Detroit inmate who stabbed deputy, escaped in his uniform is captured

(CNN) -- A Detroit man, who stabbed an officer outside a courtroom and escaped wearing the officer's uniform, has been captured, authorities said.

The inmate, Abraham Pearson, was spotted walking in a Detroit neighborhood Monday night, said Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon.

Authorities said Pearson attacked a deputy with a sharpened comb in front of two other inmates inside a holding cell at the Frank Murphy Hall Monday morning.

He then handcuffed Deputy Harrison Tolliver, and fled, also taking the officer's cell phone and radio, the Wayne County Sheriff's Office said.

The two inmates did not intervene or leave the cell, according to police.

Pearson escaped from the rear of the building, carjacked a citizen and drove away in a Dodge minivan. The Dodge was recovered and the officer's uniform was found under a vehicle near Beaubien Street in Detroit.

Pearson was facing sentencing on Monday on carjacking and armed robbery charges. According to the sheriff's office, the 25-year old has a lengthy criminal record and was on parole.

The arrest could add at least 11 more charges to the crimes he was already facing, Napoleon said.

Tolliver, 63, was taken to the Detroit Receiving Hospital and later released. Tolliver is a retired Detroit police officer who joined the Sheriff's Office in December.

4 men found guilty of fatal New Delhi gang rape

New Delhi (CNN) -- An Indian court Tuesday found four men guilty of the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman on a bus in New Delhi last year -- a crime that shocked the South Asian nation.

The four men -- Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh Singh -- will be sentenced Wednesday, the Delhi court said.

The outcry over the vicious attack convulsed India, prompting angry protests over women's treatment in Indian society and the introduction of tougher punishments for sexual abuse.

The victim's parents had tears in their eyes as Judge Yogesh Khanna read out the verdict, in which he said the men had been convicted of "committing the murder of a helpless victim." Her brother wiped a tear from his cheek.

The father of the victim, whose name has been withheld under Indian law, has called for the four defendants to face the death penalty.

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"We have faith in the judiciary. The accused should be hanged," he told CNN sister network IBN in an interview that aired Monday.

The men, aged between 19 and 28, had pleaded not guilty to the charges of murder, rape and kidnapping. But amid a heavy media and security presence Tuesday, the court convicted them on all counts.

Lawyers for the four men said Tuesday their clients will appeal the guilty verdict.

Two others accused

The fate of two others accused in the case had already been decided.

One man, Ram Singh, 35, was found dead in his jail cell in March. Authorities said he had hanged himself, but his family claimed he had been murdered.

Saturday, a juvenile court convicted a teenage boy for his part in the gang rape, sentencing him to three years in a special juvenile correctional facility.

His trial was in juvenile court because he was 17 at the time of the crime, and the sentence is the maximum allowed under the court's rules.

The victim's mother said she was unhappy with the verdict and wants the teenager to be hanged.

A return to executions?

Family members are not alone in their desire for capital punishment. Calls for the execution of those responsible for the attack have been widespread in India.

Kiran Bedi, a human rights activist and former Indian police officer, said Monday that a death sentence would send a "very powerful message" to a country bedeviled by sexual violence.

"A brutal crime gets absolutely severe punishment, so it's in proportion to the brutality of the crime," she said.

Death sentences issued by Indian courts have rarely been carried out in the past decade. No state executions took place in the country between 2004 and late 2012, when the last surviving gunman from the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai was hanged.

But human rights advocates have said they fear that India's stance on executions has changed.

"In the past year, India has made a full-scale retreat from its previous principled rejection of the death penalty," Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said last month.

A brutal attack

The brutality of the New Delhi attack, as described by police and prosecutors, helped stir the strong emotions surrounding the case.

On the evening of December 16, the victim, a physiotherapy student, had gone to see the movie "The Life of Pi" with a male friend at a New Delhi mall.

During their journey home to the suburbs, they boarded a bus at a major intersection in upmarket South Delhi.

The driver and at least five other men on the bus were drunk and looking for a "joyride," police said.

The men, from a poverty-ridden slum on the outskirts of Delhi, dragged the woman to the back of the bus and beat up her male friend.

Police say the men took turns raping the woman, using an iron rod to violate her as the bus drove around the city for almost an hour. When they had finished, they dumped the two victims by the side of the road.

The woman's injuries were so severe that some internal organs had to be removed. She died two weeks later at a hospital in Singapore.

A rape every 22 minutes

As in many countries, rape is a grimly frequent occurrence in India.

