Tailhook '91 Victims & Assaults | The Navy Blues | FRONTLINE

FRONTLINE

(Documentation is from the Department of Defense Inspector General report, February 1993)

VICTIM NUMBER 9

Status/Service/Rank:	Civilian/Female
Date/Time of Incidents:	Thursday, Friday, Saturday, September 5-7, 1991
Place of Incident:	CNATRA Suite (Room 364), Third Floor, Las Vegas

Victim 9 is a 23-year-old

woman. At the time of Tailhook 91, she had just

graduated from bartenders school. The victim and

a second female bartender were hired to serve

drinks in the CNATRA suite.

She worked from 5:00 p.m.

until 3:00 a.m. on each of the three nights.

According to the victim, on Thursday while she served

drinks in the suite, males "zapped" her on her breasts

and buttocks with various squadron emblems. She told

them to stop but they continued to place

the stickers on her throughout the evening.

On Friday, she was grabbed and pinched on her buttocks

and breasts throughout the evening. The men were more

vulgar and their behavior was more aggressive than on

the previous evening. The men continually tried to

"look down her shirt" and were lewd and abusive in

their comments. Remarks such as, "I want to get down

your pants," "cute ass," "nice tits," were directed at her

throughout the night.

The victim also witnessed two males exposing themselves

in the CNATRA suite. On Friday evening, the men in the

suite told her to look over at two men across the room

who were ballwalking. She did not know what the term

meant until she saw the men exposing their testicles.

The men in the suite acted as though it was extremely

funny. The victim stated that the behavior was the

worst on Saturday, when most of the aviators were drunk.

She noted that when strippers entered the suite and

performed, the men went "crazy." After the show, the

victim was pinched and grabbed all night long.

The more the victim would tell the men not to

touch her, the worse the grabbing got.

At one point, the victim was bitten on the buttocks

while she was serving drinks. A white male came up behind

her and very forcefully bit her buttocks. The bite was

hard enough to cause a bruise. The man who bit her was in

the suite all three nights. The aviators who saw the

incident merely laughed about it. The victim also stated

that the hallway was extremely crowded and grew progressively

worse each night. She needed to go through the hallway

to get to the elevators on her way to dinner. She and

several other women entered the hallway and were pinched

and grabbed. On subsequent trips to dinner, she took a

male bartender with her to help

protect her from the crowd.

SUPPORT PROVIDED BY