A teenager texted 911 in rural Ventura County, California that she had been kidnapped.  She was able to be rescued.  The girl had been kidnapped in Mexico and held for two months.

I spent some time traveling around California as a homeless person.  People don't realize how vast that state is, and how remote some parts of it are.  What a terrifying ordeal that was for that girl, being dragged around a foreign country and raped for two months.   It's a small miracle, really, that she got hold of a phone and that texting 911 actually works now.  Thank God.

A few months ago I covered an incident where a man entered a Walmart in Rockford, Illinois.  He was so upset about his racist feelings that he took two different knives off the shelves in two different parts of the store,  and wandered around until he found a black employee to stab to death.  That employee was a teenager, a high school student, someone who never saw his attacker coming.  But the alleged attacker (who I don't believe has been convicted yet) says that he couldn't get the mental healthcare that he needed, so he had no other choice.

Now, as a veteran paramedic, and a white person, and someone who went for many years without the mental healthcare that I needed, I find everything about that completely infuriating.  First of all, no matter how much you may dislike other people, keep your hands to yourself.  You have freedom of speech.  We have to tolerate whatever you want to say. 

But also Walmart, with their casino-like security, had an obligation to protect that young man's life.  They have so much security.  Why was he able to wander through the store gathering weapons for that length of time?  Look how much police presence there always is at Walmart, aside from the myriad security people and eyes in the sky.

As a white person, I have no use for this stabby idiot and would happily trade him for the highly productive high-schooler he allegedly murdered any time.  Lastly, as a paramedic, I can't guess how many people I took to the emergency room with mental health problems that could and should have been dealt with some other way, like a primary care or urgent care physician.  I spent so much time carrying people like him to the drowning emergency room, while people sat in wrecked cars, or having heart attacks, wondering where their ambulance was.  His failure to get himself together and seek help doesn't demand a human sacrifice by the rest of society.  Everything about that is a deep fail, on every level.  Simply infuriating.

But the lady in this video luckily didn't kill anyone -- although she really might have.  That's fortunate, because she has two very small kids.  This could have been a much worse outcome all the way around.  

My point is that Walmart just isn't the place for everyone to come when they have one too many feelings about racism and they need to unload on some random person.  So many people in America are ticking bombs, ready to shoot up a school or run over a Christmas parade.

I'm showing this video because the young lady doesn't seem drunk or high.  It's strictly maturity and mental health with her, potentially fixable issues.   The Rockford stabber is a mature neckbeard and his brain is probably ruined from drugs.  Hopefully he won't come out of prison and it's Clorox in the gene pool.  But she has two small kids and could have more.  So it's crucial to intervene and get her on track now, which may not be possible based on what I can see in this video.  Luckily she has relatives who seem very decent and capable of caring for her children if/when she flames all the way out.

This young lady's baby's shoe fell in a parking lot and she didn't notice right away.  A stranger kicked it out of the road, he says so it wouldn't get hit by a car.  They both agree that she ran up to him and demanded he pick it up and give it to her.  He declined.  The two of them, plus a witness, say she shoved him and then tripped him to the ground.  He got up and kept walking away with an older lady, presumably his mother -- who never said anything. 

Body cam shows that the police -- who were dealing with a shoplifter about 130 feet away -- came to investigate the shouting. 

• The police dropped what they were doing when they heard this woman yelling from way over yonder, is the only way she got onto their radar.  Just pointing that out LOL
  

The man who allegedly got shoved and tripped to the ground didn't call the cops on her.  The baby's mother was still screaming at him.  He was walking away when the police approached and asked for his ID.  He immediately gave his license to the officer and thanked her for being calm and not aggressive.

Another woman in a van is there, and the guy who got shoved down and walked away silently begs her to speak to the police.  He thanks her when she does.  She agrees with everything he said about it.   He kicked the shoe away so it wouldn't get run over before somebody could find it.  He hadn't seen the mother.  And he didn't want to touch it.

