Quote:
Originally Posted by Kobi
*trigger warning*
Just as the season was gearing up late last summer, two Big Red football players were accused of participating in the rape of a 16-year-old intoxicated girl with friends documenting the alleged crime through cellphone pictures and video. The social media frenzy took on a life of its own, with reports going as far as calling the incident a "gang-rape" of an unconscious girl. In reality, prosecutors contend that Trent Mays, 17, and Ma'lik Richmond, 16, used their hands to penetrate her while she was too drunk to consent, By Ohio law, such a crime constitutes rape, as it does in many places...
"She was just like laughing, we were all talking, just clowning around and that's when her ex-boyfriend was like, 'Let me get a picture of this drunk B. And that's when we took the picture," Ma'lik told ABC News...
They brought her to the hospital Aug. 13, more than 24 hours after the incident. By then, she had already showered and her clothes from that night had been washed. No physical evidence of a rape was recovered.
Nevertheless, 10 days after the alleged assault, on the strength of the witness accounts, Ma'lik Richmond and Trent Mays were arrested in the middle of the night and charged with rape and kidnapping (the kidnapping charge was later dropped.) Trent was also charged with disseminating child pornography for texting naked photos of the underage alleged victim.
When the trial commences Wednesday, there will be no jury involved. Instead, a juvenile judge will decide the fates of Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, who face incarceration in a detention center until their 21st birthdays and the almost-certain demise of their dreams of playing football.
http://gma.yahoo.com/steubenville-ra...opstories.html |
This is why this case and the discussions around it disgust me so deeply. The scare quotes around "gang rape" in the bolded section above set the tone for the rest of the article. By law, any nonconsensual penetration is rape. Period. But in this POS article it's just a little harmless fingering of an unconscious girl. By a few football players. Who would call that "gang rape"?
One of the rapists goes on to say that the ex who took one of the most damning photos called her a drunk B. He later contends that she was consenting. How does she get to consent when she's a drunk B? I'm really touched that he claims to have given her his coat to "cover her up".
And besides some very damning photos and videos, there's no physical evidence of rape. Because rape only happens when semen is deposited in a vagina. Let's put more scare quotes around "rape" again. It was
just fingering. And those poor boys were charged "nevertheless".
The final paragraph ratchets up even more sympathy for the rapists. They face the almost certain demise of their football playing dreams. Those poor boys. What a pity!