From wingnut paradise Arizona comes this gem:
A state police officer gets drunk, gets in his car and drives to a Flagstaff bar, where he proceeds to put his hand under a woman’s skirt and skim his fingers across her genitals.
He gets probation. She gets a lecture.
From the judge.
A female judge, no less.
“If you wouldn’t have been there that night, none of this would have happened to you,” Coconino County Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Hatch told the victim this week.
….
Speaking of the power to change, judges are elected in Coconino County and Hatch will be on the ballot in 2014. The longtime public defender was appointed to the bench by Gov. Jan Brewer in 2010 to fill a vacancy. Voters then elected her in November 2010.
Not only did she blame the victim, but consider the punishment meted out:
Arizona trial Judge Jacqueline Hatch, who was appointed to the bench by Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ), decided that Evans’ actions did not warrant jail time — sentencing him probation and 100 hours of community service. Evans also will not have to register as a sex offender.
An incredibly generous sentence, no? This will likely all be forgotten by 2014, so Hatch will probably pay no price. Indeed, she’s probably seeing a fundraising surge right about now. But this is just another insight into the rightwing mindset.
But on re-reading the story as I wrote this post, what struck me was that Hatch had been a public defender. I’d be interested in knowing more about that, wouldn’t you? Somehow I suspect that at least a few of the minority defendants she represented got something less than an aggressive defense.
Mary G
I have no words. They don’t want to go back to the 50s. They are shooting for medieval.
Baud
Scumbag judge. But I think it dilutes the political significance of the War on Women if you use that phrase to include every injustice done to women in this country.
DougJ
I hate “if you wouldn’t have”. What’s wrong with “if you hadn’t”?
Schlemizel
ya know yer onher – I woodnta have ta rape that dumb broad if she hadn’t been there that night.
Its all the bitches fault fer being where they don’ belong.
I don’t want to live on this planet any longer
Patricia Kayden
Thank goodness all he did was touch her inappropriately. If he had raped her, the Judge would have demanded that she prove it was a legitimate rape.
But the Repub war on women is all just a figment of our collective imagination.
SiubhanDuinne
Holy… I just… I can’t…
This makes me simply incanfuckingdescent with rage. Makes me weep for the young woman, who must feel doubly betrayed between the lecture and the “sentence” given to her attacker.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
Theocracy. You’re soaking in it.
SiubhanDuinne
@DougJ:
You’re expecting basic grammatical English AND judicial fairness? Your standards are much too high for the Arizona bar.
El Cid
George Washington didn’t die on the cross so that one day women would be allowed to leave the home with their faces uncovered and without a competent male guardian.
Narcissus
He was just looking for her papers
I mean isn’t that where women keep them
geg6
WTF? Is this dumb bitch for real?
FSM forbid that I would wish violence or assault against another person (other than figuratively, that is), but I’m finding myself wishing this asshole would run into a sexual predator on her way home from chambers late one evening. And hopefully, nothing worse than the assault that was perpetrated on the victim in this case would occur. But when she calls the cops, I hope with all my heart they ask her what she was doing out at night, alone, and that since she put herself in that situation, she has nothing to complain about and no one to blame for it but herself.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. These people are turning ME into a monster.
The Ancient Randonneur
Only the innocent deserve an aggressive defense.
RedKitten
Jacqueline Hatch is obviously one of those judgmental, uptight bitches whose life is so empty that her hatred for women who actually appear to be having fun just emanates through everything she does.
No woman who is secure in herself and happy with her life would be so fucking hateful towards a woman who was just at a bar having a drink.
The sad thing is, that kind of thing happens all the time. A lot of women don’t even report it, because collectively, as a gender, we’ve just grown so weary. It almost DOES become something that you just expect. I was out dancing with friends many years ago, and while dancing, a guy came up behind me and grabbed me right in the crotch with both hands, almost lifting me off my feet, and started humping me from behind. It’s only now that I’m older that I see it as emblematic of a larger problem. At the time, I just elbowed him in the solar plexus and said, “Don’t fucking touch me, or I’ll break your goddamn face.”