In this whole video there is only one person who ever raises their voice.  She can be heard shouting on the phone the whole time the police are getting calm, rational statements from the other people.

Her statement to the police begins at 10:07.  The most interesting thing about this video is that everyone is perfectly calm except the lady who started it, and she's completely off the rails.  She seems to need maybe inpatient therapy.   I would consider at least a mood stabilizer for her. 

But as much time as I spend criticizing the police on this blog, their job is apparently to be mental health workers who are prepared to shoot you if necessary while investigating your shoplifting activities.  I'm just saying.  Watch the segments that I time stamp, it's pretty amazing the job they do sometimes.

The cop keeps saying, "Okay," and in that process he gets her to admit to "I believe my fingernail went in his arm.  I did not reach at him.  I did not try to grab him."  LOL  "And yes, the situation did elevate.  And I do apologize -- not to him, because he was very disrespectful at the mouth.  Had it been another race, I'm pretty sure he would've picked up [the shoe].  That's how the situation elevated a little quickly.  I would never put my hands on nobody."  Which makes sense because her nail went into his arm.

Then the cop does a quick recap of her statement and asks her, "Was there any other contact or anything else happened?

"I tripped him.  Yes I did."  D'OH!

She goes on explaining and apologizing -- not to the guy she tripped.  But justifying why she had to trip him, he was so rude for not picking up the shoe.

"The situation escalated," says the woman who created a situation and then escalated it.  "I came here to waste time," she further elaborates.  "I hear you.  I get it," replies the heavily armed social worker.

"She drop kicked him!" the Walmart loss-prevention officer gasps upon reviewing the video. 

At 18:51 the super-chill guy says he doesn't want to press charges.  He just wants her to understand that she can't do this anymore.  He hasn't heard her blaming him, calling him a racist, saying how rude he was, apologizing to everyone but him.   He probably can't imagine how little chance there is of her getting that message.  But he's the perfect guy for her to have shoved in the first place, the guy who didn't break her jaw.

His mother convinces him that he should press charges, and I agree.  The woman is completely out of control.  She won't learn even with charges.

At 22:30 look at her face when she realizes she's being arrested.  That thought has never entered her mind, that there could be consequences to tripping a random person in a parking lot.

I could almost feel sorry for her as panic sets in.  She remembers that she only went to Walmart to kill time while her other child was at a birthday party at the skating rink.  This was all a big nothing in which her mood got completely out of control and now she's going to jail. 

But she goes straight into victim mode about being a single mother.  Her super-nice cousin comes to pick up her kids.  And she cycles through a full range of bad behavior that I don't think can be helped, including DARVO:  Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.  And that suggests she knows she was wrong in the first place.  That's why it was good that he pressed charges.

• That's so racist, I didn't even put my hands on him.
  
• Where are the cameras?  Can I use this?
  
• Can I reverse this on him please?
  
• Does this make me a criminal in terms of a job?
  

And then she sits down and starts crying, while the police officer social worker talks her through an anxiety attack and they wait for her cousin to come and pick up her kids, so they won't see mommy getting handcuffed.  Really everyone is being super nice but her.  She continues apologizing to the police over and over, and presumably still not to the man she intentionally tripped.  She's looking for a way to charge him with something.

From the channel creator of the linked video:

"Update Sentencing: Nolle Prosequi (charges dismissed) Defendant participated in treatment; she has no prior or subsequent arrests. The victim agrees with the dismissal Unsecured judicial release bond(no cost)"

I agree that this woman doesn't need to be in jail.  What concerns me is the past tense for "participated in treatment." Because she has serious issues that can't be helped in one or two sessions.  And she's raising kids.

This is another older case from Georgia, with a better than average outcome because the survivor had good tech skills and her wits about her.

In this instance, the survivor knew something was up when the deputy brought her out to the woods late at night in his personal vehicle and handed her a beer after arresting her for DUI.  That was intended as "leverage" to induce her to show her boobs and give him a blowjob, both of which she declined. 

