The Big Red football team at Steubenville High School in Ohio has been under fire over
the rape of a sixteen-year old, or I should say alleged rape of a sixteen-year old girl
from West Virginia.
Apparently there’s been a lot of controversy about this story because only two of the football
players have been charged with rape.
In fact they were also charged with kidnapping because they allegedly took this sixteen-year
old girl while she was drunk to one party after another where she was continuously molested,
sexually assaulted by them.
And so they had the kidnapping charges dropped.
The prosecutor and the judge that was originally put on this case has to recuse themselves
because they have ties to Big Red.
And for anyone who knows anything about this particular area in Ohio, Big Red is a big
deal.
This is a former steel town and because of economic issues, it experienced a huge economic
decline.
There really isn’t much in this town other than the football team so a lot of people
hold this football team with high regard.
Everyone is excited about it.
Everyone goes to the football game every friday.
So as soon as this story broke that this sixteen-year old girl was allegedly raped by football players
from the team, people either tried to brush it under the rug.
Some are arguing that people who witnessed it and did nothing to stop the sexual assault
were let off easy.
They didn’t face any charges.
So now Anonymous has gotten involved in this.
Anonymous and NightSec have released a video indicating that they’re planning on basically
making these administrators at the school and the coach of this football team pay consequences
for these actions.
Let’s take a look.
This is a warning shot to the school faculty, the parents of those involved, and those involved
especially.
A preliminary docs is being released on some of those involved while a full-size docs of
everyone involved including names, social security numbers, addresses, relatives, and
phone numbers is being compiled as you watch this video on every single member of the football
team, those involved, the choses, the principal, and more.
This docs will be released unless all accused parties come forward by New Year’s Day and
issue a public apology to the girl and her family.
All right.
So they’re asking for a public apology by New Year’s.
I guess we’ll see what happens but of course there is a lot of criticism over what they’re
doing.
They hacked into the website for Big Red’s team.
It’s known as RollRedRoll.com.
That’s where they posted the video.
And they also hacked into the email account of James Parks who is the webmaster for that
website.
And they’re telling authorities his email might have child pornography and certain images
that they should look into.
But I don’t know Cenk.
What are your thoughts on this story?
I’m a little torn on it.
First of all, I like the attention they’re giving it because oftentimes popular things
in a town will get a pass.
In this case it happens to be the football team.
What they did to this girl is sickening, carrying her around from party to party for sexual
assault after sexual assault.
And she was completely passed out.
She would have moments of consciousness.
I saw the picture where they’re carrying her by her feet and her legs.
In fact let’s go to that video.
This is part of the Anonymous video.
It kinda shows you the severity of this incident.
Let’s take a look.
This is a call to arms.
This is a call for the freedom fighters, for the outliers, for the forgotten.
This is a call for intellectuals, a call for journalists.
This is a call for free thinkers.
A call for the strong, and a call for the weak.
This is a call to the youth, to the wise.
This is a call to arms.
So that gives you a sense of what was going on online.
There were pictures taken, video taken of the two football players penetrating her with
their fingers.
It’s just disgusting.
And then they put out those tweets mocking her after they’ve sexually assaulted her.
Because if a woman is passed out, she must be a slut and a whore right?
It’s repulsive in so many ways.
I like that they’re exposing it.
I’m a little concerned about putting up the social security numbers.
I’m more than a little concerned.
I’m not sure I agree with that and putting out all the private information.
I think that putting up the videos and putting out what they’ve done is powerful.
Definitely.
But going further and saying they’re going to begin to meet out the consequences.
To me that’s a little bit more troubling.
So I’m also conflicted with this story because I know that what they’re doing comes from
a good place.
Anonymous, more the most part, from what I’ve read about them, they’re trying to fight
for justice.
Whether it has to do with some of the injustices on Wall Street, or stories like this where
an individual has been hurt in a horrible way.
They’re trying to fight for justice.
And I think that now for some reason, not for some reason.
Now it’s the age of vigilantly justice and I’m not saying it’s a great thing.
But the reason why it’s happening is because our authorities aren’t going far enough
to protect people that need protection.
So now you have this organization that’s going through or doing things that are illegal,
that could get them into a lot of trouble.
And they’re doing it out of the goodness of their hearts because they wanna fight for
justice.
Well look, these two football players are awaiting trail.
They’re on house arrest right now and they will begin their trial, I believe it’s February
thirteenth.
It’s definitely in February.
So wait until they’re proven guilty and wait for our justice system to take it’s
toll.
But the big argument that Anonymous is making is that there were several people there that
were either adding to the situation or were just simply viewing it and not doing anything
about it, not intervening.
And authorities are saying well you can’t really prosecute someone for not being a good
person, for not having the morals to stop it.
If that was the case then a lot more people would have been convicted, or charged.
And that’s a very legitimate argument.
And one person doesn't get to decide for everybody else where you come out on that side of that
argument.
And where does this stop?
So if somebody’s actually helping them carry her to the coach before they do things to
her, then you might say hey, that person should be charged.
But what if somebody’s in the room that doesn't even know it’s happening?
Or somebody’s in the room, knows it’s happening, but is just getting a beer?
Or is watching or is not watching?
Where do you draw the line?
Well that’s really hard and so that’s why I think it goes a little too far when
Anonymous makes the decision themselves, here’s where we’re drawing the line, and revealing
their personal information based on where we drew it.
One final thing.
The coach for the football team refuses to bench the players that were sending out the
pictures and the tweets.
Oh come on.
And the reason why he’s doing that is because he feels like they didn’t do anything wrong.
They haven’t been convicted or anything.
SO he’s not gonna bench them.
So that’s another reason why Anonymous is upset, and that’s another reason why I’m
upset at this story.
Right, and one more thing on Anonymous’ side which is that, look.
Now this seems like a trend.
There’s the story we did of the woman who they tried to, the girl that they said you
can’t talk about the sexual assault that happened against you.
Savannah Dietrich.
And then she fought against that.
And again with transparency she won, ‘cause the stuff that they do behind closed doors
can’t work if it’s exposed to the day of light, the light of day.
And that’s part of what Anonymous does.
But the trend is, if a girl is drunk enough, well that means you can rape her.
That means you can sexually assault her, and you can take pictures, and you could put it
online.
And you can’t.
It’s past time that somebody laid down the law saying that that is not anywhere near
acceptable.
And obviously they’re not doing that at this town as they let the guys continue to
play football even after you see the pictures online.
So it’s outside the bounds of reason.
And since people are not reacting enough, that’s why Anonymous is stepping in, even
if they overreact.