According to Indian government statistics, a woman is raped every 22 minutes on average.

But the New Delhi attack seized the country's attention.

Advocates criticized the world's largest democracy for failing to protect half of its population. Protesters demanded better treatment of women and decried the apathy of police and the judicial system.

The government passed tougher anti-rape laws, introducing the death penalty for repeat offenders, and imprisonment for acid attacks, human trafficking and stalking.

But some Indians say that while the laws on crimes against women have changed, mindsets and enforcement haven't.

Prosecution of such crimes has improved, Bedi believes, but it will take a heavy emphasis on the family and school environments to resolve the problem in the long run.

"You can't just begin and end with the police and the prosecution and the courts," she said. "You have to go backward and take it to the source."

Meet India's Red Brigade: The teens fighting back against rape

Lucknow, India (CNN) -- In a dusty, run-down neighborhood on the outskirts of Lucknow, the capital of one of India's poorest and most conservative states, Uttar Pradesh, a vigilante group is making a name for itself.

But these are no ordinary vigilantes.

They're girls -- mainly teenagers -- who patrol their local streets protecting women and girls from sexual harassment. In their matching black and red black salwar kameez -- the traditional garb worn by women across South Asia -- they target offending males who have over-stepped the mark.

READ: Keeping chivalry alive in India: Men respond to rape crisis

The punishment? Humiliation, sometimes worse.

Their motivation is painfully clear. Every single girl in the so-called"Red Brigade" has been a victim of sexual assault -- some have even been raped by their own family members, they say.

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In most cases, the crimes have gone unpunished and the victim left to suffer the trauma in silent shame. These girls have been forced to act, they say, because no one else will.

OPINION: Rewiring of society's attitude needed

Cultural stigma

While sex crimes are not exclusive to India, the number of reported rapes there has increased dramatically, from 2,487 in 1971 to 24,206 in 2011, according to official figures. But campaigners say this is the tip of the iceberg.

Most women in India -- a country where a cultural stigma keeps many victims from reporting the crime -- have stories of sexual harassment and abuse on public transportation or on the streets, according to the Indian Council on Global Relations.

The issue appeared to reach a tipping point in India in December last year, when a 23-year-old woman was raped and fatally beaten by a group of men while traveling home on a public bus in Delhi. The attack provoked outrage across the world and sparked nationwide demonstrations in India, as protesters called for tougher laws on sex crimes and a change in attitudes towards women.

READ: The perils of being a woman in India

With global attention trained on India following the appalling case in the capital, the authorities acknowledged that action was needed. Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said India plans to recruit more female police officers -- currently only 7% of the Indian police force is female, according to government figures. The first fast-track court hearings have also been introduced to try to expedite cases in a justice system bogged down by red tape. It means sessions of the trial, once it begins, should take place nearly every working day until a verdict is reached.

Still, new cases continue to shock the nation, such as the 7-year-old girl who was raped in a train bathroom last weekend after she was lured away from her parents.

OPINION: Death penalty not the solution

Fightback on

The fight against sexual discrimination on the streets of Lucknow preceded the international attention on sex crimes in India. The self-defense group was started several years ago by teacher Usha Vishwakarma, who discovered that an 11-year-old girl she taught in the modest school block opposite her family home had been raped by her uncle.

Not long after this revelation, Vishwakarma found herself facing the unwanted attention of a colleague, who then tried to attack her. She managed to fight him off, but when she tried to report the incident, the local police were unimpressed. No one seemed to care.

READ: Rape case 'an awakening' for India

"This really upset me. It really affected me -- I would see any man in the street and would get upset and angry," Vishwakarma, 26, told CNN. She said people in her community thought she had gone mad. But still nothing happened to her attacker.

Eventually she learned that all of her students had experienced some form of abuse -- from lewd comments and cat-calls, to molestation and rape. Many of the girls said they were afraid to go out alone for fear of being groped or worse. It was then that Vishwakarma decided the girls had to protect themselves amid the deafening silence from within their own community.

The "Red Brigade" was born -- the red in their uniform is to symbolize danger and struggle, while the black represents protest.

In groups of four or five, the girls approach males deemed to be harassing a girl and order them to stop. If the perpetrator refuses to heed their warning, they punish him by mocking him publicly -- a significant slight in such a male-dominated society. Vishwakarma admitted they have been forced to resort to violence on more than one occasion -- though she emphasized this doesn't go beyond slapping.