Ashlie Roberts did have the presence of mind to record the encounter.  And she knew to bring the recording to the media instead of local law enforcement.  That's probably why Miller ended up being charged with bribery and fired.  Because they did find the beer can she discarded, which had been purchased on Miller's debit card.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution:

"A former Monroe County deputy who told a woman he'd reduce her DUI charges in exchange for sexual favors has been banned from the county, Macon news station WGXA reported.

Deputy William “Bill” Miller was arrested in August 2018 after a woman he arrested came forward with a recording of him offering to have her charges reduced in exchange for sex.

He was recently convicted of a felony bribery charge and violating his oath of office and sentenced to eight years of probation, the news station reported. He’s also banned from entering Monroe, Lamar and Butts counties during that time.

Miller was arrested last year after the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office was tipped off about an off-duty conversation the then-38-year-old had with a woman he arrested a month earlier. She refused his propositions, authorities said.

He was placed on administrative leave while the department called in the GBI and FBI to investigate.

Miller was terminated and arrested once the internal investigation was closed, deputies said. He was hired by the sheriff’s office in April 2018, but worked in law enforcement for about four years, the GBI said previously."

Again, another older story that I can't report timely because it didn't make national headlines.  I have to rely on local news from other parts of the country.

WXGA:

"FT. VALLEY, Ga -- The Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrests and charges former Fort Valley State University officer in sexual assault investigation.

In a release from the GBI, 52-year-old Wilbur Bryant was arrested and charged with simply battery (misdemeandor), bribery (felony), and 2 counts of violation of oath of office (felony).
In Magistrate court this morning his bond was set at $10,000.
Bryant is a former Lieutenant with FVSU Police Department."

Thank God all of these young people know how to record somebody while they're on the phone with them.  A young woman's mother explains how her experience with Bryant came to pass, how her daughter had the presence of mind and technological know-how to stop him.

As explained in the video, significant complaints against Bryant go back a decade.  Yet his performance reviews rant and rave about him like they've never heard a word.  I'm old enough to remember the word "co-ed,"  short for "co-educational."  Because back then women didn't belong in colleges and they resented allowing us in there at all.  Not like now, right Harrison Buttker?

Bryant was ultimately allowed to resign rather than being fired.

It makes you wonder how the rape kit ever got backlogged.

Then there's this situation:

From 11Alive:

"A Peach County grand jury has indicted seven people accused in a sex scandal at Fort Valley State University

Among the indicted was Alecia Johnson, a former executive assistant to the Fort Valley State president. She was accused of arranging acts between at least one woman and six men. She's also accused of prostitution herself."

So apparently at this same school where Officer Creeper was allegedly stalking the student athletes, the people in the main office were allegedly coordinating escort services with one of the sororities.  Other than that, fantastic school. 

It kind of makes sense how Wilbur Bryant got those rave performance reviews despite the many significant sexual abuse claims in his file.

All three officers discussed in the linked video resigned their posts.  The police union agrees with all three outcomes, that all three should be terminated, within five months of each other.

• Chang - According to the linked video, Chang started texting the victim after meeting her when she overdosed.  She agreed to let Chang track her and install two video cameras in her apartment so he could watch her remotely.  Now the reporter is ruining Chang's life because he had "a little whoopsie" when he hooked up with her nine times in his patrol car.  Internal affairs upheld all allegations.   Then Chang retired without admitting any guilt or even sexual contact.  But he gave up his certifications anyway, go figure.
  
• Silva -- 16 year veteran Silva, accused of flagging down and soliciting prostitute for $20-$30 while on duty.  She was an undercover cop!  LOL  He then tried to play it off as a joke, claiming he recognized her.  Allegations upheld, recommended termination.  Silva resigned before he could be fired.  He's not facing charges for solicitation.
  
