California High School Student, 15 Years Old, Gang-Raped for Over Two Hours While a Crowd Watched
UPDATED: This is the most brutal, savage, inhuman crime I have read about it in a long time. In addition to the individuals who were directly involved, a crowd of witnesses gathered to watch for almost the entire time the girl was being raped, and did nothing. According to this CNN report, some of them participated:
A California high school student who police said was gang raped in a two-and-a-half-hour assault outside a homecoming dance remained hospitalized in stable condition Monday, two days after she was flown from the attack scene in critical condition.
As of late Monday, two suspects had been arrested in the case and a third was being questioned.
“There is one individual in custody who has made some spontaneous statements that have led me to believe that he is culpable for what happened,” Richmond police Lt. Johan Simon said.
Nineteen-year-old Manuel Ortega, described as a former student at the school, was arrested soon after he fled the scene and will face charges of rape, robbery and kidnapping, police said.
A 15-year-old was later arrested and charged with one count of felony sexual assault. A third teenager was being interviewed, according to Lt. Mark Gagan of the police department in Richmond, California.
Melissa McEwan is the only other blogger writing about this so far, which is shocking and upsetting in and of itself:
This, via a whole bunch of Shakers, though Elle was the first to send it to me late last night, is one of the most profoundly upsetting stories that’s come across my desk, so to speak, in five years of blogging. I couldn’t even get through reading the details of the case without sobbing.
The details are these [again, strong trigger warning]: A fifteen-year-old girl was brutally gang-raped for more than two hours by at least four assailants, each of whom committed multiple sexual assaults, while as many as 15 other young men stood and watched, and not a single one of them called police or in any way helped the victim.
The attack happened on school grounds during a high school Homecoming Dance, and as witnesses went back in, they would tell other young men, who went out to watch and/or participate. Police were called after someone overheard people who had attended the assault scene “reminiscing about the incident,” and found the victim just before midnight, lying under a bench where her rapists had abandoned her, unconscious and in critical condition.
I just don’t understand how human beings can do such things. My mind and my heart just can’t take it in. With regard to the victim of this atrocity, I’ll just quote Melissa, because I can’t say it better than she did:
I really can’t begin to sufficiently convey my profound compassion for the survivor of this inhuman assault, my sadness at thinking about what enormous work her recovery will be, my grief, my anguish, my terror that no one helped her, my fervent wish for justice.
May she be given strength and love in a struggle that will last the rest of her life.
UPDATE: I just saw that Michael Stickings (at The Reaction) and Larisa Alexandrovna (At-Largely) have posted on this story.
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The bystanders should be charged as well under what ever applicable laws there are.
Aiding & abetting in a felony sounds like a good start
What have we become, and what the hell are we teaching our children?
I agree, paca — and I think that's why (or at least part of why) the police are working to track down everyone who was there, whether they directly took part in the rape or not.
It's a good question. I ask myself how young men become capable of such things — who teaches them, and how? It's very worrisome. Also, as the mother of a young woman only five years older than the victim, I keep on visualizing her in that scene, and it's upsetting beyond words. How I would feel if something like that happened to her. How the girl's parents must feel right now.
This is one of those stories that makes me just want to quit. The heart, it weeps…
It is difficult to know what to say about the attackers. The savagery that we as humans still are capable of is scary at times. As a reality check, though, this is what has been happening in Africa for years now while the world turns a blind eye. At least here it is so far out of the norm that we are shocked, and do take notice.
As to the bystanders, shades of Kitty Genovese all over again.
“What have we become, and what the hell are we teaching our children?”
There is no collective “we” here. Those of us to whom this is alien are in no way implicated.
Yes, there is (as conservatives complained about in particular during the last decade) a decline overall and “vulgarization” of society, but this is distinct, an underclass situation similar to that in Chicago metro which involved a worse crime (murder). Note the location: Richmond. (Well, if you have lived in or paid attention while visiting, to the Bay Area, you'd understand — it's a violent place like nearby Oakland.)
