Ballard rape victim tells story, calls for stronger leaders

Meghan Walker Ballard

The woman who survived a sexual assault in the Ballard Carter Volkswagen in May last year has spoken out in a short documentary.

The video (below), produced by filmmaker and former candidate for city council Christoper Rufo, is a detailed account of Lindsey’s experience.


According to Rufo, Lindsey reached out to him last year and asked him for help in telling her story, “and demand change in our city, so that no woman has to endure the same horror that she endured that morning last year,” Rufo writes on Facebook.

Lindsey’s attacker was 24-year-old Christopher Teel, who was a resident of Ballard’s city-sanctioned homeless camp. At the time of the assault, he had a warrant out for his arrest.

According to the King County Prosecutor’s office, Teel said he’d been in Seattle since 2016, and at the time of his arrest for the sexual assault, had a $5,000 warrant out for his arrest after he failed to appear for a hearing for trespassing in a home in Magnolia.

“I think we all need to acknowledge what we’re doing isn’t working,” Lindsey says in the video. “What we’re doing right now is actually harming the city. And, we need stronger leaders.”

Teel’s trial starts in May.

20 thoughts to “Ballard rape victim tells story, calls for stronger leaders”

  1. I think the people like Erica Barnett, et al, who are criticizing this woman for stepping forward and telling her story is deplorable.

    1. The victim blaming is an epidemic in this city.

      While obviously a travesty when implemented against rape and other violent crime victims, the whole tone of the “Seattle is fine, Bigots!” crowd is hostile towards theft and harassment victims as well. You will read many comments in the Times along the lines of “Seattle has always been gritty and full of drifters we kinda like it this way, you’re the problem.”

      These same people think they can solve poverty, establish single payer health care, stop global warming and eliminate war…yet somehow cleaning up the hometown and making it safe is some impossibly idealistic task that only “bigoted Nazis” advocate. Something as small as making the lives of store clerks safer in the downtown and core neighborhoods?
      Shop local indeed.

      “Wow just wow I can’t even you fascist.” etc

      A functional City Hall and properly mobilized police force with the support of a sensible city attorney could achieve this. Sadly, we’re a city of would-be tv lawyers who think they are changing the world for the better by making it easier for the very worst of society to operate here with impunity.

      It is as baffling as it is depressing.

      1. If you’re depressed, there are plenty of mental health facilities in our neighborhood. I’ve pointed you to them before. Just go back through the comments and find your previous username – you’ll see some of the resources.

    3. Victim blaming is real, but more to the point, in this woman’s case, her story absolutely crumbles the narrative that our homeless population are all innocent, homegrown victims of the “housing crisis”. I’m not surprised O’Brien snubbed her, I’m sure he was hoping she would just go away and not reveal that there are different levels of homeless people -some good, some bad – and that you can’t lump them all together under the ‘oh, they’re all good people, quit being a NIMBY’ slogan.

  2. she is very brave and strong – what a terrible ordeal. wish her the best going forward.

    direct result of the city’s failure to check for warrants among the “campers”.

    1. Yes, there are many simple steps that local government could take to make this a safer place to live.
      Just enforcing existing laws could be a huge step in the right direction.

  3. An observation on Rufo’s cancelled candidacy:
    Had he believed in Creationism and been Pro Life (not sure if he is, but you get me) while also wearing a hijab, the Democrats would be falling all over themselves to get a pic with him. Hell, I can see the Durkan Twitter posts already.

    There is something seriously wrong with establishment Democrats these days. They make huge allowances for traditionalism from other cultures but utterly destroy locals who happen to believe the very same things.

    That said, I would certainly vote for a Muslim candidate if they took a hard stance on drug use, crime, and the general decay of the city. I think most of us have traveled enough to see that cities like ours are usually cared for, regardless whatever flag flies overhead or what religion the locals follow. Seattle is currently a sad disgrace, and the tolerance shown towards hard drug use and the ensuing destruction that results is nothing short of mass psychosis.

    1. I agree and find today’s created mind numbed big city progressives deplorable. If only their pride tasted like vanilla ice cream!

    2. Are you using an article on a woman opening up about her sexual assault to do political grandstanding?

      What the hell is seriously wrong with your brain?

      1. Chris Rufo ran for City Council to address the crime epidemic and was threatened and harassed. I think this is relevant, and in fact, related. Truth, we have a failed City Hall pretending that their policies did not directly contribute to this woman’s rape.

        I’m sorry if linking cause-and-effect is now offensive to your delicate sensibilities. Your attempt to cast those of us who criticize City Hall’s failures as “political grandstanding” is the very worst kind of narcissistic gaslighting.

        Cut the act, you’re embarrassing yourself.

        1. Seattle has been nothing but a Far Left echo chamber for decades. We can see the results around us. This has nothing to do with Trump, or Russia, or the Moon Men.

        2. Doubtful. It’s people like you with your ‘everyone agrees with me, or they’re literally trump-supporting fascists’ attitudes that has caused this situation. Wake up, ‘s’, the world isn’t black and white, and thinking that our city council has been failing for some time now doesn’t make anyone more or less a trump supporter than you are.

    3. “That said, I would certainly vote for a Muslim candidate if they took a hard stance on drug use, crime, and the general decay of the city.”
      I applaud you for this statement and will take it a step further and say I would vote for anybody that took a hard stance on crime, homelessness and drug use.

    4. LOL @ bucky voting for a Muslim candidate

      So sorry you’re sad. You know what’s not sad? The fact our city doesn’t have tolerance for your intolerant hateful attitude.

      BAN this hateful troll again!

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