Yeah, exactly, you can clearly see in the video where the good boys are trying to resist her, but she’s too strong, too powerful, they were completely under her control. What a nut!
I have a headache now.
i hope their parents are proud.
really.
because i’m nauseated.
i’m SO glad that torture, rape, objectification, degradation and permanent emotional scars are reserved for the unpopular girls.
i mean, somebody think of the cheerleaders!
Not to spoil EasyPhil’s racial rant, but the victim in the Central Park Jogger case was also beaten with extreme viciousness and put into an extended coma. So the degree of the crime was greater.* Which still doesn’t explain why so many people are lining up in support of these sleazebags.
*lest we forget, the original suspects in this case apparently were innocent, or at least off committing other less serious crimes in the park while someone else did the rape and beating.
Not to long ago, Dateline and 48 Hours did a story of 4 teenage girls who committed armed robbery in Texas. They came from rich suburbia, lived in huge houses and went to an upscale school. They decided to commit armed robbery for the thrill of it.
This story hits two national newsmagazines for long segments. Both start out with “They came from such good families; they were good kids”
Because being rich in suburbia automatically makes you & your family good, right?
That’s my problem this kind of broadcasting. If you’re poor and live in poverty, your “bad”. You’re more likely to commit crimes!
Right.
If the perp were my boy (in another 3-4 years? shudder!) I don’t know what - if anything - I would be saying to the media.
But I would be EXTREMELY surprised if I were to consider him “a good boy” in my mind.
I am not saying I would be unable to forgive him, but I can hardly imagine how disappointed and disgusted I would be at hiis behavior, and how devastated I would be at having contributed to the raising of such vermin.
But that’s just me.
I see it more as rich vs poor than white vs non-white too.
I’ll be very surprised to see the wealthiest of these assholes do any serious jail time. The guy who dropped out of school, joine d the Army reserves & has a criminal record? he’ll go to jail with a few felonies. The kid whos parents owned the house? Probation.
I don’t know, remember Robert Chambers, the preppy rapist? Then again, he raped & killed a rich girl.
Yes, your 2nd sentence certain confirms the 1st. Happy McTeeth and Toupee O’Rugadug love going over to “Sunny” Stormy Cloudburst for a look at what the DOPPLER 10,000,000,000 with SKYCAM RADAR! have to say. “Stormy? Gonna be another cold one tonight?”
“That’s right Happy. Temps will drop below zero again. In January. This has never happened before.”
Cold weather is GOLDEN! as far as most local news goes. Local news digs weather reports because people will watch. It’s news that immediately effects you. Plus the script is written already. Flood = family lost house. Snow= cars crashing on interstate. Tornado= :smashie: house.
Not to say a gang rape wouldn’t have led even the most tornado-ridden newscast. But weather brings in the viewers, and its sexier than city board meetings.
-Myron
On the issue of white and non-white perpetrators, it seems to me that one of the biggest inconsistencies in media portrayals and public sentiment in general seems to revolve about the ways in which such crimes are taken as indicative (or not, as the case may be) of a more general malaise.
Frequently, if a bunch of similar crimes are committed by African-Americans, the media uses it an an excuse to delve into the more general problem of “the black family,” or “black culture,” or “the hip-hop mentality,” or whatever.
But when the perps are white, the cases are dealt with on a more individual level. Sure, after Columbine and other school shootings there was much talk about the general problem of violence in schools. But you rarely, if ever, heard anyone worrying that these crimes were indicative of the general state of “white families” or “white culture.” If all the shooters in those cases had been black, i’m just trying to imagine the racial hysteria that might have enveloped certain sections of the media and the public.
And on the more general level of the rich/non-rich, white/ non-white question, it seems to me that what is often left out in looking for a dichotomy is the whole man/woman question. Sure, everyone agrees that a crime like this is horrible, but i think we need to go further and ask what it says about gender relations in our society. Because a person needs to have developed a very particular set of attitudes toward women in order to be able to carry out such a crime. Maybe we ought to be asking more about what teenage boys think of the opposite sex, and where such attitudes come from, if we want to understand the obvious and very troubling hatred of women that emerges in a crime like this.
Of course, the excuses won’t be complete until at least one of them allegedly finds Christ, then blames his actions on the perverted, immoral, and corrupting influence of Internet pornography.
I won’t call these guys ‘animals’, because it would be an insult to the animal kingdom to be slandered so.
What these ‘good kids’ need right about now is a healthy formative experience to help them understand right and wrong. I’m thinking a coupla decades of jail apiece would fit the bill rather well.
Holy Lynch Mob Batman!!
Have any of you seen this video? Have these “monsters” who you are ready to castrate, rape, brutalize, demonize, etc. been convicted of the crime in question?