I'm sure the young men were just aping what they saw on MTV day in and day out. Violence, gang mentality, subjegation of women is what those videos are all about, nonstop. Monkey see, monkey do.
Don't wonder where people get twisted ideas from. You know damn well it's monkey see, monkey do..
Sad story, but I honestly don't have a take beyond that, which is why I haven't blogged it.
It's much worse than the Kitty Genovese case, as bad as that was. The bystanders in that case were truly bystanders who heard the screams and saw the attack and did nothing to stop it, but also did not do anything to take part in it. In this rape, the crowd was actually created by people (students) repeatedly going back in to the school building to tell others about the exciting event taking place outside, and that's how the crowd grew. As well as the fact that some members of the crowd actually then started raping the girl, too.
Another way of putting this is that the witnesses in the Kitty Genovese case were separate and distinct from the crime itself. In what happened in California, the crowd was actually part of the crime.
“There is no collective “we” here. Those of us to whom this is alien are in no way implicated.”
I have so much anger at this statement that I think I need to leave this thread now.
What is becoming of the American soul?. . .
if one cannot feel the “we” in this, then i would gently suggest one is living in too small box. . .
I don't know if she'd posted this since you wrote that only one other blogger had posted about this, but there's a post at http://bigsole.blogspot.com/2009/10/gang-rape-i… (3:25pm)and she references one at BlogHer (10:50 am) http://www.blogher.com/fairy-tale-homecoming-no…
Agreed. Which is why I said shades. This was a mob-mentality action.
“I just don’t understand how human beings can do such things.”
“What is becoming of the American soul?”
“What have we become”
Those are exactly the right reactions. What have we become? Those who imagine themselves to be disconnected from this, who react with denial and dismissal have their heads (and hearts) deep in the sand. As if we don't already have enough sociopaths in society without breeding a new generation to take their place. This story makes me absolutely sick.
AW, thank you. I meant that no one linked from Memeorandum had posted about it. I'm so used to getting my blog reaction to news items from Memeorandum that I forget it doesn't necessarily feature all blogs that respond.
Roro, I completely understand and share your anger.
This was a mob-mentality action.
Exactly, yes. Thanks for clarifying.
Thank you, JSpencer. It makes me feel a little better when I read something like this.
Do you feel anything beyond that? I ask because it's very difficult, to say the least, for everyone here, and all decent people, to express what they feel, and how much they feel. That's healthy. It should be hard to find words adequate to express one's emotions at something as barbaric as this rape.
But we *do* feel something. Your statement, “Sad story, but I honestly don't have a take beyond that,” makes me wonder whether that's true of you. This is not a “sad story.” This is a horror story.
this is SURPRISING? to WHOME? its like when we get an economic report that 'surprises' to the downside. who are these micro-encephalic fools who are surprised when our depression-mired economy coughs up negative news, anyway? while we should be and are appalled by stories like this they are hardly surprises.
do you ever watch 'premium' cable channels? we have one of those three-free-month deals w/dish network right now. we're enjoying things like HBO[s] and showtime[s] … i hadn't realized just how bad things had gotten. i mean, i knew they were working on the 54th SAW movie and the 18th HOSTEL movie … but those are just the headliners. these channels are flooded with things that are every bit as bad, if not nearly so 'elegantly' produced. its a never-ending parade of hurt-them-and-make-them-bleed-and-watch-their-heads-fall-off-as-fake-blood-spurts-acroos-the-room festivities.
we flood the markets with video games that are literally simulators training kids to do all manner of vile things to other people and then we move onto motion pictures [or direct to video/DVD] with trash like this.
and we're surprised? news flash: there wouldn't be so many of these titles if there wasn't a highly lucrative market for them. think about that and what it says for our culture. but fear not … the producers like rob zombie who churn out all of this garbage are handed awards and money to churn out even more of it because, hey, they're making money on it and that after all is what matters.