But why the hell can a woman not go out dancing with friends, or out for a drink, without that weary knowledge that she’s very likely to be touched sexually against her will? Why can’t we just be left in peace?
smintheus
@DougJ: Yeah, I think that’s the part of the judge’s comments that offend me the most. If you don’t know how to express a contrary to fact condition grammatically, then you’re too great an idiot to be serving as a judge.
Geoduck
And of course once the inevitably storm of bad publicity hits, here comes the half-assed mealy-mouth “apology”:
http://www.azfamily.com/news/Outrage-in-Flagstaff-judge-issues-apology-for-blaming-sex-assault-victim-169005596.html
RSA
You know that Judge Hatch is just the kind of person who flew into a rage at Ward Churchill’s “little Eichmanns” comment about workers in the World Trade Center, and yet her “If you wouldn’t have been there” is the identical sentiment.
Yutsano
@RedKitten:
Not to make light of the situation, but I do seriously so less than three you for this comment.
Dennis SGMM
@DougJ:
The latter is plain language. The former is a muddy circumlocution. One of the many things that infuriates me about so-called conservatives is their ongoing effort to bleed our language dry of meaning and import.
Jess
Speaking as a women who has suffered her share of predatory sexual behavior from men, I don’t think the punishment meted out to the cop was out of line if that was his first offense. I doubt we would expect any harsher a punishment if he pushed her or exchanged punches with someone, so let’s keep things in perspective. I think adult women who are tough enough to hang out in bars with drunk, horny men are fully capable of handling the unpleasant experience of getting groped without getting traumatized by the experience. I’ve had worse happen in those settings, and if I were too fragile to smack the guy upside the head and move on, I wouldn’t hang out in places like that. Of course, if it happened anywhere else, I would expect the guy to get a more serious legal smackdown, but bars are kind of an outlaw zone to some degree. That’s why we go there, right?
I do, however, despise that judge who lectured the woman.
Suffern ACE
@Geoduck: Egads. So I guess her time as a public defender made her insensitive to victims.
Schlemizel
@The Ancient Randonneur: and we know innocent people never get arrested – if they do accidentally they never get charged thats for sure.
RedKitten
I disagree. So if we’re not tough enough to handle being groped, we have no right to go out and have a drink with friends? That’s bullshit. There should be NO place on this entire fucking planet where it’s acceptable for anybody to touch anybody else’s genitals without their permission.
Schlemizel
@RedKitten:
I don’t know. I was going to make yet another joke because thats how I deal with pain. Its all because Eve, she made you want it. But it just is too stupid and vulgar. “Men are pigs” is to easy. Maybe somebody knows but I can’t even know where to begin.
@Jess:
I’m going to try to adhere to my prime directive for internet commentary & first assume no ill intent. But, are you suggesting that women who want to go to a bar for a drink and a little fun are somehow willingly putting themselves in danger? WTF kind of world is it we live in if that is true?
double nickel
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God: Wins the internet…
Dennis SGMM
I can’t help but wonder what the sentence would have been if the perp had fondled some guy’s balls.
Schlemizel
@RedKitten: exactly. I used to stop by bars & have a drink with friends & nobody tried to grab my ass, why should that change simply because the person being assaulted is female?
WaterGirl
@Yutsano: Was your comment a victim of auto correct, or have I lost the ability to make sense out of a simple sentence?
eldorado
if only she would have been allowed to carry a gun in the bar, this wouldn’t have had to go to trial.
WaterGirl
@Jess: I kind of despise what you’ve written there, with the exception of your final sentence.
smintheus
@Jess:
You don’t get to speak for anybody but yourself. If you choose not to prosecute somebody who gropes you because he groped you in a bar, then that’s your right. It’s not your right to tell others that they shouldn’t prosecute such a creep to the fullest extent of the law. And if you want to advocate for more lenient sentences for creeps who break the law while in bars, then you should get busy and start amending the laws to create bar-room exceptions to assault statutes. Meanwhile, though, where do you get off insinuating that the woman assaulted shouldn’t expect a judge to treat her complaint with full seriousness?
geg6
@Jess:
Sorry but you are no better than this judge. You have essentially said the same thing did. As a victim of aquaintance rape in which the same could be said of me as both you and this judge said of this victim, go fuck youself.
