PHOENIX -- A woman says police could have prevented her sexual assault by taking her home or to a police station instead of dropping her off at a nearby Circle K after her friend was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving.

The woman, who 5 Investigates is identifying only as Stacey, her first name, said she doesn't remember much of what happened that night.

She does remember drinking four or five rum and Cokes, a couple of shots of liquor and at least three more mixed drinks with rum, tequila and Grand Marnier.

"I don't remember anything up until I sat up and looked out the window and saw my friend on the opposite side of the street being handcuffed," she said.

Stacey doesn't remember when police arrested her friend Moses Esquivel on suspicion of driving under the influence. She doesn't remember the police officer asking what was wrong with her as she sat slumped in the squad car.

"She was slightly coherent," Esquivel said. "You could tell she was going in and out of consciousness."

The officer drove the pair 2 1/2 miles down the road to a Circle K convenience store, and dropped Stacey off.

She found a ride home with two strangers -- a man and a woman.

"The next thing I remember was being put in this abandoned house and sitting in a chair in this open dark room," Stacey said. "I was texting my friend. I remember texting him when I first came to. I was scared … I tried to go to the door and get out but it was locked from the outside, or I was too out of it to even open the door."

Stacey said she was sexually assaulted at the Mesa home that night.

Donel, Stacey's mother, called her daughter's experience "unconscionable."

"It should have been prevented. Absolutely," Donel said. "There were a lot of things that officer could have done different that night."

Representatives from the Tempe Police Department refused to answer questions on-camera; however, they said Stacey was able to carry on a conversation, knew where she was and had a cell phone that night.

"I find it astonishing that these guys did what they did. They have a duty -- they took an oath and they certainly did not carry it out," said former Scottsdale police Officer Jess Torrez.

Torrez works as a private investigator and consultant who investigates police wrongdoing.

The only indication of how drunk Stacey was comes from tests paramedics ran following her sexual assault.

At 5 a.m., her blood alcohol content was 0.235 percent. Rough calculations based on the rate at which women metabolize ethanol put her BAC at nearly 0.3 percent -- almost four times the legal limit -- when Tempe police dropped her off at the Circle K.

"I'm surprised (the officer) didn't call fire, as drunk as (Stacey) was," Torrez said. "At a 0.3, she probably couldn't even understand. She's not coherent. She couldn't understand the English language."

Surveillance video from the Circle K shows Stacey walking in and out of the store barefoot.

Tempe police said they left Stacey at the store because it had a security officer, but surveillance footage shows the officer chasing her out of the store.

"I'm surprised the security guard did not call the police again, but then again, you have a guy that's got 16 hours' training at best, and the police just dumped her off there, so he's thinking, 'I can't call the police,'" Torrez said.

Not a single major Valley police department has a policy on how officers should deal with drunken passengers when making DUI arrests. All rely on the officer's judgment.

"They can't write a policy for every situation that comes out, but we all know this is about public safety," Torrez said. "You're in the public safety business, and they failed in regard to this young woman."

Donel agreed.

"If this is their procedure, then it needs to change because someone else is going to be a victim because of them," she said.

Mesa police investigated Stacey's sexual assault, but no arrests have been made. The male suspect was cleared, but police are still looking for the woman, who is actually the one accused of the assault.

No matter what happens, Stacey believes the police are ultimately responsible.

"I know for a fact they did do something wrong," she said. "It never should have happened. Nothing like this should have happened."