• Cosmann -- accused by IAD of calling a sex worker to his home.  She reported being hit very hard in the head and having to flee his address.  Cosmann, 6 year veteran, resigned after this incident.  Cosmann is facing two misdemeanor charges, one for soliciting a prostitute and one for assault.
  

All three of these officers got decertified, which seems better than average to me.  They were not fully investigated because they were allowed to quit or retire before that happened.  But a lot of departments don't even do that much. 

This is an old story.  But most of the time the stories I care most about don't make national headlines, as this one didn't.  So it takes me a while to find and report them with my limited resources.

From DOJ:
Jesus Manuel Menocal Jr., 34, a former Hialeah Police Department sergeant, was sentenced in federal court in Miami, Florida, to three years in prison and one year of supervised release, the statutory maximum sentence. 
Menocal previously pleaded guilty to three counts of violating the civil rights of women by sexually exploiting them.
“The Department of Justice will not tolerate police officers who abuse their authority to prey on those they are sworn to protect,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Civil Rights Division. “The Civil Rights Division will continue to vigorously prosecute these cases to secure justice for the victims of these reprehensible crimes and to ensure that perpetrators who use their unique power to take advantage of others are held accountable.”

The DOJ is super proud of itself for giving an on-duty cop serial rapist a big three years in prison after he pled guilty.  The State of Florida gave him a walk.  The rapes were all free and clear.  We could only agree, as a society, that raping people with your badge and gun is a violation of their civil rights.  But the raping itself is a freebie.

When I went to research this, the first thing I found was this "tactical training" center by the same name.  Jesus Menocal shouldn't be out of prison and training people how to be excellent police officers yet, so I was confused.  Well, it turns out Jesus Menocal is a junior.

From the linked website, with emphasis added:

"Jesus “Jessie” Menocal Sr. has over 33 years of active law enforcement experience. He served as Chief of Police in a South Florida municipality for 10 ½ years and remains an active law enforcement officer with a local municipality. Since 1987, Jessie has been an active instructor for the Police Academy and was instrumental in the development and implementation of the active shooter curriculum. He also brings his expertise in active shooter protocols to the private sector as well. Jessie is an NRA certified firearms instructor. During his career, he has organized and hosted the SWAT Commanders meeting for various Federal, State and local agencies.

Okay, so his father can tug very hard on the local strings to make sure that his son doesn't get prosecuted.  And lo and behold, locally in Florida, he wasn't.  If it was up to local law enforcement, Jessie, Jr. would probably still be out there Holtzclawing merrily away.

Even after being sentenced, Meniscal wasn't taken into custody right away.  He was given another 60 days to surrender whenever it suited him.

As noted, his lawyer spent six minutes victim shaming, and also for whatever reason mentioned Antifa.  Look at the Meniscal family website and yes, they look like the sort of Antifa hunters who are proud of their admitted serial rapist son, the former police officer.

Bottom line, Meniscal got less than one year per admitted rape.  As noted in the video report linked above, "the state called them unreliable witnesses and declined to file charges."  Even with bodycams, GPS in the vehicles, cameras in every room, where there's a will to permit rape, there's a way.   He was facing life in prison.  But no.

When the chief of Hialeah stands at the podium and says bad apples, gives the old "this isn't who we are," I call bullshit.

"This incident involving one individual is in no way a reflection of the police department."

Except yes of course it is.  Just like all those priests are a reflection of the Catholic Church that protected them.  He did all of that on your watch, sir.  And then someone had to come in from over your head, the DOJ, to slap him on the wrists.  If not for DOJ, he'd still be raping minors as a sergeant in your office.

I'm an expert on surviving both sexual assault and narcissistic abuse.  So I had to watch Netflix' new hit series Baby Reindeer.  It's a high-quality show and worth the watch.  It brought up a lot of important points that I would like to address.  So there will be heavy spoilers in my discussion.

