Another reported assault

[BowlBrother85]

It's just very strange. She doesn't want the attention that comes with going to the police yet reports it to the university, confronts the accuser at a party, and takes it to the media. I guess she is seeking her own form of justice.

You said it better than I did.

 

[crusse10]

so another alleged rape victim gets run through the ringer on VN

happy valentine's day

 

[BowlBrother85]

From the sound of it, you know exactly what to do in the event that you get raped. Have you already gotten your Rape merit badge, or do you actually have to live through it in order to be awarded the badge?

Nope...never been raped but I have the been the victim of a crime (my car was broken into about 5 years ago)... and the first thing I did was report it to the police... :hi:

Again, it makes no sense that she was comfortable reporting this alleged incident to the university but not to the police.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

I said confronted, but the story actually says encountered.

In early January, just two days after returning from winter break for her second semester, the 19-year-old woman encountered her alleged assailant at a fraternity party.
"I had a huge mental breakdown and friends had to carry me home," she said. "His friend (a fraternity member) called me later and told me 'not to come to any of our parties ever again.' "

 

[volgrad500]

It's just very strange. She doesn't want the attention that comes with going to the police yet reports it to the university, confronts the accuser at a party, and takes it to the media. I guess she is seeking her own form of justice.

I see what you're saying, but you gotta remember that months have gone by and it sounds like she and her dad are both becoming more and more frustrated with what they see as inaction (and judging from their comments, maybe a coverup). Closer in time to the incident, she probably wouldn't have confronted the guy or talked to the media.

The player's name is almost certain to come out now. I hope for UT's sake it's not a high profile player. If it is, it's going to be hard to explain why they deviated from their own University policy by not allowing the Office of Student Conduct to handle the complaint.

 

[crusse10]

Nope...never been raped but I have the been the victim of a crime (my car was broken into about 5 years ago)... and the first thing I did was report it to the police... :hi:

Again, it makes no sense that she was comfortable reporting this alleged incident to the university but not to the police.

How a person handles being raped does not have to make sense to you or anyone else. It doesn't even have to make sense to that person. It's dealing with one of the most difficult things that you'll ever have to deal with in your life.

I'm so sorry about your car. Hope you somehow found a way to rebuild your psyche and found a way to ever trust people again.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

Of course I wasn't there, but another strange aspect. She was so traumatized when she encounters him at a party that she had to be carried home. Surely she was aware that she might encounter him at the fraternity.

 

[crusse10]

I see what you're saying, but you gotta remember that months have gone by and it sounds like she and her dad are both becoming more and more frustrated with what they see as inaction (and judging from their comments, maybe a coverup). Closer in time to the incident, she probably wouldn't have confronted the guy or talked to the media.

The player's name is almost certain to come out now. I hope for UT's sake it's not a high profile player. If it is, it's going to be hard to explain why they deviated from their own University policy by not allowing the Office of Student Conduct to handle the complaint.

It said that while he was being discussed, he was not participating with the team, so that should narrow it down. From the way it was written, I could only think that that was a few weeks at least.

 

[crusse10]

Of course I wasn't there, but another strange aspect. She was so traumatized when she encounters him at a party that she had to be carried home. Surely she was aware that she might encounter him at the fraternity.

Girls in a sorority go to parties at houses regularly. They generally do a good job figuring out who might be there, but it's very possible that she got there and didn't realize that he had a connection to someone at that house. I wouldn't read too much into that occurrence. Also add in the fact that alcohol was present and it's got flashbacks written all over it.

 

[LebanonVolunteer]

Getting real tired of this ****... Just wow.

I agree. Butch may need to revamp the ole recruiting profile.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

Maybe this is exactly the punishment that she wants for the accused. The player will most likely be outed. If she wants more punishment then she needs to take it to law enforcement. She could also want him off of the team or kicked put of school, but unfortunately victims don't really have the right to dictate punishment.

 

[crusse10]

I said this months ago, but I think that there is rampant sexual assault issues across the landscape of the NCAA. I think that a lot of players get laid in less than 100% consensual ways at an upsettingly frequent clip. A lot of it is attributed to a sense of entitlement because "don't you know who I am?"

As for updating the recruiting profile, there's just no way to pinpoint this kind of behavior. You can't look at a high school kid and say "sometime during college he's gonna get a girl drunk and bang her when she's barely lucid." You just can't know that. You can teach the kids, you can explicitly state what they should do in certain scenarios or what have you. But in the end, if he wants to get it and all it takes is another 3 drinks before she just isn't going to stop him, then that might happen. And it's terrifying.