There's a very high-profile gang rape-murder trial going on right here in Knoxville. Sadly, the Ku Klux Klan decided to make it a racial incident and held a “vigil” – the victims were white and the five assailants were black – when there was absolutely no evidence of racial intent. In fact, they were all high on crack cocaine and on a general crime spree.
DLS,
These kinds of incidents don't generally happen in bad neighborhoods in America – not to mention not-bad neighborhoods. The Africa example is apt – but that's amidst an atrocious guerrilla war. It happened in Bosnia and in countless other wars before that (I've heard horrid tales of Sudeten German women gang-raped by Czech and Soviet soldiers while being expelled from Czechoslovakia after WWII).
roro -
You said in reply to DLS's comment of “'There is no collective “we” here. Those of us to whom this is alien are in no way implicated.' I have so much anger at this statement that I think I need to leave this thread now.”
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I was offline for several hours. When I returned and read DLS's remark (in reply to my comment of all things) I was furious. Your comment couldn't have been more appropriate.
DLS, if you read this, you are wrong, dead wrong. How dare you excuse anyone as being “in no way implicated”? We are all implicated in what has become of our culture. Next time you go into one of your ad hominems about how those who disagree with you are “low IQ” morons, I'm throwing this one back at you. This may be the most offensive remark you have ever made here…and you've made a few. My suggestion: stop insulting other commenters and buy a f**king mirror.
Those are exactly the right reactions. What have we become?
We've become a lot less violent than we used to be. It's worth keeping in mind in reading about such an appalling event that we're deep down still a bunch of animals who have by some miracle succeeded in making violence like this much rarer than ever before in our million year history. We haven't become anything, because we used to be much worse.
It's dangerous to forget that. Start looking around for reasons–that is, people other than the perpetrators to blame–and you'll find some. “It's MTV,” you'll say. “Those Viacom executives. Some of them make *millions* a year! Causing violence like this! Kill them!” Talk about mob mentality. That's another historical legacy we're gradually overcoming, but it takes perseverance and forbearance.
Start looking around for reasons–that is, people other than the perpetrators to blame–and you'll find some.
Dr J, I'm sorry, but this is a “blinders-on” point of view. I agree that blaming something like this on a single factor, like video games, is foolish, but to suggest that a gang rape egged on by mob violence has no larger cultural, political, or sociological implications, beyond the individual acts involved, is just abject nonsense.
Tidbits wrote:
Because he is correct: those who were not at the scene are not guilty of the crimes committed therein. Those who have no contact with or knowledge of any of the perpetrators are not guilty by association. To reason other is unwise.
But, for a moment, let us walk that path. The young girl who had the misfortune of being targeted in this atrocity: is she also to be implicated of the crime committed against her? Perhaps the person that called the police should be brought in for trial. Maybe the police themselves. After all, they are a part of the society which allowed for the environment of her attack to exist.
No, of course not. I feel sorrow for the victim, and much anger at the attackers. But I do not feel guilt at something to which I not only had no idea was going to occur, but would have tried to stop to the best of my ability. And no amount of reasoning nor hypothesizing will achieve that.
DLS and I may be cold-hearted bastards, to you, for thinking along those lines… but, you know. Too bad
.
kathy wrote:
The country is quite a large place. Full of many, many different people. Surely you do not seem to suggest that, to a one, they in some way support this type of behaviour?
Life is full of outliers. So, too, is society. Sometimes, those outliers work for the betterment of humanity; others work specifically against. Luckily, the bell curve of applied ethics agrees with those of us who are angered by the latter. Perhaps, then, it is not the outlier that speaks for an entire culture, but instead the reaction it creates.
Life is full of outliers. So, too, is society.
That's the point — that this is not an “outlier.” Rape occurs all the time. Every single day. Probably multiple times every single day. Gang rape is not at all uncommon, either. The gang rape that happened in California stands out for its particularly horrible details, but rape itself is common.