Narcissus
Wait bars are outlaw zones now
Is this Mos Eisley
Did I wake up in star wars again
RedKitten
@WaterGirl: I had a hard time deciphering it at first. But then I got it…text symbolism. <3 A heart.
Jess
@Schlemizel: No, not danger. But this is what I mean by needing to maintain perspective. He groped her, and whether she was sitting quietly with her friends or shaking it up on the dance floor, what he did was wrong, and he should be called on it. But, he did not endanger her or physically harm her, and I while I do think it is right and proper that he faced some unpleasant consequences for his bad behavior, I would not expect his punishment to be any harsher than it would be if he got in a shoving match with someone. We go to bars in the expectation that our id’s get to come out to play, and that sometimes things go to far. If we can’t handle that possibility, we should stay out of bars. We’re there on a voluntary basis, knowing what sort of things happen when people are out drinking and looking for action. It’s not like it happened in a nice restaurant or on the street.
Baud
@RedKitten:
Thank you. I can sleep soundly now.
WaterGirl
@RedKitten: I never would have figured that out in a million years. Not even if my life depended on it. Very clever.
GG
@DougJ: Oh good, it’s not just me being an old fart. Must admit that her infacility with language fits with the rest of her crappy observable mindset. Also too, what you wanna bet she’d support an “English Only” law in AZ?
WaterGirl
@Jess: Wow. You do not speak for me at all, and I find what you are writing to be very offensive, and the more you explain yourself, the worse it gets.
Jess
@geg6: See what happens when you lose perspective? Everything gets all black and white and you start talking like a wingnut…
Getting groped is not the same thing as getting raped, just like getting shoved is not the same thing as getting beat up. You insult those who have been violently raped when you try to equate the two.
RedKitten
Just because we know that this is a possibility, that does not mean that we have to just suck it up and “handle it”. I don’t want anybody touching me without my consent. I don’t give a fuck if I’m in a bar, on the subway, or in a nice restaurant. And it completely shits me that people like you seem to think that the problem is mine, for being a delicate little flower. It’s not. The problem is THEIRS, for not knowing that they do NOT have the right to pull that kind of bullshit.
Dennis SGMM
@Jess:
He demeaned her as a human being. He diminished her. He treated her as if one of the most personal parts of a person was his by right of his drunkenness and his manly manhood. I’ve cut people for less.
Yutsano
@RedKitten: @WaterGirl: I blame wifey. We tend to talk like that early and often. :)
@RedKitten: He, in the legal definition, assaulted her. Full stop. And got off pretty much Scot-free for it. He should have at least had a long and thorough internal affairs investigation and probably a few weeks in a cell.
Alison
Or hey, rather than not go out anywhere…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8FfFwtL91Q
geg6
@Jess:
Jeebus. You are sick, sick, sick. I have worked in bars and hung out in bars, often solo. Never once did I go with the expectation that I would be assaulted and that I should be fine with the perpetrator getting a slap on the wrist should an assault happen.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I am so angry right now that you’d never know I was +4 when I opened this thread. I’m dead sober and ready to start bashing someone with a goddam 2×4.
suzanne
These people LITERALLY want to keep us locked in the house, barefoot and pregnant.
Happy to vote this POS out.
smintheus
@Jess: I would have said that your comments make you sound like a wingnut. Make your own damned exceptions for creepy behavior in bars, just don’t try to impose them on others.
suzanne
@Jess:
We do? I sure as fuck don’t.
Redshift
@Schlemizel:
The all-too-understandable “men are pigs” reaction is the reason men should be mortally offended by this victim-blaming. Inherent in the concept is the idea that men just can’t control themselves, and that’s insulting.
Men are not born pigs. Our culture teaches too many it’s okay or even expected, which is why ones who act like this should be shamed by all men who don’t act like pigs (and prosecuted, too.)
No one should have the excuse that it just happens, or it’s expected, or guys can’t help themselves. It doesn’t, it shouldn’t be, and they can. It happens because they chose to be assholes, and they could stop if they wanted to.
RedKitten
I still just can’t believe in this day and age, that we STILL have people who use the “Well, what did you expect? You were in a bar/wearing a short skirt/walking alone/out on a date with him!” bullshit arguments.
