In a scene seemingly ripped from Law & Order: SUV, star Mariska Hargitay helped investigate over 11,000 sexual assault cases in Detroit, Michigan.
‘Captain Olivia Benson,’ as her character is known on the show, helped fund the examination of thousands of untested rape kits, which led to 22 convictions.
Hargitay met podcast host Andrea Canning who told her they needed money to process the backlog of rape kits. ” She helped them raise the money to get this done, and it’s having a ripple effect across the country. It’s making changes everywhere, from police departments to prosecutors’ offices,” explained Canning.
The SUV star has a personal connection. It was only this year that Hargitay spoke about being raped herself.
“A man raped me in my thirties,” she wrote. “It wasn’t sexual at all. It was dominance and control. Overpowering control.”
Hargitay’s rapist was a “friend,” she explained. “Then he wasn’t.”
“I couldn’t process it. I couldn’t believe that it happened. That it could happen. So I cut it out. I removed it from my narrative,” Hargitay continued.
“Now I’m able to see clearly what was done to me. I understand the neurobiology of trauma. Trauma fractures our mind and our memory. The way a mirror fractures,” she added.