Editor’s note: The events detailed in the following story may be triggering to some readers. The report released by the Eugene Police Department describes the rape allegations involving former Oregon basketball players Damyean Dotson, Dominic Artis and Brandon Austin. For more information on this story, check out our topics page.
News broke Monday evening when three members of the Oregon men’s basketball team were suspended from team activities because of their alleged involvement in the rape of a University of Oregon woman. Sophomore guard Damyean Dotson is currently under investigation by the university. Sophomore Dominic Artis and freshman Brandon Austin were also allegedly involved, however they are not under investigation.
The news came after the Eugene Police Department released a 24-page police detailing out a series of incidents that occurred in the early hours of March 9 at the home of basketball player Johnathan Loyd and the apartment where Dotson and Artis live.
Eugene police interviewed eight individuals and obtained phone recordings between the survivor and two of the men.
Over the course of 12 separate interviews, two separate incidents inside a bathroom during a party and one more at an apartment leased to Dotson and Artis was detailed. The interviews contain inconsistent details.
On April 14, the district attorney decided not to press charges on behalf of the state, citing “insufficient evidence to prove charge(s) beyond a reasonable doubt.” The same report also states that “while there is no doubt the incidents occurred (sic), the conflicting statements and actions by the victim make this case unprovable as a criminal case.”
UOPD officer John Loos first met with the survivor on March 14, nearly a week after the events took place. UOPD communications officer Kelly McIver says Loos was in field training at the time and reported to EPD instead of UOPD. It’s standard protocol for city police to handle cases that happen off campus.
What We Know
On Friday, March 7, the survivor and a friend met Oregon guard Joseph Young while scouting out apartments. One of the women recognized him. “[The survivor] and Young then exchanged phone numbers after a short conversation, and then went their separate ways,” the report says.
The next night, the survivor attended a party on 1975 Onyx St. before police arrived just after midnight to shut it down. She drank before the party and during. The survivor and Young texted about another party happening three blocks south at Loyd’s house. The survivor and her friend arrived at Loyd’s home just after midnight.
Dotson, Artis and Austin were all present at Loyd’s house. At some point, Dotson, Artis and Austin convinced the survivor to go into a bathroom. None of their accounts say she was forced into the bathroom.
“I had no idea what room we were going into. Then there were three of us in a small bathroom and I thought it was strange,” the survivor told Loos in his initial report. “I thought, maybe this is just what happens in college… just college fun.”
Once inside the bathroom, Dotson and Austin asked the survivor to dance and took her phone. At some point, sexual acts occurred. Artis was not in the bathroom initially.
Artis later entered the bathroom and the acts continued. As the party wound down around 1:30 a.m., the survivor’s friend began to head home. In her report, the survivor said she was strong-armed into staying with the three men, alleging that Austin put her in a sort of chokehold. Players denied this occurred. In an interview, a friend of the survivor recalls spending roughly 20 minutes arguing with the survivor and the men trying to get her to leave with them. The friend told the survivor that Dotson was “not a nice guy.”
In the same report, the friend mentions that she had never been around the survivor while she’d been drinking, so she couldn’t say for certain how the survivor handled alcohol.
The survivor, the three players and a fourth man — who Artis identified as fellow Oregon basketball player Richard Amardi — entered an Oregon Taxi and drove to an apartment leased to Artis and Dotson.
Soaked from the rain, the woman asked for dry clothes. Artis provided her with a sweatshirt and a pair of shorts. The survivor and the four men — Artis, Dotson, Austin and an unidentified man, who Artis and Dotson said was not a teammate, entered Artis’ room where the woman was again assaulted.
“I think I just gave up,” the survivor told Loos. “I let them do whatever they wanted, I just wanted it to be over and to go to sleep.”
During the incident, she began to cry. That’s when the three men stopped and leave the room. She gathered herself and went into the living room where Dotson and Austin were playing video games. She talked with Artis on the couch, then she and Artis went into his room and fell asleep until approximately 8 a.m.
In reports given by the basketball players, the woman again had sex with Artis in the morning after waking up. Her first reports made no mention of this. When the police learned about it after interviewing Dotson and Artis, they followed up with the survivor. She said she partly remembered. Her initial reports mention taking a taxi home that next morning, then making plans to see Young.
When the survivor arrived at Young’s apartment, she found Artis and Dotson playing video games in the living room and confronted them about the previous night. Artis told investigators he tried to reason with her, but she insisted that she felt like she had been taken advantage of. The survivor then says she met up with Young and the two went into his room where they eventually had consensual sex.
Loos asked the survivor if she wanted to press charges. Loos’ report states that the survivor initially said she wanted the players to receive something like “a slap on the wrist” and that she didn’t “want to ruin their lives.” Loos asked her to clarify whether that meant producing the report or actually pressing charges, to which she said, “Probably both.”
The survivor did not file a report with EPD until March 13, though her father contacted UOPD shortly after the incident. She said UOPD reached out, but she never picked up the phone. “I was really mad at my dad,” she told Loos. “I wanted to report it, but on my own time.”
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