.

But yeah it was really an interesting process, and a lot of, a lot of working down stream of consciousness and, you know, I think it really helped me understand a lot and helped me get to where I am in my, you know, in my-- I still get aphasia sometimes and I still can't talk sometimes. But, you know, I [01:28:50] would say at this point, you know, my social anxiety is gone. I used to my social anxiety was so bad after my rape. I could not speak to anyone in any groups, I could not hang out with friends like it was awful and that's like gone now and I think that writing my thesis out and understanding how my trauma did that to me and being able to like, pull apart all of those, like, negative thoughts and negative self-talk that were silencing and understanding that those weren't [01:29:20] things about me, but was my trauma, has, you know, has really brought me to a healing place.

But it was really, really cool writing my thesis and learning, you know, because even so much that didn't get included in my thesis. I know so much about trauma now from a theoretical standpoint and, you know, from an anthropological side from a, you know, I was reading psychological stuff and sociology and all of that is really cool. And also my favorite, [01:29:50] my favorite, favorite Anthropologist that I used most of her work, my thesis Supervisor was actually friends with her and

She didn't tell me and she sent my thesis to her and she like, she actually read my thesis and wrote me back about my thesis which was just was like the coolest thing ever. So, yeah. It was an awesome process for me.

[Carter] And I have one more question...I'm just so curious as a lawyer [01:30:20] in the future, what are you most excited to do differently? And I almost want to add the word “differently” at the end, almost instinctively based off of so much of what you said but I want to make sure I leave this open-ended too like what are just like, what are you excited to do as a lawyer?

[Garrett] Yeah, shockingly, I don't know where law school is gonna lead me because I feel like I change my mind all the time and all that. So I don't know what's going to happen when I get into law school. [01:30:50] But honestly I at this moment, I I might just be a little burnt out at this moment, but at this moment I don't think that I want to do like sexual assault/domestic violence. I definitely want to do like Innocence Project type work and definitely want to work for folks that are wrongfully convicted or for you know, I don't care if you did it.

Actually, I don't think you should be in there and so for families who don't have the money, I mean, I've had loved ones that have been [01:31:20] incarcerated before and, you know, know how much money it drains on the family just to talk to someone and what those visits are like. And so that's a really important thing. Immigration is a big thing for me as well. I do come from a Mexican background so that's really important to me as well. So I know I'm going to say like in the Civil Rights fields but I don't know what exactly I want to do.

But I mean I yeah I definitely have [01:31:50] loved watching my lawyers because they don't do what people expect them to do. And they definitely come at things fiercely, they are two very, very fierce woman. They come at things fierce like they attack. They don't wait for people to like, and they don't do the thing that people expect for them to do legally. Like, they take, like, six different, sneaky routes to get what they want, and it's been really cool to learn from them [01:32:20] and to be able to like have that inspiration and know that I can work, so that I can just do some wild and crazy stuff in law and see what happens. So, I'm super excited about that, too.

[Carter] I’m excited too!

[Garrett] Thank you.

[Kamp] Well thank you so much this has been incredible. I feel like I’ve learned so much honestly and I really appreciate it.