<p>Good for Paige. She’s a brave girl. The refusal of the survivors to be silent and be shamed is going to make the difference.</p>
<p>The defense gets to depose the alleged victims? I’m no attorney but that seems weird.</p>
<p>The accused’s lawyer’s statement really makes you feel bad: he says the charges were dropped because the girl said inconsistent things and her mother says she doesn’t always tell the truth. This about a matter in which everyone acknowledges the girl was incapacitated and when charges are still, it seems, potential in the fact they left her outside unconscious in freezing weather. I’d say the statement makes the accused sound more guilty.</p>
<p>I think it’s common, especially in cases where the victim attempts suicide afterwards, to paint her as “troubled” and to crack open that door that implies that she’s confused, or lying, or “crying rape” - anything to let the perp off the hook. The worst part is that the rapist, his lawyer, the community at large, and sometimes even the victim herself will believe that baloney.</p>
<p>They say the evidence is this case is sealed. I hope it’s not lost. If it’s as convincing as the sheriff says than a grand jury investigation should be most illuminating.</p>
<p>I’m sure that some victims ARE “troubled”–that is just one more reason why they would be likely targets for a predator who preys on the vulnerable.</p>
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<p>I really hope not. The evidence in the Amherst woman case was lost if i remember correctly.</p>
<p>Hang on a second here. Allegedly, there is video of the alleged rapist raping the unconscious, or nearly unconscious. Troubled liar or not, she didn’t consent if she couldn’t consent.</p>
<p>Press reports say the video was deleted. Surprise, surprise. Prosecutors say the case could not be prosecuted without it. </p>
<p>[No</a> Cookies | Herald Sun](<a href=“http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/uncovering-the-small-town-politics-behind-the-alleged-rape-and-bullying-that-drove-daisy-coleman-out-of-maryville/story-fni0xs61-1226741501768]No”>http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/uncovering-the-small-town-politics-behind-the-alleged-rape-and-bullying-that-drove-daisy-coleman-out-of-maryville/story-fni0xs61-1226741501768)</p>
<p>Note too though that the boy who recorded the video and 2 other boys watched it. 3 potential witnesses for what it showed.</p>
<p><a href=“http://kcur.org/post/why-was-maryville-rape-case-dropped[/url]”>http://kcur.org/post/why-was-maryville-rape-case-dropped</a></p>
<p>I am surprised the federal government hasn’t been called in, they could prosecute this the same way they did down south during the civil rights era (the girls are protected, being women). </p>
<p>It is funny, we have the whole rabid right with their worship of small town America, how its people are all virtuous, hard working people, how they are religious and believe the right things, how they represent ‘real america’ (whatever the heck that means), yet this kind of thing seems to be all too common. Things like this happened in suburban NJ where I live, attempts were made to cover it up, and people were outraged, cops and prosecutors lost jobs over cover ups and such, and the boys doing it felt the wrath, not the victims. Try this in NYC and the prosecutor would be in jail more than likely…</p>
<p>More likely, what this shows is the picture postcard image is just that, that beneath the whole caring small town, what you really have are people who present an image and underneath are clannish and quite honestly, mean. People lament the end of small town america, but it seems like small town America is more like a corrupt southern town in the Jim Crow era than Normal Rockwell,and that is sad. Where are the people in the town? Where are the loudmouth evangelical preachers, where are the religiously self righteous? Do they care?</p>
