Mamamontezz's Mental Rumpus Room

Animals, all of them.

Jack sent me a link this evening that was very disturbing, one that made me pause before writing. He was too angry to write on it. I am angry as well, but I feel the need to get this out.

We all understand the predator. Jackels, hyenas, the felines, all are predators who take other animals as food. Some do so quickly and relatively humanely, while others do so in cruel and vicious ways, eviscerating their prey even as it bleats or cries out.

And although we look at some of these predators as brave, efficient, or proud, when you get down to reality, they are nothing more or less than opportunistic. You never see a masterful male lion facing down the largest wildebeast. You never witness on some Discovery or National Geographic program a single hyena showing stealth and courage against the alpha bull in a herd of cape buffalo. What you do see is a systematic taking of some herd member who is too old, too weak, or too young and inexperienced to stay within the herd. What we watch are predators taking those animals who either cannot stay with their herd or that have been expelled by the herd because of some weakness.

It is the same with any predator. Any weakness is exploited, the prey is separated from it's safety, and it is taken by claw and fang, devoured and left for scavengers to pick at for any shred that is left.

Ah, we look at this from our living rooms and say to ourselves "how good it is that we have evolved, that we no longer live by such natural law." We see this battle for life and we believe that our humanity places us safely above it. To this, I say we are fools if we believe it.

A young girl, a 16 year old girl with a disability, was seen as weak by a pack of predators at her high school and was taken by these predators. They cruelly took her, physically assaulted her, then forced her to perform oral sex on at least two of them while the others in this small pack stood by and one even went so far as to video tape the acts. And just like on some documentary or some educational film, the rest of the herd stood back and watched.

Then, to make matters worse, the school's assistant principal, one of the persons charged by the school board to run the school and to keep it safe for all of the students in attendence, told the father of this young girl not to call 911 and report the attacks. She and her school's reputations were of greater concern to her than letting the police deal with a pack of rogue animals.

Before anyone starts name calling in comments about my use of the word "animals" to describe these vicious, two-legged predators, let me point you to the article again. I have no idea what sort of neighborhood this school is in, or what the ethnic, social, economic, racial, or religious makeup of the school is, much less of the sleezy, ruthless punks who perpetrated such acts against a 16 year old girl. Nor do I care. I don't give two wits about their family lives, their academic records, their membership on any sports team, or what kind of music they listen to. Anyone who would commit an act, no, a series of acts like this on anyone, male or female, is nothing but an animal and should be treated exactly like any unpredictable rogue animal.

So far, they are suspended from school. This is hardly enough. An assault of this nature does not warrant an investigation by the school board and some window dressing meeting to hear all of the sides of the story. These punks video taped the assault and should have been immediately expelled AND handed over to the police. The community needs to demand that the prosecutors file adult charges against these criminals if at all possible, and do whatever it takes to get all of them convicted. No half-assed plea bargain should be acceptable to this girl, to her father, or to the community in which this occurred.

And the prinicipal and assistant who wanted to protect the school instead of calling the police? Well, neither of them are at that school any longer, and much the better. But are there any charges that can be filed against them for their attempts to aid and abet these animals? If not, there certainly should be. They was in positions of trust and they broke that trust irrepairably.

A pack of wild dogs, a weak victim, and a principal who sought not to protect the flock entrusted to her but to protect the curs. Sickening.

Update: This just gets worse. According to a news story today, not only did the principal not call the police, she never called the father. It was not until a teacher called him and told him to take her for medical attention did he have any idea anything had happened.

And according to Glenn Beck's radio show this morning, the "witnesses" didn't just happen to be there, but were called to watch and actually cheered on the animals as they assaulted the girl. Students ran down the halls to get there to watch, and there were teachers aware of the situation as it was happening who chose to do nothing to stop it.

Seems the inmates were running that asylum. Police are in posession of the video tape yet no charges have been filed by the prosecutors. I have a real problem with that. A major problem. This is a no-brainer, people. This does not take almost a week to sort out. And yes, as hoosierboy said in comments, this IS a hate crime. They obviously targeted a disabled girl. Where are the activists? Where is the ACLU? Where are the feminists?

Probably representing the animals, if we only knew.

Posted by Mamamontezz at April 12, 2005 11:46 PM