No.
I think Jarbaby was commenting on the stupid bitch who wanted to slander the victim; I don’t believe she was acting as judge and jury in re the rape.
Let the good people of Cook County find justice before you all go after them with torches and pitchforks.
Which is worse - the fucking mob mentality that defends these young men as saints or the one that damns them to hell before they’ve been tried in court?
You, are of course, correct, leander. However, it does seem from all the media coverage i’ve seen of this issue (and i’ve looked at more than just the links provided on this thread) that no-one, not even the defendants’ attorneys, are denying that a crime took place. The key strategy seems to be to say what good boys the defendants are, and/or to claim that at least one of them has been misidentified from the video.
While the existence of the videotape has not yet proved anything or convicted anyone, its existence and the lack of denials that a crime occurred suffice, i think, for at least the general level of discussion that has been carried on in this thread. My own post, for example, was designed as a more general comment on attitudes to crime. And i think that, in cases like this, the implied (though often absent) words that accompany people’s posts are: “If this is true, then…”
If it all turns out to be a big hoax, or these kids turn out to be innocent, i’ll be the first to eat crow (or crow-fu[sup]TM[/sup], if you please - i’m a vegetarian 
)
Word on the street here in the Windy City is that they will be releasing the tape to media outlets. ICKY.
:eek: Jar
That will SURE help the victim.
I don’t think I’ve EVER posted anything simply for shock value, Din. Life’s too short.
‘National Newspapers’ are typically thought of as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and (God help us) USA Today. That is…newspapers with significant national coverage in terms of sales and news content.
And I mean every bit of it. One of the nasty little secrets of the media is that…no matter what happens, newsworthy or not, a paper must fill up 85 pages and a radio news show must fill 2 hours. If there’s not enough hard news they’ll run something like this sort of story to cause some hand wringing.
OK, that’s too harsh. It’s a story that would generate some interest when people see it. I’ve always called this form of story the 'Well! I do declare!" story.
As I said, automatic coverage of this sort of thing is normally a province of county papers or large city papers if the crime occurs in the borders. But this sort of story has very little interest (other than indignation) outside the immediate area.
Waverly, please. Don’t insult Vikings like that.
Did anyone find this statement in the linked story by the county supervisor vaguely disturbing?
I’m sure he intended to understate for effect and I’ve certainly done enough of that but what those four creatures did is not what I’d call “fun and games.”
I’m also bothered by a dichotomy. I got the impression from the story that boys who drunk and partying were good kids who were having a good time, while a girl who’s drunk and partying is in some way inherently immoral. Sorry, I’m not buying that double standard, although the way the board’s being for me tonight, I might need a double scotch.
This is disgusting, appalling, and depressing. Maybe I’m flashing back too much to my own experience in a nice, upper-middle class suburban high school, but what those boys are experiencing is nothing compared to what they put the girl through. Whoever raped her and videotaped it, or even stood by while this was going on has just disqualified themself from the human race in my book. I am truly appalled.
CJ
cjhoworth: are the Saxons and Romans still fair game, or are all ancient cultures off limits for satire?
I am not a parent, but I am getting married soon so the concept of parenthood down the road has been on my mind a lot lately.
Reading this thread, I wonder about the parents’ seemingly blind responses about their kids-- I see this sort of thing so often, where a parent defends the indefensible-- and I wonder whether I could do that if I ended up in a similar situation with my son/daughter. I mean, you’re supposed to love your children unconditionally, right?? But if I saw a videotape of my son committing a felony like this?
I’d send him right up the river.
At least, I’d like to think I could do that-- say “Son, I love you, but you have chosen to throw your life down the toilet and I can’t save you-- not only that, but I don’t want to save you.” But it’s probably far more difficult than I can comprehend. Every parent invests so much of themselves in the aspirations of their children. And I suppose there’s an instinct to do anything-- anything– to save your offspring from harm. Maybe I’ll understand better when I have kids.
Hmmmm. With a name like “Howorth” I’m pretty definitely Saxon way back when . . . Ok, ok! Go back to the Vikings.
There should have been a smiley at the end of the first paragraph of my first post, but I’m afraid I sort of lost my sense of humour as I thought about things. There should also be a smiley after the line about needing a double scotch. Sorry if I came across as genuinely offended. I’m afraid my brain is still rebelling against the idea that something like this could happen.
CJ
FWIW, one of the charges deals with child pornography, and the victim is a juvenile. I seriously doubt that this tape is going to be released to the media, or to anyone for that matter. They went through this with R.Kelly, nobody is going to release child porn to any media outlets. It’s wrong, and it’s illegal.
Well, in truth, I’d be willing to bet that some of the local media already has a copy of the tape. They’re just trying to figure out how they can use it.