[Vision2020] Benoit told UI of fears 2 months before she was killed

Tue Sep 13 20:46:16 PDT 2011

The answer to #2 is simple: thanks to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) the UI could not convey anything ( other than directory info) about Ms. Benoit to a third party without her permission. 

Even if it were not an educational institution, it's almost impossible for a third party to interject themselves into a domestic dispute among consenting adults. My daughter worked for ten years as a domestic violence counselor, and was constantly frustrated (although understanding) about women who would put themselves in harm's way by not being willing to report behaviors to the police, or obtain restraining orders against clearly violent significant others. Friends, relatives, parents would urge action, but without the primary individuals being willing to make a formal complaint to the proper authorities, nothing could be done. They're adults, and ultimately responsible for their own lives and fates.

Ron Force
Moscow Idaho USA

________________________________
From: Art Deco <deco at moscow.com>
To: Vision2020 at moscow.com
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2011 8:44 AM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Benoit told UI of fears 2 months before she was killed

This article raises several issues, but I'll 
limit this post to only two.

1.  This should not be taken as accusatory, 
but I wonder if the UI decision to use rent-a-cops has reduced in an 
unhealthy/undesirable manner some communication with the MPD. If the MPD 
had been as closely involved with the UI before the rent-a-cops and thus be 
better informed by the UI, might this matter been handled a bit 
differently?

2.  Allegedly Benoit asked that law 
enforcement not be involved when she made her complaint.  If so, when does 
the level of a threat to an individual and/or other students/staff/faculty 
become serious enough to warrant the UI overriding such a 
request?

w.

From: Tom Hansen 
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2011 5:26 AM
To: Moscow Vision 2020 
Subject: [Vision2020] Benoit told UI of fears 2 months before she 
was killed

UI's inaction, months before student's murder, MUST be held to account. 
 At a minimum UI is guilty of the wrongful death of Kathryn Benoit.

Courtesy of today's (September 13, 2011) Spokesman-Review.

------------------------------Benoit 
told UI of fears 2 months before she was killed 
More 
than two months before her death, Kathryn “Katy” Benoit told an official at the 
University of Idaho that she was frightened by her professor, who carried 
weapons “everywhere, including to campus,” and that she also worried about the 
safety of fellow students.
Benoit, 
22, was killed on Aug. 22 by Ernesto Bustamante, with whom she had an intimate 
relationship. The assistant professor then killed himself in a Moscow 
hotel room.
Previously 
unreported details of Benoit’s June 12 complaint to the university were revealed 
in the graduate student’s letter to Carmen Suarez, of the Office of Human 
Rights, Access and Inclusion. A friend of Benoit’s who proofread the letter 
provided a copy of the document; another friend verified that it is the letter 
submitted to the university.
A 
university spokeswoman said on Monday that no official was available to comment 
on the contents of the complaint.
Benoit 
wrote that Bustamante began flirting with her soon after becoming her adviser 
“per the instigation of the university” last fall, and by the end of the 
semester, “he and I were in a sexually active relationship.”
During 
this time, she said, she witnessed numerous sexual comments, as well as “threats 
and unpredictable behavior” toward students by Bustamante.
“If 
students wanted to question him, or defy him in any way, he would always premise 
his response with ‘it’s never a good idea to piss me off,’ ” 
Benoit wrote.
Bustamante 
is reported to have been afflicted with multiple personality disorder, and 
Benoit wrote that she witnessed five of these personalities, “or at least him 
portraying them.”
Benoit began to feel concern for her safety and that of 
other students, the complaint said. In it, she named 19 students as likely 
witnesses of inappropriate behavior by Bustamante.

She said she had seen Bustamante in possession of at 
least five weapons and that he carried a Utah concealed 
weapons permit.

“He 
answers his door with them, travels with them, sleeps near them, everywhere,” 
she said of the weapons, “including on campus.”
In 
the hotel room where Bustamante committed suicide, police discovered six 
weapons, including the .45-caliber pistol officers believe he used to 
shoot Benoit.
Benoit 
suggested that Bustamante had inappropriate relationships with others, and that 
she had firsthand knowledge of an ongoing relationship between the professor and 
at least one other student.
Benoit 
asked the university to protect her and help her sort out her master’s degree 
program, which was heavily influenced by the professor she had come 
to fear.
“I 
cannot take classes of his any longer nor can I permit this twisted behavior to 
continue for the sake of myself and other women who will come after me,” 
she wrote.
She 
closed by writing that there was “ample reason to be fully concerned with the 
safety of all involved.”
Benoit 
said Bustamante had threatened her at gunpoint on three occasions between 
January and May, when she broke off the relationship.
“He 
told her she had four days to make it up to him or he was going to kill her,” UI 
student Sarah Sutter, who helped her friend hide from Bustamante, said in a 
telephone interview Monday.
After 
the deaths of Benoit and Bustamante, the university released a timeline of the 
steps officials took in response to Benoit’s complaint.
School 
officials said they first learned of the relationship and the threats against 
Benoit on June 10 and urged her to contact the Moscow Police Department. The 
university also contacted police directly.
Two 
days later, Benoit filed the complaint with the university.
Police 
said Bustamante filed a complaint of his own on July 8, alleging that Benoit was 
trying to defame his character.
On 
the day she was killed, school officials told Benoit that Bustamante’s last day 
of employment had been Aug. 19 and cautioned her “to remain vigilant and get 
assistance from the police and others if she had any safety concerns.”
Benoit 
was shot 11 times outside her apartment at 8:40 p.m.
Sutter 
said the university told Benoit that her tormentor would be dismissed, “but 
nobody checked to make sure he was really gone.”
------------------------------

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"When all is said and done, have you done or said enough?  Have you 
just gone along for the ride, or have you steered destiny's hotrod?  When 
you leave this world, did you make it any better than it was when you arrived? 
 All you need is all you've got: your wits and the clothes on your back. 
 Your epitaph is yours to earn.  Your legacy is yours to make."

- Author Unknown

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