1991 Naval Air Tailhook Sexual Assault Case

"Two initial inquiries found that at least 26 women, half of them naval officers, had been assaulted by drunken and rowdy Navy and Marine Corps pilots at the convention. Now the Navy is weighing action against at least 70 officers believed to have either failed to stop the assaults or refused to cooperate in the initial inquiries" (New York Times, 6-5-92, A13).

"Pentagon investigators at Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego have obtained film that repeatedly shows aviators stripped a 17-year woman. The photos may confirm earlier reports that a teen was among up to 36 women who said they were molested at the aviators' meeting in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, a woman in her mid-20s filed a police complaint in Las Vegas last week saying she was assaulted by 30 or 40 men at the convention" (USA Today, 7-30-09)

Lisa Reagon, 34, a California business woman and Marie Weston, 32, a computer engineer, filed complaints. "As soon as they got to the crowded hallway, dozens of men surrounded them, they say, and forced them down a gantlet of men who groped their bodies. They 'lifted our skirts' and many men touched them 'in our crotch, and on our breasts," Reagon says. Five minutes later, the Marine captain took them back to the elevator. 'It's been a pleasure, ladies,' Reagan says he told them. 'I was crying and crying, I couldn't stop,' says Weston. . . "Her signs are consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder," says Renata Cirri, executive director of the Las Vegas Community Action Against Rape" (USA Today, 8-3-92, 3A)

"It took $190,000 of the Navy's money to fly members of the Tailhook Association, 1,500 retired and active-duty aviators, to Las Vegas last September for a convention. It took what went on there--male streakers, pornographic films, female guests forced to drink from a simulated rhinoceros penis and run a gantlet of drunken gropers--to lift the lid on a pervasive problem" (New York Times, 7-8-92, A12).