WaterGirl
@Yutsano: My favorite notepad shows a dog, a cat, and a broken vase, with the dog and the kitty each pointing at the other. Text reads:
Always assume full responsibility if you can’t find someone to pint the finger at.
Jennifer
In much the same way, if those Jews hadn’t been in Europe, then Hitler wouldn’t have been forced to murder them.
There, we’ve got Godwin out of the way.
Jess
@Schlemizel: And if you grabbed somebody’s ass in a moment of drunken exuberance that you barely remember the next morning, would you expect to face jail time and be required to register as a sex offender? Especially if that was the first time you had ever done anything so offensive?
Redshift
@Jess:
Fuck off. You don’t get to speak for them either.
Alison
@Jess: Dude, please stop typing. You’re just getting more repugnant.
Also, I would say this was way beyond “groping”. He didn’t just pat her on the ass, he put his fucking hand up her skirt and touched her genitals. *That is sexual assault.* No fucking question, unless you – and I mean both “general you” and *you*, Jess – are a total fucking asshole.
And as others have said, speak for your own damn self, because as a woman who has also experienced numerous instances of assault, I kindly ask you to fuck right the fuck off.
smintheus
@Jess: Grabbing somebody’s ass is not sexual assault, at least not in the sense that sticking your hand up somebody’s skirt and grabbing her genitals is.
RedKitten
@Jess: Why not? If I mug someone in a moment of drunken exuberance, or drive drunk, or punch an old lady in the face, I would fully expect that I’d face jail time, or at the very least, a lengthy probation and fine.
Fuck, maybe if people DID face jail time for that bullshit more often, it would stop being considered as just a normal hazard of being out in public.
WaterGirl
@RedKitten: I can hardly believe how angry and disgusted I feel in response to what is being said by this Jess person. I try really hard not to judge, but this just seems like a really fucked up world view to me.
Gin & Tonic
@Jess: I’m an older dude and not attractive, so I certainly don’t expect to be groped, but I do not go to bars with the expectation that I’ll be shoved or pushed or hit, nor with any understanding that my (or anyone else’s) id is going out to play. And if I were, I wouldn’t shrug it off and say “shit happens” or “shame on me for going to a bar.”
Yutsano
@geg6: One of our frequent commenters is a bartender. I’m certain she has her share of tales of drunken idiots trying to go too far with her, and sometimes even the bouncers aren’t enough. Alcohol is no fucking excuse; you invade someone’s personal space, you’re committing a crime. Period. If you go for their sexual organs, it’s a sex crime.
Maude
@Yutsano:
In NJ, he’d be in jail and in all the newspapers.
geg6
@Jess:
Oh, so only “violent” rapes count, so the fact that I was jumped after leaving a party by someone I knew who held me down, hit me, and threatened me and then proceeded to rape me but didn’t leave any broken bones or bleeding means it wasn’t serious enough to count. And the fact that I was 15 and too scared to tell anyone means it didn’t happen, I suppose. The bruises went away, after all, so no biggie, right? I’m just diminishing the experience of those who were “violently” raped by even discussing it and I’ve just lost all perspective.
Fuck you. Go DIAF.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@Jess:
That must be a royal “we,” because when I’ve gone to a bar, it’s been with the expectation that the laws against assault still apply.
It’s amazing how both you and the judge chose to erase the responsibility of the ONE person who was actually responsible here. The man who committed the assault had a choice. And as the victim correctly noted, if she hadn’t been there, he’d have simply targeted some other unlucky woman. Non-consensual is non-consensual, and there are no exception zones. The responsibility is his, whether he’s in a bar, in a “nice restaurant”, in her apartment, or in a bouncy castle.
Jennifer
A guy stuck his hand in my crotch one time in a bar, and ended up on top of one of the tables. On the way down, he knocked over the drinks on it, splashing them all over the couple that was sitting there. Last thing I saw on the way out the door was the guy who had been sitting at the table on top of the asshole groper, beating the living shit out of him.