Don't get me wrong. This is a serious issue in college as a whole. I just believe the percentage of sexual assault crimes/person is far higher in the athlete community than in the student body as a whole.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

Girls in a sorority go to parties at houses regularly. They generally do a good job figuring out who might be there, but it's very possible that she got there and didn't realize that he had a connection to someone at that house. I wouldn't read too much into that occurrence. Also add in the fact that alcohol was present and it's got flashbacks written all over it.

She's 19, if she's drinking at a frat party she's making a bad decision.

It's just sounding strange to me again. She's so traumatized by encountered him that she's unable to walk, but not so much that she'd avoid the frat party. It is certainly possible that four months later she is affected to that degree... but to me it just sounds strange.

 

[crusse10]

She's 19, if she's drinking at a frat party she's making a bad decision.

It's just sounding strange to me again. She's so traumatized by encountered him that she's unable to walk, but not so much that she'd avoid the frat party. It is certainly possible that four months later she is affected to that degree... but to me it just sounds strange.

Really? Suddenly going to a party in college is a bad decision? Give me a break.

As for being traumatized, imagine that you were raped by a person when you had blacked out. Then imagine that, some time later, you are drinking and you see that person again in a fairly similar situation to that time. You are highly likely to be almost transported back to that moment when you realized that you were having sex against your will.

I just wish people would stop trying to make sense of how an alleged rape victim handles him/herself after being violated in the most intimate way possible.

 

[volgrad500]

She's 19, if she's drinking at a frat party she's making a bad decision.

It's just sounding strange to me again. She's so traumatized by encountered him that she's unable to walk, but not so much that she'd avoid the frat party. It is certainly possible that four months later she is affected to that degree... but to me it just sounds strange.

I'm not really following you to be honest. In your mind, what does her conduct say? That she is making up or embellishing the story to get all of the great perks of being an alleged rape victim?

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

Really? Suddenly going to a party in college is a bad decision? Give me a break.

As for being traumatized, imagine that you were raped by a person when you had blacked out. Then imagine that, some time later, you are drinking and you see that person again in a fairly similar situation to that time. You are highly likely to be almost transported back to that moment when you realized that you were having sex against your will.

I just wish people would stop trying to make sense of how an alleged rape victim handles him/herself after being violated in the most intimate way possible.

I said that drinking at 19 is a bad decision.

Since it was voluntarily taken to the media but not the legal system it's perfectly acceptable to speculate.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

I'm not really following you to be honest. In your mind, what does her conduct say? That she is making up or embellishing the story to get all of the great perks of being an alleged rape victim?

I'm simply stating that it sounds strange to me. I didn't say one word about the story being embellished. You've come up with the great perks speculation.

 

[Voluble2]

While great for TV, SVU has made people react to what a victim "should have done" the complete wrong way. What a victim SHOULD DO is exactly what they want, and nothing more. If a victim wants to go to the police, then the victim will go to the police. Stop telling rape victims what they should do.

You are stealing a base there. We don't know she was a rape victim. The recent case at UVa. that turned out to be a hoax got national publicity but was false. The story printed in the Rolling Stone was just awful. But none of it happened. At Columbia we have a coed carrying a mattress around campus because she says the university mishandled her case but her story doesn't match what the university says happened. And she even admits that the guy was drunk yet she had sex with him anyway... which is an admission on her part of committing rape by the definition a lot of colleges use now. Which just goes to show how unfit colleges are to adjudicate these things.

Here is the thing. Rape is one of the worst crimes imaginable. So much so that we reserve our worst punishments for it, second only to murder. By the same token charging someone with rape is a very serious thing as well. You have to have due process and you won't get that at any college in the US.

We have developed processes over centuries to sort the good claims from the bad and to protect all parties. Going through a university is just asking for trouble and trivializes the offense. It is a foolish thing to do. These girls need to stop being told to do anything other than go to the police. It is downright criminal for the university to try to perform a function it is not cut out to perform and universities across the country are losing civil suits for not allowing due process for the accused while at the same time the DOJ is pressuring them to find more people guilty and to act extra-judicially.

So even if there is an actual rape it avails the victim nothing to go through a process that is not legitimate and it is cruel to foist that upon them. If the guy is convicted in a university star chamber then there is a good chance he will end up getting a check from the university down the line somewhere. Best case is he is kicked off campus and his reputation takes a hit but that is far less punishment than a rapist deserves and far more than should be issued based on a preponderance of the evidence standard where there are no protections for the accused.

And if the guy isn't found at fault because the university does not have subpoena powers or the ability to gather evidence that the police do then it doesn't serve the victim at all. These are serious matters and treating them like some dispute over a campus parking space is just unfathomably stupid.

It doesn't help that the whole issue has been used for political gain with the whole 1 in 5 stat being completely bogus. If that were true our universities would be barren of coeds because no one would let their children go there. But everyone knows it is false on its face and only offered to bully and mislead. Which makes it that much harder for real rape victims to be taken seriously because the issue has been politicized. It also doesn't help that there is an effort to define rape down.

