I’m horrified by a story I just came across involving three 13 year old girls attacking an 11 year old boy. The three girls filmed the assault and posted it online so as to further traumatize the victim. Personally, I have not and will not watch the video but thanks to http://jonathanturley.org/ (whose outstanding site I’m happy to have found) I’ve read as much as I want to know.
It seems these three adorable young lasses decided to tackle an 11 year old boy while he was talking with friends on the way home from school. Once they had him on the ground, the girls proceeded to strip the boy naked while mocking and taunting their victim. The girls can reportedly be heard laughing in the video as the boy struggles to free himself. In a decision that I as a parent can’t quite wrap my head around, the mother of the victim has decided not to press charges on the attackers stating that she wants the girls’ parents to administer punishment.
I’m sorry, but as “high road” as this mother’s decision may seem this is the wrong course of action for everyone involved. The full story found at the bottom of this post reports that the victim’s mother only became aware of the attack on her son after the victim’s older brother came home from school and told her that his friends had seen the video online. Clearly this poor child was too ashamed to even tell anyone in his family what had been done to him. I imagine the attack has been just about the only thing this child has thought about since it happened. First the attack consumed all of his thoughts due to the fear and sense of violation he surely feels. Then he had to deal with the trauma of all of his peers being virtual witnesses to the attack. Now he’s seeing the crime that was committed against him being swept under the rug, effectively showing him that it doesn’t matter, that he doesn’t matter. This is not going to benefit the victim in the slightest. Not to mention the fact that the three girls clearly have issues that their parents are not addressing. Or perhaps the parents are in fact the issue. Regardless, trusting these animals and the imbeciles who’ve raised them to do the right thing in this situation helps no one.
This young boy has been severely damaged. In my opinion, this child has been raped. These girls didn’t attempt to beat up their victim. They weren’t happy with simply embarrassing him in front of his friends. These little princesses stripped their victim naked in an attempt to demasculinize him. This is a sexual crime and as such local authorities should be taking matters into their own hands. The fact that they’re not is an outrage. This young boy has not been magically cured of the fear, the trauma and the sense of violation simply due to the whole thing being found out. On the contrary, with virtually nothing being done to the attackers the more press this gets the harder it will be on the victim. Unfortunately, with or without the press coverage when this little boy is alone inside his head his self-confidence, self-esteem and sense of security in the world are all gone. This child will require intensive counseling in order to recover and personally, I don’t believe an individual ever fully recovers from something like this. He’ll never be the person he was prior to the attack.
I’ll be watching this one closely as I fully expect authorities to be pressured into doing the right thing in this case. I assure you had the victim been an 11 year old girl and the assailants been three 13 year old boys the victim’s parents would likely not even have been consulted before the boys were arrested.
You can read the full story here however, if like me you don’t care to watch the video make sure you stop the player as it will auto-start.
Filed under: Politics | Tagged: Fort Meyers, Gender, Politics, rape, sex crime, trauma | Leave a comment »
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