First and foremost, it's very rare to see a show where sexual assault is handled so well.  Donny, the protagonist in Baby Reindeer, gets repeatedly assaulted -- and by more than one person.  So while it's upsetting in general, it was actually much less unpleasant than usual for me as a survivor.  Because all of it was done with a heavy dose of realism, what it's like for the survivor, and without any tip of the hat to the way rapists normally get to add their $0.02.  There's no "Harvey Weinstein factor" in this show.  There's no pretense of a moral high ground while making sure it's still fappable for bad men -- which is pretty much always the case and why I so seldom watch TV or movies.   The rape scenes aren't there for shock value or given from the rapist's POV -- as they usually are.  The male gaze is not happening here. 

So I appreciated that.  I respected the writer's (Donny's) honesty about how he contributed to the mess, how confusing and horrible it was.  Also that he took active steps to improve his life and become a better person.  He worked to own up to his bullshit and make better choices.  And that's all we can really do.   So on that level, as a survivor, it was really good.  Nobody's perfect when they get attacked by someone even less perfect than themselves.  It's really an excellent show and he deserves full credit and support.

The question of sexism and sexual assault is addressed in a variety of ways, from Donny being assaulted by his female stalker, to the police response to it, to him then also being assaulted by a man.  These are only some of the questions that are raised.

Donny goes back to his male assailant even after going viral in a clip discussing the rapes.  And his attacker has no shame about it even after being called out, still doesn't see it for what it was because he's not in handcuffs.  Maybe this can help people understand why people continued to give friendly replies to Harvey Weinstein and others like him.  You can't really afford to completely alienate these people when you have showbiz dreams.  And you live in a world of rape culture where what they did to you is an open secret and it's fine.

One example of sexism coming into play was people -- including Donny -- underestimating the seriousness of Martha as a stalker.  It should be noted that the people who primarily didn't get it were the more heteronormative males in the story:  Donny himself and his bros from the pub.  His trans girlfriend got it immediately (although in fairness she's a therapist).  But the one who actually thought it was funny and significantly worsened the situation was one of his macho buddies.

Keep in mind that the entire series was written by Donny, the protagonist.  So when he goes to report this to the police, and they tell him they'd take it more seriously, if it was a man stalking a woman, that's a pretty huge piss-take.  No really, as much as I enjoyed the series, fuck you for that.

Let me take a moment here to point out that in very recent memory, one London police officer has been convicted of killing Sarah Everard.  Another one was found to be a serial rapist, whose nickname at the station was "Bastard Dave" because of his cruelty.  Go back to the Yorkshire Ripper case and see how many fucks they've ever given about women being stalked.

As he points out in the show, to his credit, the biggest stumbling block for Donny is his own negative thoughts and ideas about his male sexuality within our heteronormative society.  He's ashamed of his conflicted feelings and then he gets attacked.  He's insecure and craving attention and approval to such an extent that he indulges Martha the stalker, and Darrien the rapist, well past the point of knowing it's unhealthy.  A lot of his refusal to fight back or help himself is rooted firmly in his dishonesty and insecurities about his sexuality.

So what's not addressed in the show, and what I will address here, is to ask whether Donny is also a narcissist?  We have the excessive need for attention, check.  Highly dishonest and cowardly, yes.  I would assert that having a stage persona is a way of abandoning who you really are in order to live in a more favorable fantasy world.  He also has impaired empathy.  It's not that he has no empathy.  It's that he empathizes weirdly, at the wrong times, for the wrong reasons.  His empathy is misplaced.  His inability to form meaningful connections with other people comes back to his constant dishonesty and self-centering. 

For example, when Donny goes to see his parents and tell them about the viral video and that he confessed to having been sexually assaulted, he's worried that they'll disown him for being bisexual or having been raped. 

His mother is the first to speak.  She doesn't skip a beat on supporting and accepting him.  And I became semi-furious, personally.  I have two parents who couldn't be bothered to give a shit about me at all.  But Donny's parents are so 100% for him even in his adulthood.

