Playfully swipe someone’s ca-boy hat and find yourself under arrest and being driven over 80 miles to the nearest jail that Goodolboyistan has a contract with for housing the occasional arrestee (Yes, Virginia, there are counties that don’t have their own jails!). Find yourself accused of rape by a church goin’ young woman whose momma had the sense to get pictures of the bruises left from two young men holding her down and a rape kit that shows violation, and go… well, we don’t know where for sure. Attackers are going about their business, showing up at local celebrations and strutting their buckles on Main Street. It has been reported that the victim is being pressured to recant.
Hey, if there was not some pretty convincing evidence of sexual assault, would there really be a need to pressure victim to drop charges? What up wit dat?
Guess having a hat stolen is something some good ol boys can see themselves being victims of? THAT is a crime that has to be dealt with swiftly, firmly, and to the fullest extent of the temper of a sheriff who often proves his judgment is questionable*. The arrest after that incident resulted in a law suit being filed. See, the law enforcement (cough cough wheeze) boss cop who ran that dangerous hat stealin’ somabitch to the hoosegow failed to fill out any of the paperwork required to accompany anyone being put in another county’s jail. The receiving lock up facility refused, via several layers of command, to accept an undocumented prisoner, no matter how much foot stomping might ensue. So, paperwork avoiding good ol cop just opened the door and put the arrestee on the street of a town 80 odd miles from home. Oh yeah, baby, get a lawyer! Seems you can’t just kidnap someone, drive them to another county and, in a fit of pique over them nasty-ass rules and regulations, toss that person out into terra incognito. Who knew? A sheriff should have known. Don’t they have classes or something?
But having a buddy hold a young lady down to the point she has obviously been battered, and raping her, as attested to by positive kit results and exam, gets you…. enabled maybe? Perp is still out and about. Victim? Reportedly being pressured by good ol cops to recant and drop charges.
Unfortunately for the victim, the guys doing the pressuring for her to drop the charge are also the same guys who have control over the evidence. Note to self: do not, DO NOT ever turn all evidence of a crime over to the local uniforms. Go directly to the agency that deals with problems when citizens cannot get proper cooperation from local law enforcement. Yes, the state damned well knows some small town law enforcement departments are sometimes given to picking and choosing what gets handled aggressively and what gets not so well handled and they have an app for that.
One hopes the department’s officers, all both of them, will stop pressuring the victim and start looking to upholding the laws. Oh, to be sure, they are probably getting plenty of pressure from kith and kin who do not want to see a young man’s unpromising future detoured by a stint in the big house where he would likely be on the receiving end of that which he seems to be OK with dishing out. One supposes there is also pressure on them to sweep it all under the rug, lest the community suffer the horrors of having a local end up on the registry of sexual offenders. That is one of those official records that ends up on the internet. People might find out there are the same sorts of problems in small towns as in big cities! It might prevent companies like IBM or Transcontinental Mega Widgets from opening some monster big manufacturing plant here! Why if word got out there was a sex offender here, life might go on like it always has!
This is not the first time this particular thinks-he’s-a-rodeo-star young man has assaulted a woman. The last time, the victim, whose door was kicked in, reportedly was successful in fighting the small assailant off. Being a non-native to the area, and she just gave up trying to get justice and left town. The evidence against the attacker was so overwhelmingly obvious that the local JP did sentence him to a couple of months of having to stay out of the bars he only recently got old enough to buy beer from. The young man spent the time ‘driving angry’ around and around and around town.
Attacker seems to have learned a couple of things from that previous experience. He learned he gets away with attacking women. He also learned he is not big enough nor strong enough to force a woman to submit to assault without help. Too bad some other young man was foolish enough to lend a hand and sit on the latest victim after helping take her down.
If this aggressive and dangerous man gets away with another slap on the wrist, what might he be emboldened to try next in his attempts to show he is all grown up?
This is not the first time a rape around here got met with law enforcement behavior deliberately aimed to let boys be boys and get away with the worst some boys will do. Different years, different staff, same good ol enabling.
Wondering what it takes before fathers of daughters, brothers of sisters, husbands of wives get together and realize being female means less protection that being a goddamn hat and maybe there is something not quite right about that uneven justice.
*Ask me about the time boss lawman put his Glock to the head of a skinny nekkid guy he already had on the ground and who was cooperating fully. It was pretty obvious the skinny, nekkid guy was not carrying a weapon on his skinny, nekkid person
For those who don’t know, the Glock does not have a safety, so that was an extremely dangerous situation where a hot-headed bubba-wit-a-badge could have accidentally killed the fully subdued, fully exposed, mentally unbalanced guy half his size.
Attila the Blond 