The whole idea is to humiliate them. We are well within our rights -- this is self-defense. The police are not supportive so we have to defend ourselves.
Usha

"The whole idea is to humiliate them," she said. "We are well within our rights -- this is self-defense. The police are not supportive so we have to defend ourselves."

Martial means

And defend themselves they can, if their regular martial arts classes are anything to go by. In a dusty gym on the other side of town, the girls -- 15 of them -- are put through their paces on threadbare mats by a local Kung Fu instructor. He drills them in several techniques, from punching and kicking, to breaking the hold of an attacker approaching from behind. A faded picture of martial arts legend Bruce Lee gazes down approvingly, as each of the girls attacks the instructor's padding with intense focus and conviction. They have plenty to be angry about.

Gyan, their instructor, explained that he's teaching the girls for free. "I'm doing it for my own daughter," he said. "These girls are brave and what they are doing is humbling."

The session ended with the girls lining up and bowing respectfully at their instructor. They have clearly learned how to channel their anger -- an asset on the unforgiving streets outside.

But it's not just Kung Fu training the girls receive -- the group provides a lot of support on gender issues, sexuality and health. It even helps younger children to attend school.

Protest

Hours later, the girls were joined by several other supporters for a protest on the side of a busy highway in the center of Lucknow. Led by Vishwakarma, the girls held placards in English and Hindi demanding safety for women and chanted for stricter punishment for sex offenders.

The scale of their task is perfectly illustrated by this small band of determined girls fighting against the tidal wave of Lucknow's late afternoon traffic. Some commuters clinging from buses look quizzically at the small protest, while others ignore the scene completely.

Asked whether they are dealing with a deep-rooted cultural problem, Vishwakarma's 16-year-old sister, Lakshmi, shook her head emphatically. "This is not a cultural problem -- it's a social problem because men have a higher social status than girls."

The roadside protest may only have attracted a small number of people, but for Vishwakarma, the Red Brigade is making a difference. "Those who were voiceless before -- the girls -- now have a voice. Now they speak for themselves and are emboldened," she said.

With two daughters campaigning against a hugely divisive issue in India, Vishwakarma's mother admitted she had reservations about what they were getting into.

"I was scared initially -- I asked 'why is she was doing this?' There was also a lot of pressure from within the neighborhood that she should not be doing what she was. Because she would hold meetings late at night, people would say 'your daughter is not coming back home until late at night, which is not good.'

"Then someone said to me 'let her to what she wants to do.' I now feel what they are doing is good and helping to bring a lot of change -- many boys who used to harass girls no longer do so because they are scared."

Asked where she gets her courage from, Vishwakarma replied simply: "When you suffer, you get that courage. When you are victimized, you get that courage."

Victims blamed in India's rape culture

Victims blamed in India's rape cultureIndians in Siliguri protest violence against women on July 26, calling for stricter punishments for rapists

Editor's note: Ruchira Gupta is the president of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an Indian organization dedicated to ending sex trafficking. She is the 2009 recipient of the Clinton Global Citizen Award for her work with victims and survivors of sexual violence.

(CNN) -- When I read about the rape of a 23-year-old photojournalist in Mumbai, I thought, here we go again. On December 6, 1992, when I was a 29-year-old reporter covering the demolition of a mosque in northern India, I was attacked. I wasn't raped, but my attackers sexually assaulted and then tried to kill me.

Someone dragged me to a trench outside the mosque and pulled my shirt off. But a passerby jumped in, fought off my attackers and saved me.

When I appeared in court to testify against the attackers, their lawyers asked me questions that implied I was responsible. How could the daughter of a good family have gone to cover the demolition? Did I smoke? What kind of clothes was I wearing? Did I believe in God?

Ruchira Gupta

The judge did not stop them. It was a demoralizing and toxic experience, but one that is not unknown to women in India who choose to speak out against sexual attacks. They are silenced by a process that heaps shame, fear and guilt on them.

Indian women feel sorrow, anger at U.S. student's harassment

In rural Rajasthan in 1992, a judge dismissed charges filed by a low-caste, or Dalit, grassroots social worker, Bhanwari Devi, who said she was gang raped. She had been campaigning against child marriage. A judge said, "a middle-aged man from an Indian village could not possibly have participated in a gang rape in the presence of his own nephew."

A judgment like this not only deters other women from testifying against their rapists, it also emboldens the attackers, who know that they will get away with it.

Most women say they would never tell the police about an attack, afraid that they would be ignored or even abused by the cops themselves.

