Richmond Rape Case Trial

[Content Note: Descriptions of an attack of sexual violence; rape culture.]

In October 2009, a fifteen-year-old girl in Richmond, California, was gang-raped. It was an especially brutal crime: She was assaulted for more than two hours by as many as 20 young men, each of whom committed multiple sexual assaults, while as many as 15 other young men stood and watched, none of whom made any attempt to help the victim, who was incapacitated from alcohol. The attack happened on school grounds during a high school Homecoming Dance, and as witnesses went back in, they would tell other young men, who went out to watch and/or participate. Another fifteen-year-old girl called police, who found the victim just before midnight, lying under a bench where her rapists had abandoned her, unconscious and in critical condition.

Although not a single one of the men who participated in or witnessed the assault used their cell phones to call 911, many of them used them to take pictures of the crime. And one of them used the victim's cell phone to call her father, "using vulgar language to describe how she had performed well sexually."

The girl who survived this attack is one of the people about whom I have written who stays with me. I think about her a lot, hoping she is getting the support she needs, wishing for her both peace and justice.

An undisclosed number of men whose DNA was recovered as evidence have never been identified. Two of her assailants pleaded guilty and were sentenced, respectively, to 27 and 32 years. Two other men are awaiting trial. And two men are currently on trial.

Yesterday, a witness to the crime took the stand to testify against them.

He was a reluctant witness. The assailants were his acquaintances, and he is afraid of retaliation. He knows how the rape culture works, and he knows that his role is meant to be silent complicity. He "twisted and fidgeted in his chair" as he testified that his pals "were 'laughing and joking' about how they participated in the assault," and bragging about the precise ways in which they assaulted the girl. One of them boasted about peeing on her.

During his testimony, he said: "I was uncomfortable talking about the situation because it made me feel like that type of thing should never happen at any schoolhouse."

Not: Rape should never happen. But: That type of thing shouldn't happen at a school.

The grief and rage I feel about this case will never end.