Maryville

I'm sure most people here read or know about the main story by now:

http://www.kansascity.com/2013/10/12/4549775/nightmare-in-maryville-teens-sexual.html

The case will be reopened by a prosecutor from a different county:

http://www.kansascity.com/2013/10/21/4567290/judge-turns-to-jackson-county.html

The primary victim gives her side:

http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/daisy-coleman-maryville-rape

<i>Anonymous</i> involvement have brought all the Internet avenger goblins out to play:

http://www.kansascity.com/2013/10/19/4563511/fear-and-frustration-engulf-maryvillemo.html

Dan Wetzel saw that coming, and deems it more or less as the price these days of pursuing justice:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/another-steubenville--015638389.html

<i>While it has its negative aspects, online vigilantism does bring attention and a relentless force that can create action. There are reasonable questions here to be answered. How did the charges just get dropped? How could this not be enough to at least take in front of a grand jury? How could a girl who passed out not have been incapacitated?

It's all enough to continue to spark the outrage, even if there should be an equal amount of confusion.

We're a long way from knowing exactly what happened that night in the Barnett basement, but the details are too powerful, the pain too obvious, the anger too pronounced for anyone to think it would just fade away.

Anonymous doesn't back down and whether that's a good thing or not, it's completely changed the game. This is a new day for these old cases, which, pretty much everyone would agree, in the past were too often swept under the rug.</i>

Finally, Jeff MacGregor on the rape culture in America and how to stop it. (Easier and safer methods of reporting rape.)

http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/9845262/society-fails-victims-sexual-assault-stigmatized

<i>Blaming the victim, unsubtle slut-shaming masquerading as advice, is as American as apple pie. So this was a very big week for told-you-so paternalism and boilerplate schoolmarms. Ladies, stay away from jazz and liquor!

But the problem with rape culture isn't alcohol.

The problem with rape culture is rape.

Does anyone anywhere honestly think the subtle philosophical and critical jiu jitsu of Fifth Wave Feminism and personal responsibility being written at places like Slate is being read by the mouth-breathing rape culture knuckleheads who need most to read it? Or by their moms? Or their pops? Or even by their interviewers on the network morning shows?

Instead, we find new ways to lock up our daughters because if we send our children out into a world of bad appetite and violence with an empty head and a mouth full of no-means-no pieties, armed with nothing but our own fear and ignorance, what can we expect? No amount of well-meant moralizing or earnest finger-pointing will change a thing. No hand-wringing will keep anyone safe. No call to the better angels of human nature will prevent a single rape.</i>

I'm pretty up to date on the case. Not sure how many are, but I just never saw a thread on here.

 

Alma, this case is a textbook example of how small-town biases and cliques, combined with the hate-filled and anonymous culture of the Internet, can become an evil, destructive force.

We ran a wire story in our paper last week, but the KC Star article you linked to goes into much greater depth.

It's bad enough that charges were dropped against the boys. Then the family moves out and their house is burned down before it can be sold.

Horrible, horrible case ... in a town that happens to be home to an NCAA Division II football powerhouse.

(although none of those involved have anything to do with Northwest Missouri State, I believe)

 

You know what's unfair? The fact that in many states (not so much in California any longer) that the defense can pursue character assassination of the victim, yet the character of the accused cannot be similarly assassinated.

Further, most of the time the accused is someone from the inner circle/powerful, so the public initially is more prone to support the accused and not the victim who was picked on.

 

The character of the accused can't be similarly assassinated? Aren't they charged with a crime?

FWIW, this case hasn't even been brought to a grand jury. The prosecutor claims he didn't even have the case for that. The Colemans argument is that the prosecutor was bought off by a political favor.

 

IIRC, this was the same county where an alleged bully who had terrorized the area for years was shot and killed by someone from a group of men in the community. It was one of those deals where "everyone" knew what happened, but nothing was ever done.

Seems like this is a place where justice is very selective.

 

That happened in a small town in the county and several years earlier (different sheriff). Not exactly relevant in this instance.

 

Ken McElroy.

 

They made a TV movie about it, right?

 

Yep. Brian Dennehy portrayed McElroy. Cannot remember the author who wrote the book the movie was based on but it was a fantastic read.