Kindly do not misrepresent what I said.
What I said is that we are all responsible for what has become of our culture. I did not say, as you attempt to falsely misrepresent, that we are individually responsible for the specificl criminal act.
Here is the exact quote from my comment, copied and pasted to avoid any typos, “We are all implicated in what has become of our culture.”
Read it!! Do I anywhere say that we are responsible for the individual criminal act?
You are, however, correct about one thing. The insensitive attitude displayed by you and DLS is , to quote you, “cold hearted” and, I would add, inexcuseable.
In the future, if you wish to reply to one of my comments, begin by representing accurately what I said. If you are unable to do that much, you lose credibility…at least with me…and I suspect with others.
I will, no doubt in utter futility, await your apology.
to suggest that a gang rape… has no larger cultural, political, or sociological implications… is just abject nonsense.
I agree Kathy. I just said it's important to keep perspective.
I think it's natural to try to make sense out of a senseless act like this. Reminding ourselves of where humanity came from and the primitive instincts we overcome on our better days is a good way to do so. Not least because it makes us a little less hasty to convict the wrong suspect, such as video games or rap videos or adventure novels.
The glass was never full. It may be half-empty now, but it's fuller than it has ever been.
Tidbits wrote:
Tidbits, you will find that I am actually a quite caring person. Perhaps a bit different than the person I may come across on some random (though quite well-written) news blog. I've helped raise children, tried to mend hearts and bodies, and ache when someone is in pain. This, and other similar stories, do not exactly bring peace to my mind. On this, we are in agreement.
However, please do not read this as anger, but simple emphasis. My culture is not in line with mainstream America. My culture is not willing to accept blame for something it did not create nor condone. My culture has nothing to do with the culture of those that attacked that young girl. I was not raised to be like them. I do not associate with people like them. I will not raise others to be like them. Therefore, I will not be associated with them in any shape or form.
This is, unfortunately yet understandably, a heated topic for conversation. In the realm of letters, it's easy to assume one's tone in speech – even when such a tone doesn't exist at all. When there comes time for me to apologize for something that I have done in error, I shall. However, even in re-reading my response to you, I find it still holds its own weight to your original statement.
Perhaps the best course of action is to agree to disagree on each other's notion of culture. After all, if we take out that aspect, we both agree that the act was an atrocity, that the police should do all that they can, that we hope the victim can heal in some way in the future, and that we would never wish something like this on anyone. I would hope, in the future, that we focus on all those agreements rather than that one disagreement, eh?
Well, okay. I understand where you're coming from, maybe better than before. But I still think you're missing something very basic. I hesitate to go back to the Bible, since I think I'm a candidate for PTSD therapy with that subject right now; however, the lines from Ecclesiastes, starting “There is a time for… and a time for…” convey my thought right now very well. I'm sure you know the lines, if only from the Byrds' adaptation of it.
I agree that we need to keep perspective and remind ourselves of how much barbarity we have overcome as a species. Having said that, I think that today is not the day for that. I think there is a time for saying “Let's put this in perspective,” and there is a time for saying, “This is a nightmare, an atrocity beyond words, and it has me reeling and wanting to cry and just raging at the suffering, which feels unbearable to me.”
You can fill in your own words, there, but I hope you get my point — that it's appropriate to feel horror and grief with no equivocation for a certain amount of time before trying to be philosophical.
Figure it out. It's our America, not my America or your America or any of that parsing, pussyfooted BS. Either we're a country or we aren't a country. We've all heard the expression, “united we stand, divided we fall” eh? Guess what, WE are falling. OUR culture is suffering and Michael D did a pretty good job of pointing out why. OUR priorites as a country have been screwed up for a long time now. I'm guessing from some of the comments I read around here that's ok with some folks. Good grief…
No, this is not about agreeing to disagree, something I have done many times.