The real kicker, though, is that when Donny's father shares that he was also assaulted, he has to repeat himself more than once.  Donny is so incredibly self-centered, so busy thinking of himself as the only important one, that it has never occurred to him that any other man may have also experienced sexual assault in the past.  No, he's super special. 

This is what exhausts me about men and sexual assault.  Really Donny is the one who never gave it a second thought until it happened to himself personally, the heteronormative guy who never thought about any of that until he started to having feelings that he couldn't cope with.  And then he projected how unfair all of that was onto women, how WOMEN don't know that men get raped!  Because HE'S never thought about it before.  Fucking kill me now.

But that part about how the police would be Johnny On The Job if only he were a woman, no, seriously fuck you.  That's just a rock hard fucking no.

I remember going to the police when I was working as a paramedic, about being stalked by a coworker.  I never bought him any Diet Coke.  I went to the police after the fourth or fifth text message, once I was sure who it was.  I had to persist with the cops multiple times to get them to take it.

I went to the sheriff in the same county where I was employed.  That individual worked with me at a side job in the next county over.  So I was technically a coworker with the sheriff, and my stalker was not.  I had text messages on my phone threatening to kill me, saying he was looking in my windows and seeing me naked, giving my correct address.

Unlike with Donny and Martha, there was nothing in reverse.  There was zero social contact or anything he could show other than me having worked a couple of shifts assigned with him.  I certainly never went over to his place and screwed him.  I had no idea why he fixated on me. I had to turn my phone over.  They could see that there was zero contact from me to him.

When I brought it up to my chain of command, I was called into a meeting with six male members of the "brass."  The very first question was if I had a dating relationship with him.  I said no.  They pushed me on that multiple times:  how did he have my phone number?  From the employee phone list at the other place.  My concern in bringing it up to them, aside from wanting someone to know why in case anything happened to me, was that they never hire him at that service.

I later found out that the reason everyone kept asking me if I had any personal relationship with him at all, and doggedly coming back to that question over and over, is because if I had, all investigation would have stopped right then and there as a "lover's quarrel."  As it stood all they did was question him.

At the end of the day, my chain of command took zero action to protect me.  They didn't even pick up the phone.  It was all I could do to get the sheriff's detective to follow up on questioning the suspect, who I was able to identify by the weird way he acted and strange things he was saying to firefighters about me.  

I had to doggedly make that investigation happen.  And I'm not sure I would have been able to do anything at all if I wasn't a paramedic in the same county.  And then he faced no consequences, he only stopped.  So fuck you for that one, Donny.

Again, the only people who don't think men get raped are heteronormative men who have never given rape a second thought until it became a problem for themselves personally.  Women are aware that women molest children.  We think they're scumbags.  Women know that men sometimes rape other men, and ditto.  We want them in prison for it. 

Also, it needs to be said that this show is still kind of victim-blamey.  Because at the end of the day, Donny still could have done a lot more to not be victimized.  Donny made a lot of bad choices.  And many of the decisions that he made are not available in quite the same way for women.  It's not an apples-to-apples comparison.   (And even so, shame on both Martha and Darrien.  It's still not his fault what they did.)

For example with Martha, it seems like he's engaging her out of pity.  He can see that she's crazily lying when she claims to be an attorney to the rich and famous, but she can't afford a Diet Coke.  So why keep buying them for  her?  I assumed pity.  But he admits that he craves the attention and approval, that she makes him feel special.  That's why he continues with her even after she's obviously unhinged.  Once she starts talking about "wanting to unzip you and climb inside," that's  a serious red flag, bro.  Talking about her meat curtains, all of that is super weird and icky.  Women know to flee from that, a guy who says such things about climbing inside you that way. It's not ending well.

Because in the reverse scenario, it isn't normally pity or not wanting to hurt their feelings that keeps women playing along.  It's the fear of telling him no, that he'll escalate and murder you if you don't say yes.  That happens all the time, when women try to end a relationship or simply say no to someone who should never on any planet think he has a chance, like the maintenance guy in her building, and then get murdered for not going along.  We get killed for that all the fucking time. 

