Arghh. De Anza Rape Case

Parent Cafe
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<p><a href=“http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/13/BAG32OKDBL10.DTL[/url]”>http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/13/BAG32OKDBL10.DTL&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>okay don’t know what makes me madder, the guys cheering the assualt on or women seeing it going on and whether it was a rape or not, doing nothing while a minor was having sex in front of a room of men
This is ugly in so many ways</p>

<p>Prosecutors expected to get alleged De Anza rape case
Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 13, 2007</p>

<p>(03-13) 12:18 PDT SAN JOSE – Santa Clara County sheriff’s investigators expect to go to prosecutors this week with their case against De Anza College baseball players suspected of having taken part a sexual assault of an underage girl, authorities said today.
Sheriff’s Capt. Steve Angus said the eight investigators working on the case had established that a sexual assault occurred early March 4 during a party at the home of two players in San Jose. Authorities said earlier that they had had requested DNA samples from several team members.
No arrests have been made in connection with the incident. The school suspended eight players from the team and canceled all practices and games last week. De Anza is scheduled to play at Cabrillo College in Aptos this afternoon, the team’s first game since the incident.
A San Jose TV station reported that one woman at the party said she had told authorities that at least two De Anza players sexually assaulted the high school student while other team members and partygoers cheered.
“The people in the room obviously were cheering the guys on or something like that,” Megan Keefhaver told KNTV-TV, where she is a paid intern. “But I didn’t think of it as a rape situation or anything like that.”
Keefhaver told the station that she is a member of the college softball team and dates a player on the baseball team who does not face criminal charges.
She said two members of the baseball team had tried to intervene during the incident but failed. Players from the soccer team who were at the party took the girl to the hospital, she told the station.
Angus said investigators have conducted 45 interviews and will take the case to prosecutors by the end of the week.</p>

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<p>Why does this type of thing so often involve members of sports teams? Seriously.</p>

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<p>I would guess that many such alleged incidents take place with non-athletes as well. They are just not as good fodder for the media.
As we saw a year ago, the more well known the school, the more the media gets involved too. This alleged incident has gottten some press, but not much. It may be that no one has ever heard of this school…</p>

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<p>SuNa:</p>

<p>The answer to your question lies in social norms of behavior and group think. It really isn’t much different, in principal, than asking why so many German soldiers could serve at death camp guards. Once a group begins to accept something, the rest of the group is very susceptible to also accepting that “something.”</p>

<p>Teams actually cultivate the sort of social bonds that tend to amplify this effect. Other groups do, as well, but there aren’t as many of them, or they fly under the radar (gangs, for instance).</p>

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<p>Also, sports teams are TEAMS – ie, many men bonding, exhibiting their testosterone, and trying to show off to each other. You think a group of guys who just happen to sit near each other in calculus are going to get together in the same way?</p>

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<p>Well, this had witnesses, and it was a college sports team, all cheering on sex with a minor girl, while GFs of the players were aware and around.</p>

<p>I guess we would hope that a group of athletes, representing a college, would act better than that…expectations may be too high</p>

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<p>Does this mean that an athlete has twice as much chance of participating in this type of behavior if he is also a member of a fraternity? I bet there are some who may actually believe this. :D</p>

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<p>I guess there is an expecation of maturity, judgement, respect, care about their school, reputation, etc that one would expect sports teams to have…that coaches would instill. That there would be a higher level of conduct. A role modeling, a representing of the community they are in.</p>

<p>ANd sometimes that is the case. But when incidents like this happen, one wonders who is minding the shop? Who is telling these men, do, partying and drinking with minors, is wrong.</p>

<p>Wonder how many of these players were of age themselves, alcohol drinking wise.</p>

<p>SHould we not expect at least a minimum of decent behavior from teams that represent a school?</p>

<p>Sure, there are groups of random guys that may do the same thing, but they aren’t representing an institution. That is the difference. And as such, representatives and ambassordors, whether they like it or not, their coaches should instill in them, because they are their “bosses” a sense of pride, manners, and gentlemanliness.</p>

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<p>Not twice as much but, depending on the social norms of the fraternity, it could be a contributing factor to more frequent abuses of this sort, yes.</p>

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<p>Let’s keep in mind this (De Anza) is still an alleged incident.</p>

<p>Unfortunately drinking and bad behavior starts well before college for many, and is not limited to the exhibition of testosterone. We have recently heard about three separate incidents with three separate high school sports teams in our region where underaged kids were suspended for drinking. Two of the three incidents involved girls teams! (Track and basketball)</p>

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<p>Good answers, but why is it so often SPORTS teams, not math teams, not chess teams, not quiz bowl groups or marching bands or debate clubs?</p>

<p>If there is something about SPORTS that makes participants susceptible to negative behavior, why don’t we admit it as a society and deal with it?</p>

<p>I realize the incident in question is only alleged, but there are plenty of other proven cases that implicate sports. And don’t get me wrong, I love to watch sporting events and my kids participated in athletics for years.</p>

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<p><a href=“http://www.interactivetheatre.org/resc/athletes.html[/url]”>http://www.interactivetheatre.org/resc/athletes.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Psychologist Chris O’Sullivan, Ph.D., of Buckness University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, studied 26 alleged gang rapes that were documented between 1980 and 1990, and found that fraternity groups committed the highest number, followed by athletic teams. In addition, she found that "the athletes who do this are usually on a star team, not just any old team. It was the football team at Oklahoma, the basketball team at Minnesota, the lacrosse team at St. John’s. It seems to be our most privileged athletes - the ones, by the way, most sought after by women - who are often involved in gang rape.</p>

<p>From June 1989 to June 1990, at least 15 alleged gang rapes involving about 50 athletes were reported. Among the most publicized cases: At Berkeley, a freshman claimed she was raped and sodomized in a dark stairwell, among shards of a shattered light bulb, and then dragged by her assaulted - a member of the football team - to his room, where three teammates joined him. In Glen Ridge, New Jersey, four high-school athletes - all of them former football teammates - have been charged with wielding a small baseball bad and a broomstick to rape a 17-year-old slightly ■■■■■■■■ girl. In Washington, D.C., a 17-year-old girl maintained, four members of the Washington Capitals hockey team assaulted her after the team was eliminated at the Stanley Cup play-offs (but none were indicted by a grand jury); and at St. John’s University in New York, five members of the lacrosse team (plus one member of the rifle club) were accused of raping a student.</p>

<p>In spite of surging publicity about the phenomenon, athletes accused of rape usually escape with little more than a reprimand. Virtually every athlete accused of participating in a gang rape insists that it was not rape: He says the victim wanted group sex. She asked for it. Juries and judges seem to agree, for charges are often dropped. Pressing charges is crucial for rape victims’ recovery. “A guy gets suspended for half a season and then he’s back,” notes Ed Gondolf, Ed.D., a sociologist at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania and author of Man Against Woman: What Every Woman Should Know About Violent Men (Tab Books, 1989). In the occasional gang rape cases that proceed to prosecution, notes Claire Wals, Ph.D., director of Campus and Community Consultation, and organization in St. Augustine, Florida, that specialized in presenting rape-prevention workshops across the country, “convictions are very difficult and rare.”</p>

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<p>There is a new book out, THe Lucifer Effect, and it talks abot group think etc</p>

<p>WHen you are a coach, and you have a group of people, part of your job, besides training, is also, or should be, on knowing about that group dynamic, coaches use it to great bonds, loyalties, etc</p>

<p>If they can do that, then they should be aware of the potential ugly side of group think, and work that into the coaching</p>