Well since I wrote that post on the question of rape I have seen some people take it as something I never intended for it to be.
Let me make it clear here that I am not supporting rapists in any way. I do not and have never supported such persons.
The comments I made were not meant to be taken as support of rapists or excusing the actions rapists take.
The problem I had and still have is one of a figurative lynch mob via social media without all the facts in evidence to justify one.
Just because a girl cries rape doesn't necessarily make it so.
There are a lot of questions in this Missouri case. The facts as we know them from media are the girl was drinking at her house with a thirteen year old friend. Both then sneaked out a window and went to a party. Once at the party with many others present someone gave her a large glass of what was apparently more alcohol.
At some point after that the girl and a seventeen year old boy engaged in sexual relations.
Those are the facts and you can add she ended up in her front yard lying on the ground for a while before being discovered.
What the girl says is after being handed a glass she doesn't remember anything after that point in time.
Now here is where the facts become blurry.
She doesn't remember but her friend told her she was raped. Her friend also claims she was raped at the same party by a fifteen year old.
It was clear she had engaged in sexual relations. It was also clear it wasn't as gentle and nice as it could have been.
Evidence of force? Maybe
Evidence of ineptness? Maybe
Evidence of hurried fumbling activity? Maybe.
A lot of maybes, but the boy claims it was consensual. Was it?
The boy separately and the younger girl state that the boy gave her and the fourteen year old a ride home and the younger girl helped the older one out of the car and they began walking away from the car at which point the boy drove off.
The older girl ended up laying in the walkway in front of her house in freezing cold weather. No boy or the younger girl around.
Another story is the boy drove them home and dumped them on the curb before driving away.
Which was it?
How did the older girl end up face down in the freezing drive?
Maybe the younger girl left her there?
Maybe the boy did and she walked all the way up from the curb before collapsing where she was found.
But then again, supposedly she was unconscious.
How could she walk anywhere?
How did she get from the curb to where she was found?
Was she actually conscious when she got out as a couple of the stories maintain? Maybe.
What we know is her mother and youngest son found her out there and brought her in where they got her undressed and put her in a bathtub where the mother saw evidence of sexual activity.
Do you see my point here? I'm not saying the girl wasn't raped but I am saying there are too many questions and maybes to go out and lynch a kid until more evidence is introduced.
Somehow in a lot of people's minds it seems calling for some caution before killing the boy is seen as being a rape apologist or in support of those who rape others.
Its not.
There are problems here. There are questions that need answers before jumping to that conclusion that the boy is guilty just because.
The sheriff has openly said the girl and her family have changed their stories multiple times. The defense attorney for the boys said he has it on record that the mother says the girl lies a lot. The prosecutor has it on record and recorded that the girl and her family invoked her fifth amendment rights and refused to testify. Further he states that what was recorded and on the record is him repeatedly telling them that by doing this they would be unable to prosecute the case.
Also they have it on record as the girl and her family refusing to testify and being non-cooperative.
According to the lynch mob of social media this is all some big conspiracy against this girl but the thing is once these people said its on the record and/or recorded it becomes very easy to prove one way or the other.
I have to say the sheriff and the prosecutor don't seem worried at all about what an investigation will find. Matter of fact the prosecutor tore into the girl and her family in a press conference and said bring it on essentially because it wasn't his fault but that of the girl and her family that nothing got done.
Now any way you look at it, and I mean even in the best possible light for the girl, this raises questions about the whole thing.
Questions again. Maybes again. Too many to make this an open and shut case.
For example why after two years has the girl suddenly decided to make a case of this? She's certainly being professionally handled by someone. Who?
That is my point. Too many questions and maybes exist for this to be an automatic lynch mob which social media is making it.
One of those maybes may be finding the boy guilty in the end and sending him to jail. I don't know.
I don't have a problem with the court handling this and after a trial finding the boy guilty if the trial isn't a show trial to crucify him like the Zimmerman trial was. He may indeed be a rapist. I don't know if he is or he isn't which is why I have said something in the comments section of CNN.
I said something not to defend a rapist but to defend a boy all too many are ready to string up when there are still a lot of questions and maybes out there as to what actually did and did not take place.
Yes the sheriff arrested the boy. Yes the prosecutor charged the boy and was going to try him but that never happened and he tells a different story.
He has his right to receive a fair trial and before people jump on the circus to gut him on the public steps maybe they should wait until that happens first.
What is so wrong with asking that?
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