You misrepresented what I said. Period. That has nothing to do with your position on any underlying issue. When you misrepresent what someone said, take responsibility for having done so.
Your reply included the implication that I believe the girl should be held criminally responsible for her own rape. In your words, “The young girl who had the misfortune of being targeted in this atrocity: is she also to be implicated of (sic) the crime committed against her?” That is deeply and personally offensive! An apology is in order. I regret that you haven't the honor to offer one.
If you take responbsibility for having misrepresented my position, we can have a discussion about the underlying issues. Until then, you do not warrant the respect necessary for discussion of those issues. In my opinion, you are not only cold hearted and insensitive vis-a-vis the incident reported in the article, you are equally insensitive to your own faults and the offense you visit upon others with that insensitivity.
Meyers-Briggs groups people into F's (feeling) and T's (thinking), and the two probably process stories like this differently. You seem firmly in the former camp. As a T, I get philosophical sooner.
Even Meyers-Briggs isn't quite that anxious to put people into little boxes. Thinking and feeling aren't mutually exclusive. Many of us engage in both every day… even at the same time! Shocking no?
Dr J,
If I remember correctly from when I took Meyers-Briggs (it wasn't the official complete one; I took one of the versions online) I came out an IFNJ. So your hunch was right.
Thinking and feeling aren't mutually exclusive.
I *am* an IFNJ, though. Gotta give Dr J credit for getting that right.
Kathy, I too am horrified by this. I wish I knew what the participants in this horrendous act were thinking. I think we do have a certain number of sociopathic personalities in our culture — so de-sensitized to the feelings of other human beings. I don't like to “hang out” too much in the blogosphere because I see — on a smaller level — a kind of pervasive toxic anger where strangers find it easy to demean and diminish other strangers without a moment's hesitation. I see Bickus Dickuses (pardon my French) who get their yayas acting like childish jerks to inflate their own sense of self-importance (I guess) but they never stop to ask themselves “What if someone spoke to my mother or father this way? Or my own child?”
I found a blog post about this that spoke to me:
http://cbslocalblogs.prospero.com/n/blogs/blog….
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Hans Spee and TMV, Halloween Party City. Halloween Party City said: California High School Student, 15 Years Old, Gang-Raped for Over Two Hours … http://bit.ly/4C5OP4 [...]
This is an extended quote from the blog post that Leebot linked to: http://cbslocalblogs.prospero.com/n/blogs/blog….
The direct participants should, if found guilty, be hung by the neck until dead to discourage future actions of this sort. Punishment swift and sure is the answer to savagery. This won't happen of course, since we are now an enlightened society. The perpetrators will be given endless free legal aid and reframed as victims of societies prejudices, and demands for “humane” treatment if they are convicted.
Those who stood by and did nothing are a product of the success of sanitizing the schools of moral values. No prayer, no patriotism, no literature or thought than anyone finds offensive — secular and sterile values surround the young who are taught they are victims and it is ok to lash out at those 'clinging' to God and quaint morality. Both fall short of perfection but society adorns the Polanskis with rewards and reviles and ridicules the religious values of the Palins. A generation of secular humanism is bearing fruit.
When a young man sees a violent act toward a woman occurring before his eyes, what motivates him to action? Or to indifference? Where is your God now? Busy ensuring political correctness, non-offending speech codes, enjoining those condemning quaint notions of immorality — if it feels good, do it — so why get involved? Call the cops? The cops are the enemy, isn't that what the Free Mumia crowd teaches us? Pull a gun and make them stop the rape? The sophisticates don't cling to guns, they seek to outlaw them. What to do? Maybe remind them to wear condoms.
Unfortunately Kathy, this happened way too often where I grew up at (in inner city Detroit). Gangs routinely made gang rape initiation for would be female members. And it wasn't just the “guys” going the raping. Other “gals” participated as well. Unlike the insane crowd that watched this gang rape, I made sure I disappeared when folks started gathering in that “certain way”. And trying to tell folks was more fruitless than not. Frequently you heard, “That's what she gets” and “She wants to be down with them, then she gets down”. Sick, sad, disgusting, brutal, etc… This incident doesn't look like a gang initiation but it sure seems so similar.