This generation did not just suddenly discover rape. And contrary to popular belief this is the least rapey generation ever. A lot of that probably has to do with the ubiquity of porn and other forms of entertainment where people cocoon and interact virtually instead of in person. Things are heading in the right direction. Ginning up a bunch of hysteria and reinventing the wheel by instituting quasi legal processes on college campuses just means you have to go through all of the errors that previous generations went through in creating our current criminal system. It is what it is for a reason.

It is nice to say a victim should have this option or that option, but it completely skips the step of determining if someone really is a victim. Even if you think false rape claims are rare now they would not be if we adopted standards where the presumption is that a rape occurred simply because a charge is made. Like it or not, the court system is the only viable means of sorting these things out and determining if there truly is a victim. And it is the only entity which can issue a punishment to suit the crime.

 

[volgrad500]

I'm simply stating that it sounds strange to me. I didn't say one word about the story being embellished. You've come up with the great perks speculation.

No I'm not trying to be argumentative-I honestly am curious as to what you think is happening. The University has a system in place for people to report a possible rape. It sounds like she followed that protocol. She disagreed with the University's handling of the investigation, then while at a party had an emotional encounter with someone she believes assaulted her. What about that sounds strange? I've seen college aged girls, who are possibly drinking at a party, act emotional with a lot less provocation.

 

[GoVols15]

I would encourage anyone who has been assaulted to bypass the university police and dial 911.

You have no idea how law enforcemt investigates sexual offenses nor do you know anything about campus police! Your statement is ignorant in so many ways! The problem is not with campus police!

:loco:

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

No I'm not trying to be argumentative-I honestly am curious as to what you think is happening. The University has a system in place for people to report a possible rape. It sounds like she followed that protocol. She disagreed with the University's handling of the investigation, then while at a party had an emotional encounter with someone she believes assaulted her. What about that sounds strange? I've seen college aged girls, who are possibly drinking at a party, act emotional with a lot less provocation.

The story did infer that she wasn't drinking at the first party. I think it said that she accepted a cup of punch. I will speculate that the newspaper is trying to portray her as a poor innocent child that is being abused by the big bad football program.

I find the following statement tacked on to the end of the story strange as well. If 17 of 19 didn't result in completed university proceedings, why is it so unusual that this case involving a football player didn't either?

Only two of 19 sexual assaults between 2011 and 2013 that the University of Tennessee reported to federal authorities led to a completed student disciplinary proceeding.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

You have no idea how law enforcemt investigates sexual offenses nor do you know anything about campus police! Your statement is ignorant in so many ways! The problem is not with campus police!

:loco:

I don't know what authority UT police are under today, but a long time ago they had the same powers as Knox County sheriffs deputies.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

Here is one other thing that to me looks strange. She meet with the newspaper reporter in December and the story is published in February (coincidentally at the same time the GJ hammer comes down on Williams). Also, there had to have been an additional meeting with the paper since her appearance at a frat party occurred two days after arriving back to campus in January.

Also strange to me... she went to the campus sexual assault center, she took it to a university disciplinary board, she worked with the newspaper to create a published account, she is traumatized by encountering the accused, she drops out of school, she needs psychiatric treatment and is struggling to become a waitress... but she still hasn't taken it to law enforcement. Every situation is different, but to me this looks like a newspaper campaign for sure, but an actual rape? I don't know.

I keep saying strange, but not meaning that she wasn't assaulted. It's strange to me even if her story is 100% correct. At this point I think that she should either drop it or go to the police. The newspaper appears to be exploiting it.

 

[UTBME]

I said that drinking at 19 is a bad decision.

Since it was voluntarily taken to the media but not the legal system it's perfectly acceptable to speculate.

Stop embarrassing yourself. How anyone deals with sexual assault is their business and not yours. Practice some empathy.

 

[Weezer]

Two things- you said the reporter didn't ask the question, and it clearly states it right in the article, so "standing by your statement" really means you won't admit it when you are wrong.
Secondly, as someone who started their career as a prosecutor, this woman's reaction is very, VERY typical. Victims often don't want anyone to know that anything happened at all. Imagine how that is magnified if the person you are accusing is a high profile athlete that many on campus (and websites) will rally to their defense.

This is where we as a society have failed. Victims should never feel shame when stepping forward. If a crime was indeed committed, they should feel the desire to report it. Perpetrators care nothing about how their actions effect their victims, victims should have no empathy for the punishment their assailants receive.

The one thing I will say to counter some of the harshness of the statement, if it is proven the allegations are false, the "victim" should face much tougher criminal charges than they are generally subjected to. There needs to be a balance in place to discourage false reporting.