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In June, 13 anti-rape protesters were arrested outside the home of the West Bengal chief minister and detained for more than eight hours. Ironically, they were protesting the lack of police protection for women in the state following the rape and murder of a 20-year-old college studentwhose body was found lying near a river near the outskirts of Kolkata, and that of a 14-year-old girl who was raped and killed in the town of Gede, 90 miles away, only three days later.

Few women want to appear in court only to be stigmatized and traumatized -- unlike treatment of the suspects. While India's legal framework has improved for women over the past 20 years, the people implementing it are mostly male cops and lawyers who live in a deeply patriarchal society.

Incidents of rape have gone up by 873% in India in the past 60 years. On average, each day, three Dalit women are raped in some part of our country. The conviction rate for rape cases in 2011 was 25% -- although some estimate only one in 10 rapes is reported. The conviction rate for men accused of raping Dalit women is almost nil.

The National Crime Records Bureau's annual report of crime statistics also reports disturbing findings: A woman is raped somewhere in India every 20 minutes, and the number of children raped has increased by 336% in the past 10 years.

This culture of impunity is certainly one of the reasons rape has too often become the weapon of choice for frustrated young men who blame women, increasingly visible in the workplace, for their unemployment, and who hope to regain jobs by frightening women back home through sexual violence.

The desire to blame women is fed by a cult of masculinity promoted by corporate and political leaders who serve as role models for the rest of society.

Harassment in India: 'The story you never wanted to hear'

In the course of my work with Apne Aap Women Worldwide, I have seen the steady creeping of a rape culture into the fabric of India. We work to organize women in prostitution to resist their own and their daughters' rape. The biggest challenge we face is the attitude of politicians, senior police officials, heads of foundations and even policy makers who view rape as a normal part of society. Many have told me: "Men will be men."

Recently, when National Crime Records Bureau pegged West Bengal as the state with the highest incidence of crimes against women, the chief minister contested the bureau's statistics rather than tackling the problem.

Continually, budget allocations to the Ministry of Women and Child Development are reduced. Debates to ensure equal power sharing between the sexes through the Women's Reservation Bill have gone nowhere.

But no amount of violence and intimidation is going to force women back into their homes. In fact, homes are often the places where females are in the most danger -- from the time they are conceived to old age. An average Indian female could likely be a victim of foeticide, infanticide, malnourishment, dowry, child marriage, maternal mortality, domestic servitude, prostitution, rape, honor killings and domestic violence -- simply because she is female.

Equipped with better education, women are courageously taking their place in the public sphere as doctors, lawyers, journalists, bankers, politicians, farmers, teachers and more. They are signing up for social justice movements to end the growing inequality and unemployment in our country.

As yet another gang-rape victim suffers in a Mumbai hospital in India, we have to recognize the need to overhaul the criminal justice system.

In December 2012, India and the world were shocked by the brutal gang rape and beating aboard a moving bus of a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who later died of massive internal injuries. It prompted desperate calls for reform, protests and close examination of India's attitudes toward rape.

But after the initial outrage, it seems that the law has only changed on paper. The rape in Mumbai might not have happened if the culture of rape was truly overcome and sexual assaults were taken seriously.

Sexual harassment in India: 'The story you never wanted to hear'

American college student Michaela Cross struggles to describe her time studying abroad in India. She says it was full of adventures and beauty but also relentless sexual harassment, groping and worse.

(CNN) -- Michaela Cross, an American student at the University of Chicago, has written a powerful account of her study abroad trip to India last year, during which she says she experienced relentless sexual harassment, groping and worse.

Upon her return, she says she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and is now on a mental leave of absence from the school after a public breakdown in the spring.

Cross, a fair-skinned, red-haired South Asian studies major, titled her story "India: The Story You Never Wanted to Hear." She posted her account on CNN iReport under the username RoseChasm.

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Her story has struck a chord around the world, racking up more than 800,000 page views as of Wednesday morning. It quickly found its way to India, where many readers sympathized with the story and men felt compelled to apologize for the experience she endured. Others called for greater perspective and warned against making generalizations about India or its people.

Reaction: Indian women feel sorrow, anger at U.S. student's harassment claims

India's deadly gang rape of a 23-year-old woman in New Delhi happened a few days after Cross left India in December, and she said that helped others understand what she and her classmates went through. The country has continued to see several high-profile cases of rape and sexual violence cases since then, and the government has introduced tougher laws and punishment for sexual crimes.