<p>Those boys committed a crime, there is no doubt, this wasn’t two teen kids having sex, these were stupid trash who decided they had the right to take advantage of two girls whose only crime was being stupid and trusting cretins, and because grandad is a tea party stalwart, they get away with it and the ‘good’ people of the town curse the victims. </p>
<p>All I can hope is the victims find some peace and that there is some justice, I don’t care if the so called criminal justice system acts (which I strongly doubt), or if someone gets outraged at what happens and takes it out of the hides of the perps, at least there would be some karma. I hope grandpa is happy and proud (he probably jokes about it with buddies and such, I would bet good money on that), I guess the kid is a chip off the old block. </p>
<p>As I read this, all I thought of is the irony of the words of John Mellencamp’s song about small towns…</p>
<p>^ I brought this up in post 3. I will never, ever understand the appeal of a town like this… even before the cover-up. To me, it seems like small towns are just oversized junior highs with all the drama and no where to escape.</p>
<p>Living in a small town is like living in any town, there are tradeoffs. Small towns have their charms, and there are times when dealing with the craziness of the NYC area it seems appealing, but like anyplace you go, the image is not the reality. There seems to be the impression in bigger towns and cities that everyone who lives in a small town is a redneck racist member of the KKK, and that isn’t true, any more than everyone who lives in ‘sophisticated’ areas like NJ are going to be very open and tolerant (put it this way, I was surprised in the recent senatorial election that a hard right candidate, whose views are out there on social and economic issues, got a strong majority in the county I live in; it either reflected small turnout, or there are a lot more people with extreme views then I thought).</p>
<p>The charm to many people of small towns is that everyone knows everyone, and that everyone is the same in many ways. If people are different (and they are, there are plenty of gay folks, people into alternative lifestyles, etc, who live in small towns) it is hidden, and to many that is comforting, that mainstreet, USA is the same as it was decades ago.I suspect from personal experience where i live, that isn’t small town, that part of the negative reaction to immigration is facing waves of immigrants for the first time…</p>
<p>What bothers me the claim of superiority that you hear, how small towns are these idyllic places where everyone cares for one another, etc, and the nature of small towns is that someone like that congressman can and does influence and cover up crimes, and because it is a small town they get away with it (or have). Hate to tell people, but when someone gets hit by a car on the streets of ny, there are usually a lot of people there helping the person, for all the hoop and hype about how people in NYC don’t care, are harsh, the reality can be different (O. Henry wrote a wonderful short story about that over 100 years ago,where a newcomer finds the city harsh and unfriendly, is complaining, then gets hit by a cab or something, and suddenly there are 10 people helping him, and he at the end proudly announces that he is a new yorker…). </p>
<p>I guess the difference with a city or large town is the pretense isn’t there…for all the church attendance and claims of moral certainty, the reality to me is most places aren’t that much different, the only thing about a small town is it is a lot easier to hide the stuff under the carpet that goes on.</p>
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<p>This is too harsh IMO. Rape is brushed off even in the most respected communities, slelective LACs, Ivies. It’s done more sophisticated but all the same the victims are not always helped.</p>
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<p>No so TERRIFYING. He has been retired since 2002.</p>
<p>I live in NYC and in many communities it’s exactly like small town USA, and I only hear superiority directed from here to “flyover country.”
