Richmond High School 15-Year-Old Gang Rape: 5 Arrested; Police Search for Others Involved
But Why Did No One Lift a Finger to Help the Victim?
Not one.
But they did find time to go in and out of the homecoming dance, according to Melissa McEwan at Shakesville, taking place at the time and inform others, who came out and watched and/or participated as well. It was not until after the incident ended, when someone overheard others talking about it, that a phone call was made to Richmond Police that something had occurred.
Police arrived on the scene to find the 15-year-old girl severely incapacitated, having suffered not only from the beatings and rapes, but also from imbibing an excessive amount of alcohol. She was taken to a nearby hospital, treated, and hospitalized for non-life-threatening injuries.
A 19-year-old man, Manuel Ortega, was arrested at the scene. He does not attend Richmond High School. He was subsequently charged with assault and rape. A 15-year-old Richmond High School student was also arrested on Monday.
Three others were arrested Tuesday. Salvador Rodriguez, 21, was picked up near his home. A 16-year-old former Richmond High School student was brought in after being arrested in his San Pablo home. A 17-year-old turned himself in after police searched his home.
Police posted a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrests of those involved in the rapes. Tips are coming in and police are hopeful that they lead to even more arrests.
Richmond Police Lt. Mark Gagan said, "We do not have everybody who is responsible for committing crimes back in that alley. We still have to take more people into custody."
As for those who stood by and watched as the rapes took place? Gagan said, "We do not have the ability to arrest people who witnessed the crime and did nothing. The law can be very rigid. We don't have the authority to make an arrest."
When John King asked clinical psychologist Mary Koss on "Anderson Cooper 360" Tuesday evening how so many could stand by and do nothing, Koss explained that it was what is called the "bystander effect." She said, "It's -- it is really hard to believe how people can stand around and they somehow think that someone else is taking care of it and so nothing ends up getting done."
She added that it was "amazing" that "in this day and age with cell phones and kids sending text messages -- 4,000 of them a month, uploading their own videos -- I just don't understand how people didn't think get out my phone, get some help here."
Steve Perry, CNN's education analyst, said he did not know that those involved and the spectators didn't think of it and chose not to do anything. He likened it to the mob mentality in the Chicago beating death of Derrion Albert and the rationalizations so many used with Chris Brown's assault of his girlfriend, Rihanna. Perry said that things were really bad in our schools and: "It should frighten you. Because children are not connected in a way in which we need them to be. This should not be able to happen at all anywhere on earth."
But it does. And it did. Just outside of a homecoming dance in Richmond, California.
But were these individuals truly disconnected? They seemed to be connected enough to want to watch the "show", some even becoming involved in the "show." Were they part of a psychological phenomenon known as the "bystander effect"? Then how was it that so many of them engaged in the beating, robbery, and raping of the 15-year-old girl, then made the effort to inform others at the homecoming dance? Was it a strange combination of both? Was there just enough indifference to let the rapes go, just enough of a spectacle to draw attention, just enough irresponsibility toward one's fellow person to think that someone else would be more responsible and dial 911? Was there no one that asked themselves what becomes of the person being so brutalized?
Where did all these individuals connected by their complicity in this horrendous act find the distance from the victim?
Has the last couple generations become more and more desensitized to their own humanity that young people will allow such gratuitous violence without lifting a hand to help, a voice to summon aid, or a finger to even anonymously dial 911?
Apparently so...
******
Sources:
"Anderson Cooper 360," CNN Television
CNN.com
KGO-TV (ABClocal.go.com)
Published by Saul Relative
WVU graduate, with degrees in History, English, Secondary Education, Computer Programming, and Psychology (and nearly a degree in Political Science). Originally from West Virginia, with stints in Virginia,... View profile
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35 Comments
Post a Commentyou people are disgusting! a girl was RAPED! how could this be ok or acceptable? that school and people like you are the downfall of humanity!
I used to work in Mexico as an engineer. When i heard this story i knew they were mostly Mexicans, because I have seen how these creature from hell live. They are racist womenizers. And is you love mexicans so much move to Mexico or to a mexican hood and see how nice they are.
GOD HELP US: totally! This world is just getting worse and doesn't seem like its going to get better. Only two ways that I see us becoming better; first we all get forced cause some higher authority knows better for us or God Almighty takes over. Peeps we need to step up and change America. Bring God back into the picture!!!
To Sandra: Are you serious? Drinking is setting yourself up to be gang raped for 2.5 hours, while a bunch of cowards and sub-humans watch? Are you drinking right now? It is terrible enough that there are people out there who rape. It is awful enough that there are men/boys who rape together as if it is some form of male bonding. It is unbelievably atrocious enough that there are people who will stand by, laugh, watch, and photograph a rape. But, for the love of God, it is unfathomable that there are women in this world who would blame another woman for being raped!!! You have got to be kidding me.
What I don't understand is how all of this turned into a race issue. Women of all colors get raped, men of all colors rape, as well as get raped sometimes. This is a problem with the human race, period. Do you really believe that all of the onlookers and passerbys during this poor child's 2 hour hell were all the same race, or sex? I doubt that. It's not just the U.S. This happens every where. It's people that do it, not races. Races or nationalities don't have common sense and free will, people do.
the girl was raped and beaten for 2 and a half hours and no one did anything. why?
because she was white. you dumbass white folks need to WAKE UP and get a backbone.
Matt are you a member of the KKK. Your an idiot. Im not Mexican I am white and I can see that your an idiot. It does not matter what race brutally raped this girl the only thing that matters is for one she is ok and she lived and two We as parents need to take back dicipling our kids. If these men and boys were diciplined as children they would have been ashamed to think of such an act in fear that their parents would fing out and be ashamed of them or they would shame their parents in front of their peers. The law took away dicipline because kids were crying child abuse%2C but not every kid is abused. I wasnt abused but I knew better to ever do something like this because I had more respect for my parents%2C myself and my peers. What the hell is wrong with people these days both young and old. I hope the guys involved go to prison and experience being raped%2C maybe it will give them a different outlook on the word rape.
Liberal values aren't the problem, JandJ, and your infantile blaming of animalistic acts of a few on an entire population of millions because its proximity to San Francisco gets you no points. In fact, for all your -isms, your ignorance and extremism are showing. Let's explain Matthew Shepard's tortured death or the McClelland and Byrd dragging deaths on ultra-conservativism, white ethnocentrism, racial supremacism, isolationism, and/or justified religiosity. And although all these things are culturally relevant (and may influence the thinking of the participants), they do not explain why such acts of barbarity are perpetrated. These acts are caused by social indifference and ignorance, which can be conservative or liberal engendered. Put down your bible and read a book, for Christ's sake...
Richmond is in in the middle of a liberal mecca where sle@ze is glorified and politically correct multiculturalism, post-modern relativism, feminism, Afrocentrism, and other liberal ideologies reign supreme. Sad cases like this are the result. From what little I know is that it was a white female attacked by mostly or all blacks and hispanics. I heard that a white female is a hundred times more likely to be assaul ted by a black man than a white. If this was reversed, blacks would probably cause riots around the country, spurred by Sharpton and Jackson, and it would make front page headline news for weeks. Prayers for the victim & her family and a needed Christian revival in America.
Amazing analytical comment, Matt. Congratulations on your devolution to that which exists on the underside of scum. Nature abhors a vacuum but in your case, I'm certain that an exception could be made...