YellowJournalism
@Jess: I’ll go vulgar and base and say, “Fuck that kind of ‘logic!” The victim was groped and felt up directly on her genitals underneath her panties by a person who is supposed to uphold the law and serve as an example within the community. Maybe that wouldn’t traumatized you, but it could put some serious trust issues into my head or many, many oter women’s heads regarding men and cops, especially. Having someone like you or, worse, a judge tell us it is something we should not only expect but maybe blame ourselves for us outright bullshit of the most offensive degree.
When I go into a bar, I expect to have a drink or two or more, depending on how tipsy I feel like getting. Even if I am out on the prowl and want some random guy to grope me, he is still going to need my permission first! Being at a bar or having alcohol in your system does not excuse bad behavior and sure as hell doesn’t allow for what is clearly criminal behavior in tho case!
JGabriel
__
__
Tornadoes in New York City today. But there’s no global climate change; it’s just God punishing decadent sodomites.
.
Jess
@Dennis SGMM: And he should face some consequences for what he did. But I don’t think he should be jailed and forced to register as a sex offender if it was he first offense.
The responses I’m getting here are clear proof that we’ve gone waaaay overboard on the subject of sexual assault. Do you really think it should be treated radically different than any other kind of assault? There are degrees of bad behavior and contexts to consider. Go back and read what I said. I never said he should be allowed to do what he did with no consequences. I never said anything goes in bars and that it was the women’s fault for being there. I said the consequences need to fit the crime and the context, and a bar is a different context from a work environment, and we cannot expect the same level of civilized behavior. If a colleague makes a lewd comment to me in the work place, I’m sure as shit going to file a complaint. A stranger in a bar? Not going to bother to give it a second thought. A guy gropes me on the bus? I want a judge to throw the book at him. In a bar? Probation and community service seems just about right. I’m more worried about the guys that drive home drunk…
WaterGirl
@geg6: That’s horrible. And now I am even more angry at your mom than I was before.
Debbie(Aussie)
My daughter brought this to my attention from a reddit thread. My immediate thought was what a bitch, followed by, they want us barefoot and pregnant or in the home, where we belong. No female judges then, she thought about that?
We don’t have the same depth of trouble you guys are having, but it is there, in the background with our right wing loonies.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@RedKitten:
And if, in a moment of drunken exuberance, I get in my car and start driving, I don’t think “drunken exuberance” will pass muster as an excuse.
But hey, those pedestrians should have known not to be there….
RedKitten
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker:
See, obviously we just shouldn’t allow women in bars. For their own protection, of course.
? Martin
Yeah, nothing new:
Also noted is that Park disabled the GPS on his car so he could deny traveling out of his patrol area. Still the woman’s fault.
Yutsano
@Debbie(Aussie): I have a good friend from college relocating down there some time next year. She won’t be going with her fiance as she’s doing a work transfer. I predict she’ll love it but now I’m concerned as she’s a rather attractive blonde. Tell me Brisbane isn’t too terrible.
Jess
@geg6: I consider that a violent rape. And if someone did that to a friend of mine, I would cut his dick off.
You’re reacting, not thinking about the point I was actually making. You’re lecturing to an empty chair. I generally like all you guys and usually agree with what you’re saying, but when I disagree, I say so, and try not to demonize or misrepresent the other person’s point in the process. You all should try it sometime.
WaterGirl
@? Martin: What the fuck is wrong with these people?
rb
@Jess: we’ve gone waaaay overboard on the subject of sexual assault.
I call bullshit. This person is trolling.
Yutsano
@RedKitten:
If the US is gonna go full Taliban, no sense in mincing words.
mclaren
The reason for a sentence like this is any kind of criminal conviction ends your career in law enforcement. So any LEO who commits a serious crime will almost always see it rolled down to an infraction with a suspended sentence and community service time.
Whereas if an average person did the same thing, they’d get 10 years in prison.
WaterGirl
@rb: With comments like these from Jess, it’s hard to believe that “Jess” could actually be a woman. For all we know, this may be a male sexual predator trolling this thread. Whatever it is, it’s fucked up.
geg6
@WaterGirl:
Yeah, well according to Akin and, probably, Jess, I must have liked it or I would never have gotten pregnant. In my mother’s defense, she didn’t know until years later that it was rape. But it still doesn’t excuse a forced birth and adoption against my will.