So Donny's desire for attention is what it is.  Women weren't always allowed to earn their own livings, and were chattel property of their abusers, as the way of things since time immemorial until very recently.  We've had to convince men -- in courts of law run entirely by men -- that being married to them doesn't entitle them to stick dicks in our bodies at will without permission, in almost every country of the world.  Right?  Let's get a grip on reality.  That's never been a thing in reverse.

Another thing that may be attributed to sexism is the scene where Martha sexually assaults him.  If she were a man, and following him down that canal, and he's telling her to stop and leave him alone, she'd have gotten smacked.  And I recommend yes, crack her one.  Anyone who's putting hands on you in that creepy scenario, don't let them get their hands down your pants until you have a freeze response as he did.  Gender is no excuse.  Hit them, or whatever you need to do, so you can get away.  Fuck that.

But the thing of Donny having the freeze response during her assault, and blaming himself and not feeling human afterward, not knowing what to think or how to feel, all of that was 100% spot on.  Same with her blaming him about it.  Exactly how it works.  Every rapist claims it was consensual and you liked it.

So for me, since the narcissists in my life were my parents, it's a little weird for me to see a show where the buy-in was entirely voluntary.  In my case what I wanted from them was the most basic thing, which Donny's parents gave freely and my parents never did. 

I can't imagine playing along with Martha's bullshit.  So again, it seems to me like Donny is also a bit of a narcissist, which doesn't get addressed in the show except by way of Teri calling him out and then dumping him.  But Teri should never have taken him back after (a) lying to her about everything, and then (b) ditching her on the train.  He's a douche.  He really is.  She has the cutest apartment and supportive friends.  She looks like Frida Kahlo.  She needs him for what?

Overall this is a good show and worth watching.  I do get really tired of the silly things men need to say about sexual assault while thinking about it for the first time.  But it does all need to be said, so.

 Allison Wean is being sent to prison.

I'm posting this here for reference.  People will say that women don't get punished for the same sex crimes that men do, or women receive probation only, or that women receive some automatic leniency.  Actually the reverse is true. Officer Timothy Barber repeatedly raped a minor while on duty and pled down to probation only, unlike Allison Wean.

I remember the case of some police officer, I want to say he was in Louisiana.  He appeared to have done some rather overt sexual misconduct on traffic stops and been caught -- good.  But the sentencing he received seemed highly disproportionate.  For example Daniel Holtzclaw got something like 13-15 years per charge, and the African-American officer in Lousiana had gotten something like 50 years per charge.

That's how this case appears to me.  Like the Louisiana officer, I'm not arguing that Wean is any less despicable.  She groomed and abused this child.  She's going to prison, that's good.   I'm pointing out that the justice system went, "Bing, bang, boom, bye, lady, you're a child molester."  And that this is contrary to the many narratives that will appear in the YouTube comments below the video.

Meanwhile, all my life, male molesters have been running amok without consequences, raping and even murdering children and adult women multiple times under the refrain "boys will be boys." 

I've never been an advocate for "girls will be girls."  I think the only people calling for leniency for Ms. Wean were members of her family. 

I could not be prouder of the delegation that went all the way to France.  They marched right up to the devil and punched him in the nose.  God bless.

It's a hard line for me to walk a lot of the time, not wishing anyone dead.  But should I cry that Rivoire died?  I'm sorry he wasn't forced to face justice in Canada.

It's the same old infuriating line of reasoning:  the perpetrator 100% denies everything.  Everybody else believes the survivors.  But there's no proof.  So the rest of the world throws up its hands and cries "nothing we can do, alas."  Welcome to rape culture.

Shame on all the dirty bastards who hid him from the law.  Shame on the Catholic Church and all of the enablers from all institutions who do similar things.  The Mormons are no better, I don't believe any of them are.  Walmart certainly isn't.  I just don't have time to blog about that.  But really, the Catholic Church should be a tiny bit morally or ethically better than Walmart.

