The story first broke on April 12 about an event that is alleged to have occurred several weeks before. What makes this unique is that this would have gone unreported except the police in Alabama had confiscated a cell phone of someone involved in a completely different investigation and discovered the video and sent it to the Florida police.
There are several levels of discussion of this event.
One relates to jurisprudence, the principles of due process specifically applying to criminal cases. This is why we always use the term "alleged" in describing a crime with a pending trial. In some way this has been potentially breached by the way the video has been presented.
A video provides an eye witness experience to millions of people, a small number of whom will serve on trials of those accused of this crime. This one by CBS was titled: "Sickening Florida Spring Break Gang Rape Video Found."
Here is part of the text:
Two college students have been charged with sexually attacking a woman on a crowded Florida beach filled with spring break revelers who apparently did nothing to stop it, authorities said.
Delonte' Martistee, 22, and Ryan Austin Calhoun, 23, were arrested Friday and charged with sexual battery by multiple perpetrators, according to the Bay County Sheriff's Office.
CBS affiliate WCTV in Tallahassee reports both men are students at Troy University in Alabama, and that Martistee was a former member of the Troy track team. Both men have been suspended from the school.
The attack, recorded on a cellphone video, happened sometime March 10-12 in Panama City, Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen said at a news conference. Authorities learned of the assault when police in Troy, Alabama, discovered the video while investigating a shooting.
McKeithen described the recording as the "most disgusting, sickening thing" he had ever seen. Several men can be seen surrounding an incapacitated woman on a beach chair.
I have looked at several websites that showed this video, and after the obfuscating blurring, what is seen is a crowd of rollicking young people on a beach during spring break, no different than thousands of such films available on YouTube. It would be rated G, being far less graphic than the "Girls Gone Wild" series that made the producer millions for showing bared breasts. We are told to trust the police official's description of what occurred, and I have seen no questioning of the description anywhere. This is in the face of the most recent scandal, the report by Rolling Stone Magazine of a gang rape at a fraternity house that turned out to be completely fabricated.
Here is the only accurate adult level reporting of this event that I have come across, Site where rape video was recorded in dispute.
With this, I will move to the second part of this essay, which is how we selectively retain taboos in the face of epochal social change in acceptance of diverse sexual practices. This description from the above article exemplifies my point:
In the video, several men can be seen surrounding an incapacitated woman, lying on a blue mat of a wooden beach rental chair. She feebly tries to push their hands away from her crotch as the men digitally penetrate her and hundreds of bystanders either do not notice or ignore the incident.If the above is consistent with what has been described as "gang rape" to the reader of this essay, then you have no argument with the media reporting. Certainly the above describes something crude, offensive and criminal - but "gang rape?" Given the context of sexuality that pervades the Spring Break scene, I see it differently. It is a step too far, some guys pushing the envelope, which in my view makes the reporting of this event more egregious than the sexual offense. "Justice" must include proportionality. This is why there are several degrees of homicide with widely varying punishments, even though in each case the accused has caused to the death of another person.
We find it easy to have proportionality in many areas of criminal law, so we have a dollar value where petty theft becomes grand larceny. The penalties for speeding are likewise based on how much above the posted limits. It is much more difficult in areas of sexuality. Filming an 18 year old engaged in any type of sexual activity is legal, while a year younger and the punishment is life destroying. In this Spring Break case, we have the description of the act shown on the video disproportionate to what may have occurred. Gang rapes are especially brutal, as there are overtones of violence on multiple levels that are emotionally destructive. They occur in various settings, commonly in prisons with almost no public outrage.
If those three young men now indicted are to face the consequences for gang rape, and if it's true that hundreds of people just watched this occur, that is more shocking than any words or pictures that could accurately describe the event. The blurring of the video did not only protect the sensibilities of the viewer, they denied the public the right to evaluate what did occur. Meanwhile, three men have been indicted who happen to be African Americans, unleashing an avalanche of racial vitriol on Youtube comment pages. The description of the video seen by tens of millions of viewers not only damned the alleged perpetrators but impugned the hundreds who were said to have ignored the assault.
If the authorities were not prepared to release the actual unmodified video, they should have simply stated that it existed. Without a video that was described in headlines as showing a "gang rape on the beach" the attention to the event would have been miniscule.
From my experience posting a version of the above on Dailykos. that garnered hostility rather than discussion, selective reporting goes hand in hand with "confirmation bias" of information. This story that described Black men as violent gang rapists could not even be discussed by this website that is a prime promoter of the #blacklivesmatter movement.
The response of my breaking the boycott of the uber liberal site Dailykos confirms that calumny towards the other is not reserved to either side of the political divide. It is part of our human heritage, the ugly converse of being social beings. At least this process itself can be discussed, so there will be some chance of combating this escalation of hatred to the point of no return.
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Addendum:
This site was linked to the on-line N.Y. Times article of April 12.(It used the term "sexual assault." There are two videos of the local Sheriff reporting on the circumstances surrounding what he called, "sexual battery." The CBS story next day used the term Gang Rape, which was the headline in all of the internet sites, and YouTube videos
A general observation: The case of the assault on the Central Park jogger (it's years now), supposedly by a wilding gang, and of the Duke Lacrosse Team (more recently) indicate that we, and the media that provide us with information, believe what we want to believe and are prone to jump to conclusions before the evidence is in. On the web, this can become absolutely grotesque when bloggers and commentators come up with the wildest speculations based not even on shreds on evidence, but pure prejudices. So, we--and the media--should refrain from making judgements until the evidence is in. And the media should especially refrain from lurid headlines that are the equivalent of "click bait", i.e. have the sole purpose of making readers go to the article.
ReplyDeleteNow to the specifics of the case: I'm not familiar with the details and I'm not sure if I want to learn more--I'm already upset about so many things that I hesitate to add to the list. But from what you describe, the sheriff who made the video available to the public egregiously neglected due process--I agree with you there. What purpose could this serve? The Ferguson investigation comes to mind, where the sheriff also kept on disclosing information that was not relevant to the case, but put the victim generally into a bad light. I.e. the purpose obviously was to influence public opinion directly and potential jurors indirectly. It may well be that a similar motivation is at work here (although the video clearly IS relevant to the case). But whatever the motivation--remember: Don't rush to judgment until all the evidence is in!--I think the sheriff should be roundly criticized for this--and for disclosing the full names of the alleged perpetrators!