So this is nothing new. As to why this happens. Too many reasons. But the only way to really stop this type of crime is to be deadly serious about stopping this. I'm no Rambo. I'm no soldier. And I'm a “peacenik” many times. But if I had my gun and I came upon this scene….. Well, there would be a situation.
My prayers for the girl, and for her family and friends as well. Also my prayers for those who were involved as participants or witnesses, may they learn to reform their ways. May justice be served, but may revenge be absent, and most of all, may something like this never occur again.
I'm with you on that, Leonidas, although only the miraculous grace of God could prevent something like this from occurring again.
Personally, I think that this is an extreme example of what is happening to teen girls every single day in this country. I'm sure the victim in this case has more extensive, deeper scars than most of the girls I'm referring to, but over time and repeated incidents, I am seeing dozens of cases of girls emotional health being completely wrecked by our societal attitudes toward sex and the exploitation that it enables. Raising a teenaged daughter right now is like walking through landmines, and I've already witnessed a few damaged souls among my daughter's friends (such as one who recently was hospitalized for a suicide attempt related to her deep depression over a boyfriend who used her sexually and then dumped her. The girl is 15 and I'm fairly sure she's been sexually active since the age of 12, with boys who were high school seniors or older.)
And that's where I have a problem with the sentiment expressed here about how we're all at fault- because for some of us, we've long seen the deep roots of problems of sexual exploitation, hypersexualization of kids, and gratuitous violence in our culture and entertainment industry. We've done our best to opt out of it and fight for a healthier moral environment in which to raise our kids, but are often called prudes or religious zealots for doing so. We've at times pointed out the hazards of sex ed in schools which teaches a value neutral view of sexuality, giving power to boys to exploit girls who just want to feel love and acceptance, without realizing that the sexual relationships that result can give them that feeling temporarily but are often extremely emotionally damaging when the relationship is exposed for what it really is.
Before anyone argues this point with me, of course I don't see all teen sexual relationships as being this black and white, and it's not always a case of males desiring sexual relationships and girls 'giving in'. But witnessing what is going on in high schools now vs. when I was a teen, I'm convinced that the exploitative sexuality has skyrocketed and I do believe that the attitudes reinforced strongly by our popular culture and by authorities in the schools, along with weakened parental involvement, contribute greatly.
Now back to the rape incident. Part of the reason I relate all of this to teen sexuality in general is that I have to wonder, given the circumstances that have been reported, how many of the bystanders really saw it as a violent attack or did it appear as a consensual sex party incident? And no, I'm not at all making the argument that Kathy criticized from that blog post, and I completely agree with that criticism (the girl was not at fault or 'asking for it'.) But I do think a huge problem with rape today is that the greater assumption seems to always be that everyone wants to have sex, and unless obvious violence is involved, the presumption of coercion isn't there even in a situation with a group of males and one female, in a public venue. Years ago, NO ONE would have stumbled on such a situation and thought twice about whether or not the girl was participating consensually, yet today I don't think it's at all uncommon for people to think that way.
Without more details and facts of the case, I don't know if my suspicion in that regard is true- but still, I have a feeling that if there was a more overtly violent situation (and one that was not sexual in nature) was taking place on campus during a school dance, that the kids who witnessed it would have reacted differently.
It has been a day since I read this and I still cannot find the words to describe my feelings.
” if you read this, you are wrong, dead wrong”
You are. I'm in no way, and most of us are not, the kind of people who would do something like this.
“DLS and I may be cold-hearted bastards”
Actually, we're grown up and intelligent, and refuse to be stupid and substitute pathological collective guilt (misdirected!) for individual responsibility and distinct cultural as well as behavioral problems.