The linked video has some interesting interviews.  But it's titled "Inside the Indian Reservation Where People Go Missing."  Then it doesn't address anything about the how or why of people going missing.   Instead he takes an ill-informed stab at the history of boarding schools.  This guy means well.  He tried.

It's upsetting to see how the shittiness of America has fully pervaded Native America.  I knew that it had, because I've been all through the West for the last ten years.   But I don't have any personal experience with Natives who have access to casino money. It's depressing to see how clearly money doesn't fix it.  Even when people do have access to drug rehab facilities, they need more than that. 

America is doomed.  Even people who are literal members of a tribe, enrolled members of a family with an ancient name that they know, can't withstand end-stage capitalism without alcohol and crystal meth.  The village can no longer raise the child.

What really struck me was when he said his mom couldn't even talk about the boarding school.  She'd fall silent.  That's my experience, too.  People just choke up about it, they can't even go there.  Those schools were the most shameful torture camps for children.  My mind was completely blown when I read Luther Standing Bear's book, his shilling for that horrible place, his rationalizations of the horrors he described. 

I can understand why Standing Bear said what he did, in his own personal context  But as an Italian-American, and a Catholic, especially as a survivor, I can never feel anything but shame, grief, and remorse for any of that.  I'm so horrified.

It's important to point out, however, that the young man in the video got one important thing very wrong:  Catholics and Anglo-Saxon Protestants are two very different communities.  Never the twain shall meet.  Catholics did many bad things and also ran horrible boarding schools.  But the "Kill the Indian, save the man" situation of Captain Pratt, and the ethnic cleansing pogroms of America overall, were an Anglo-Saxon Protestant joint.  Andrew Jackson was a Protestant.  The Trail of Tears was a Protestant situation.  Custer was a Protestant.

Let's not get it twisted:  in our modern era, from the Mayflower forward, America's punishment fetish has been a Protestant thing.  Specifically hanging and lynching, lots of which was done against Native Americans (and my people, who called both the act and the people it was done to linciati) are strictly a Protestant jam.  Catholicism doesn't allow for capital punishment.  Abraham Lincoln had the option of pardoning a number of Natives who were to be hanged.  He pardoned most, but not all of them. 

The Catholic Church was responsible for destroying the Mayan codices, for the horrific child trafficking mass murderer Christopher Columbus, and for having the most questionable moral high ground, for sure.  But they're entirely distinct from the boss-man of America. Catholics have never been in charge in America.  Plenty of horrible murderers were Catholics.  But our rank-and-file don't stand in lynch mobs as a rule.

And I, as a second-generation American of Napolitan stock, need to draw that distinction.  Because my people aren't actually in the same ethnic community as Columbus, either.  His people don't so much recognize us and vice versa.  So this young man is making a bit of a whiteberg.

I'm not saying the Catholics are overall any less racist or imperialist, or better.  The pope's moral high ground is the janitor's bathroom at Deutschebank.  I'd just like there to be a clean line when laying blame.  Catholics go all around the world protecting their horrible priests, like the old Frenchman who was accused of assaulting Inuit children.  We're famous for it.  But they do then incorporate all of the Indonesian, and Inuit, and African, and other people who converted into one big coat of every color that is our (molested) Catholic family. 

Protestants still run America to this day, and do all the same things, and are invisible and oblivious to that fact, pointing at Catholics, because we're all white.  Catholics shouldn't be equally blamed for Protestant crimes, is what I'm saying.  "Kill the Indian to save the man" was by, for, and about Protestants.

I remember how horrible Catholic schools were for me as a white, Catholic child who spoke English in the 1970s.  And our nuns were racist, while believing they weren't, and teaching us not to be, as best they could.  Some of them tried their best, they really did.  They just weren't good at being nice to kids.  They were unhappy people in a dishonest religion.