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

Tue Sep 13 21:17:04 PDT 2011

Ron, given the recently released specifics of Ms. Benoit’s complaint (her claim that Bustamante carried guns on campus, she feared for not only her safety but for the safety of others), I’m not sure your assessment that FERPA prevented the UI from contacting law enforcement is accurate.

http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_01/34cfr99_01.html

§ 99.31 Under what conditions is prior consent not required to disclose information?

(10) The disclosure is in connection with a health or safety emergency, under the conditions described in § 99.36.

§ 99.36 What conditions apply to disclosure of information in health and safety emergencies?

(a)    An educational agency or institution may disclose personally identifiable information from an education record to appropriate parties in connection with an emergency if knowledge of the information is necessary to protect the health or safety of the student or other individuals.

Of course, I’m not an attorney!

Saundra Lund

Moscow, ID

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.

~ Edmund Burke

From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of Ron Force
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2011 8:46 PM
To: Art Deco; Vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Benoit told UI of fears 2 months before she was killed

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

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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 <mailto:thansen at moscow.com>  

Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2011 5:26 AM

To: Moscow Vision 2020 <mailto:vision2020 at moscow.com>  

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.

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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.”

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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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