Keeping chivalry alive in India: Men respond to rape crisis

On her return, Cross struggled to find a way to talk about a cultural experience that was both beautiful and traumatizing, she said in her essay.

She writes:

"Do I tell them about our first night in the city of Pune, when we danced in the Ganesha festival, and leave it at that? Or do I go on and tell them how the festival actually stopped when the American women started dancing, so that we looked around to see a circle of men filming our every move?

"Do I tell them about bargaining at the bazaar for beautiful saris costing a few dollars a piece, and not mention the men who stood watching us, who would push by us, clawing at our breasts and groins?

"When people compliment me on my Indian sandals, do I talk about the man who stalked me for 45 minutes after I purchased them, until I yelled in his face in a busy crowd?"

"How it feels to be a woman in India"

Later, she writes: "For three months I lived this way, in a traveler's heaven and a woman's hell. I was stalked, groped, masturbated at; and yet I had adventures beyond my imagination. I hoped that my nightmare would end at the tarmac, but that was just the beginning."

A university spokesman confirmed Cross is a student at the school and would not comment on her mental leave. He said the school is committed to students' safety at home and abroad.

Cross said she didn't say anything to the professors on the trip until things reached "a boiling point" -- what she called two rape attempts in 48 hours.

Should solo female travelers avoid India?

Dipesh Chakrabarty, a University of Chicago professor who was in India for the first three weeks of the session, told CNN that he was unaware of Cross' situation. He noted, though, that the university tries to prepare students for what they might encounter while abroad. The Civilizations Abroad in India program was based in the city of Pune, but the students traveled to other areas during the semester.

"Both faculty and staff in Chicago and our local Indian staff counsel students before and during the trip about precautions they need to take in a place like India," Chakrabarty said in an e-mail. "Ensuring student safety and well-being is the top priority of both the College and staff and faculty associated with the program."

The university provided this statement to CNN:

"Nothing is more important to us at the University of Chicago than caring for the safety and well-being of our students, here in Chicago and wherever they go around the world in the course of their studies. The University offers extensive support and advice to students before, during and after their trips abroad, and we are constantly assessing and updating that preparation in light of events and our students' experiences. We also place extremely high value on the knowledge our students seek by traveling and studying other civilizations and cultures, and we are committed to ensuring they can do so in safety while enriching their intellectual lives."

From India: A different view

Her story sparked a wave of reaction online, with scores of Indians responding, many with sympathy to her plight and pointing out that Indian women also experience high levels of harassment and abuse.

Arvind Rao, a media professional in Mumbai, was moved to post this comment on her story: "It thoroughly disgusts me to be known as an Indian male ... An apology is extremely meager for all the trauma you've gone through." He expressed hope that politicians would "wake up and implement stricter laws against crime and sexual harassment on women."

"Every time my girlfriend goes out alone, I pray that she comes back home safely," wrote a commenter using the name Jajabar. "Being an Indian male, I apologize."

Others, however, observed that sexual harassment was by no means confined to India, and Indian commenter Sam1967 warned against condemning his home country when so many others failed to protect the women living within their borders.

"I accept what happened was definitely an embarrassment and a cause of trauma for her that might haunt her for the rest of her life. But this has happened in many other countries or places and therefore it may not be the right thing to single out India."

'She could have been me': Action urged after Delhi gang rape

Another woman who said she was on the same University of Chicago sponsored trip to India, posted a response on CNN iReport calling on people to resist stereotyping Indian men and recognize that sexual assault happens all over the world.

The student, Katherine Stewart, said she dealt with her own share of harassment on the trip, but "in my experiences in India, I have met a solid handful of warm and honest Indian men -- men who are also college students, men who also love the thrill of riding on a motorcycle in the busy streets, men who defended me at necessary times, and men who took the time to get to know me and my culture. And that should not at all be surprising."

Stewart said she believed Cross "had every right to tell her story" and in no way wanted to lessen the significance of her experience. But Stewart, who is black, cautioned that "when we do not make the distinction that only some men of a population commit a crime, we develop a stereotype for an entire population. And when we develop a negative stereotype for a population, what arises? Racism."

One thing is certain: Cross sparked a huge discussion with a story that she thought no one wanted to hear. She said she is thankful for her experiences in India, and wants to see more international exposure about what women travelers and residents endure.

"Truth is a gift, a burden, and a responsibility. And I mean to share it," she writes. "This is the story you don't want to hear when you ask me about India. But this is the story you need."