People are people everywhere and the same stuff happens all over. We have certainly had our share of corruption and bad behavior in NYC.</p>
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We have that here, too. As well as church-haters and their claims of moral certainty.</p>
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<p>Funny…I reread some Sherlock Holmes stories. In one of them, Holmes and Watson are on a train traveling out to the country. Watson comments on how beautiful the countryside is. Holmes says it makes him shudder because of all the horrible crimes it hides. Watson is flabbergasted. Holmes says that in London the most abused child is never far away from people who may overhear his cries and then intervene and help. In the countryside, people are so far away from their neighbors that no one hears those cries. </p>
<p>And, hey, zoozermom…I agree with you about many NYC neighborhoods being like small towns. But MY neighbors ALSO think that we are far superior to YOUR neighbors ;)–as well as flyover country ! (Zoosermom and I live in different NYC neighborhoods.)</p>
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<p>The law varies by state on this point. For example, in Massachusetts, the victim must be physically or mentally incapacitated by their intoxication. One can be drunk but not incapacitated. And the victim is not always a woman of course.</p>
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<p>As electronblue points out, this is inaccurate. One can be drunk without being too drunk to consent. If a person is drunk and as a result makes bad decisions, that’s on them. The issue is whether the person is too drunk to make any decision at all. Sex with a person who has passed out from drinking, however, is never consensual.</p>
<p>“People are people everywhere and the same stuff happens all over. We have certainly had our share of corruption and bad behavior in NYC.”</p>
<p>Which was my point. As far as ‘superiority’ goes, I will not argue that folks in this area (NYC region) feel like that. My point is that on the national stage, when you have politicians talking about ‘real americans’, or you hear descriptions of small town America extolled in the media, where standard lines are “everytown USA, where people still go to church on Sunday, where doors aren’t locked, where the general store still attracts people talking” and it is contrasted to ‘the impersonal big town/city’, is what I am talking about. The difference in a city or large town is they tend already to be pretty diverse, and it is a lot easier to find like minded people, that’s all, and I am tired of the idea that ‘small town virtues’ are what the US is lacking, when they often aren’t totally great. Not a knock on small towns, but rather the idea that people there are more virtuous or more ‘real’ or something. </p>
<p>And yeah, corruption goes on anywhere, all you have to do is look at politics in the NYC area and you see plenty of it…the difference is with all the media here, with all the people who probably are enemies of the pol taking graft, the odds are it will come out, whereas in small towns where you have the big fish in the small sea, lot less likely that anyone is going to blow the whistle.</p>
<p>The problem with stereotyping can be seen in the example of the Scopes trial. There were a lot of people in Dayton, Tennessee (not exactly a big town) who were opposed to the Scopes trial and the law that drove it, they didn’t want their kids seen as hayseeds and such, and actually despite what was shown in “Inherit the Wind” were very kind to Darrow and those working on the case,so it is always complicated. For everyone cursing the victim in this case, there probably are people who are ****ed off, who may be afraid to speak up (and yeah, this goes on in NYC neighborhoods, just ask cops when someone is shot and they try to get someone to tell them who they saw doing it…).The reason people react to places like Maryville is that these are the towns that often proclaim themselves virtuous and so forth and when something like this happens it is the old feet of clay routine; not that it happened there, but rather the people in small towns talk about how they don’t have the ills of the big bad cities, that they care about each other, then something like this happens.</p>
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<p>While this is true to some extent, as someone who attended college in a rural small midwest town and visited relatives in other small rural/suburban towns, the levels of insularity, lack of accountability for those favored by elites/authority figures, and intolerance for those who don’t conform to the majority seems far greater in those areas than in NYC. </p>
<p>There’s a reason why the protecting/coddling of favored “good ole’ boy” and the use of law enforcement to harass those who are disfavored is a stereotype in many small towns in certain parts of the country…including the ones near the area my Mississippi relatives lived in for 3+ decades or my HS history teacher’s experience of being assaulted by cops in his NY suburban town back when he was a teen because local cops bullied local teens as a pastime and he wasn’t from one of the “favored elite families”. </p>
<p>Not saying NYC is free of such problems. However, IME and from comparing experiences with relatives/friends who lived a long time/grew up in small towns…the level of that BS seems far greater in small towns than in large urban areas. It’s worse if you’re an “unfavored” racial/ethnic minority and/or “different”.</p>
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<p>THIS is one reason why the mentality of “Real America” == small towns has become a running punchline to a sardonic joke among most rural LAC alum friends, friends/acquaintances who grew up in such towns and “escaped” to NYC/other urban areas, and my Mississippi relatives.</p>
<p>They’ve all lived and seen what BS that facade is up close. I got a taste of it from attending college in one such small town and being around other towns in the vicinity.</p>
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There is just as much praise on the national stage for urban sophistication and superior wisdom. It’s all nonsense. People with good morals will act on them wherever they live and people who don’t will do the same. It is also fun for the urban media to downplay what it identifies with while playing up the hillbilly other.</p>