General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Steubenville looks to be another Penn State. [View all]yardwork
(69,535 posts)At the probable cause hearing at least five witnesses testified that they had pictures of the rapes. They testified that they had deleted the pictures. The police were incompetent if they were unable to retrieve those files from the witnesses' phones. I don't believe that they tried.
"Everybody" is NOT claiming that "nobody was charged until Anonymous got involved." Many of us are noting that the testimony of the witnesses, not to mention the video created by a participant, indicates that many more than two people were involved in the hours' long assault on this child. There are laws against accessory to rape. There are laws against providing alcohol to underage children. There are laws against putting naked photos of underage children on blogs. It's quite obvious that there is an ongoing cover up by local authorities to ignore all these criminal violations, blame only two minors (one of whom happens to be black), and sweep everything else - including obvious criminal culpability on the part of adults - under the rug. That's when Anonymous stepped in.