What a mess. The whole things makes me so sad. I don’t know who/what depressed me more:
The 16-year old victim, who it sounds like drank (or was drugged) so much that she’s lucky she’s still alive.
The many, many party attendees who posted pictures and sent texts as it was happening. A girl being dragged unconscious and having naked pictures of her (at the very LEAST) broadcast to the word is a source of amusement?
I can somewhat see the boys being protective of each other, but surely there were girls at these parties, none of whom felt sympathetic enough to seek help?
The kid who was caught on video saying that the victim was dead. Deader than a doornail. Deader than (insert lame joke). He was in hysterics about it. He wasn’t remotely concerned that she was passed out and quite possibly, hysterically, dead. His glee curdles my stomach.
The assistant coach who threw the party and assisted in getting everyone drunk.
Half the town’s population being so starved for entertainment that they attend a high school football game.
Women are just as good at enforcing the double gender standard and justifying rape by the popular boys as men are, maybe more so. I presume you’ve never had to live in one of these worthless bumfuck towns where high school or college football is the center of the universe. This is the way things are. The team runs everything, the team can rape and pillage at will, and if you’re not on board you will find yourself the next victim pretty soon.
Finally saw this on Yahoo.com’s homepage newsfeed yesterday. Maybe now this will get some traction in the national media and some justice will be done.
This is confusion left over from my original post. The story I read (which was corrected later) got the woman in Louisville mixed up with the Steubenville case. In Louisville the perps got a walk and the woman was almost arrested for Tweeting their names. Certainly something to be angry about, but as far as I know, ANON did not get involved. That the Louisville woman did not have to go to jail is a small condolence for her experience, so I suppose Louisville is a bit better than Afghanistan where they stone or burn raped women.
Essentially the legal community of Steubenville is recusing itself. The State of Ohio has taken over the case. There is still at least a chance justice will be done, unlike the Louisville case.
Uhhh…I guess you don’t know: FWIW is an acronym that means “for whatever it’s worth.” Now that you know that, know this as well: condescenion and ignorance are never a good mix.
Victims can’t ask. The local prosecutor has to request the appointment of a special prosecutor (who in this case will apparently be the Attorney General).
True. I don’t think that necessarily warrants ruining the rest of their lives, as has been suggested, though.
It looks like that’s already happened. I don’t know if the victim or her family requested it, or the State’s Attorney office heard about it and took over, or the local/county law enforcement asked them in, but it’s almost certainly for the best that they are involved.
I don’t think anyone is advocating for “ruining their lives” in some coordinate, external way. But when you choose to pass around videos and commentary gleefully bragging about the rape of unconscious girl, people are going to come to their own conclusions. I’m not sure how it could be otherwise.
Even in the very implausible case of these guys being completely innocent, they have shown grossly poor judgment and a sociopathic approach to a horrific crime. There is absolutely nothing wrong with judging people by what they put on the internet. Billions of men manage to go through life without passing around disgusting, psychopath level videos and commentary about anally raping and urinating on a passed out high school student. If you somehow can’t manage to get through your teen years without doing that, why would you expect to be treated the same as people who have passed that basic test of human decency?
Seems like a lot of confusion in this thread, or maybe it is just me. According to the nytimes article, I’m understanding that:
The accused rapists are not the ones who did the videotaping, bragging, or joking about rape. Those were different people who are not accused of rape. The videos of bragging and joking are by people who were not present when the rape occurred.
There were witnesses to the rape, but they did not brag or joke about it… they seem to have becomes witnesses for the prosecution.
The accused rapists are awaiting a trial set for Feb 13.
I may be misunderstanding the article, but it seems there is a good chance the rapists will be convicted as they should be, on the testimony of their friends who saw them do it.
They did something bad that could well impact the rest of that young lady’s life. And they were asses about it (talk about understatements). This info has gone public and will probably haunt THEM for the rest of their lives.
Tough shit jerk assed guys. You deserve it. And I hope a fair number of adults/officials involved in this crap go down big time (and I say this as somebody who thinks a fair fraction of rape claims are bullshit, a vaguely implied no is not a NO, and a woman who is a bit drunk but decides to have sex isn’t that much of a victim).
Yeah, the OP is a train wreck and conflated two seperate events. You are correct, but there are a couple of other important points:
The coach refused to bench any of the players who were accused to be involved;
The Sherriff is good friends with the coach, his department assisted in collecting electronic devices that apparently had photos and video evidence, but while in the shef. department’s custody, this evidence was ‘accidentally’ erased.
Per the NY Times article and other reports, some in the town feel that the football team has been out of control and allowed to get away with it.
Others have come forward and alleged that the police in Steubenville have tried to talk them out of pursuing rape charges against sports stars
Some of the parties took place at the homes of coaches, which would suggest an enabling culture among these staff.