I gotta go to bed and hug my man. This thread will not end well for me. I’m so furious, I’m shaking.
Dennis SGMM
@Jess:
I once again failed to correctly express my point. I was a saloon fighter in places like the Tropics and the Blue Anchor Bar in South Texas, probably well before you were born. Those were some tough places but, even they had their limits. If someone there had done what this guy did they’d have had to soak him up with a sponge.
Invading someone’s personal space to the extent that the perp did deserves more than community service. I say this because every single one of us loses when someone demeans one of our fellow citizens in that in that way and then is given a kiss on the cheek by the courts.
RedKitten
Um, in civilized countries, we do.
If I’m at a bar and a drunk guy randomly punches someone, that latter person has every right to call the cops and have charges pressed for assault.
Your bar for behaviour is set a hell of a lot lower. It is one thing to expect more flirtatious behaviour, and perhaps a bit of ribaldry, when at a bar. But I don’t give a shit WHERE I am…nobody, and I mean nobody, has the right to touch my Very Thing without my say-so.
WaterGirl
@mclaren:
As well it should.
Gemina13
@RedKitten:
Amen.
And, Jess? Fuck off. If you’re happy getting groped in a bar by someone who’ll get slapped on the wrist for it, that’s your lookout. I, on the other hand, would expect a judge not only to give the cop a just punishment–like a few days in jail for abusing his position–but also NOT TO SCOLD ME FOR BEING IN A PLACE THAT CATERS TO ADULTS.
Oh, and when I go to a bar, I don’t go there to “let my id out.” I go there to relax with friends or my darling, have a drink or two, listen to music, and then go home without getting groped, molested, or otherwise bothered by people I don’t want to touch me. Is that too hard for you to understand, or should I use smaller words, fuckwit?
GG
@suzanne: That pretty much is it, innit? It makes me unspeakably angry. I actually did grow up when “nice women” didn’t go to bars. Even if you were on business in a respectable hotel, merely showing up in the hotel bar was “Asking for it.” It might just mean being hit on by some drunk moron because the bar was the only place open and you hadn’t eaten, but the whole underlying idea was there.
I’m kinda glad the woman involved didn’t respond the way I would have, which would have involved whatever glass I was holding impacting the asshole’s head, preferably his face. I’d probably still be in jail.
Maude
I have this attitude of touch me you die. It has worked all my life. I mean it. It isn’t just a little saying.
Smiling Mortician
@Jess: Ah, the sanctimonious “you’re hysterical” gambit. I wondered when you’d pull that one out.
No shit.
Jess
@WaterGirl: No, I’m a woman, and a feminist, and I’m not trolling or trying to upset other sexual assault victims. But I do believe in the punishment fitting the crime, and I’m as opposed to mobs with pitchforks as I am to assholes who can’t keep their hands to themselves. But I guess you all just wanted to rant about lynching every man who ever done a woman wrong, and weren’t actually interested in discussing what an appropriate punishment should be for groping someone in a bar while drunk. My bad. I’ll stop trying to explain nuance to angry mob.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@Jess:
No, you used slightly more weaselly language about how “we” (royal “we”) should have the “expectation” that a woman who goes into a bar is going to have a stranger reach up her skirt and grab her crotch, and she should just “handle” it because it’s just too much to ask that have him “handle” behaving in a non-criminal way.
There’s that royal “we” again.
eemom
@Jess:
Fuck you, you self-righteous asshole.
I’m a major advocate for respecting nuance where nuance exists to be respected. But respect for drunken assholes in bars ain’t that place.
One reason I’m glad I spend less time here these days: no matter how fucking obvious something is, there’s always some attention-whoring moron crawling out of the woodwork to offer that “opinions differ on the shape of the earth” perspective.
geg6
@Jess:
No, I’m telling you what an asshole you are. Violent rape, date rape, spousal rape, sexual assault…no difference to the victim. It’s all a loss of self and a diminishment of you as a person. There is no one going overboard on this whole “sexual assault thing,” as you so charmingly put it. If you so much as grab my arm without my permission, that’s an assault. A man putting his hand up my dress, under my underwear, and grabbing my genitals IS a sexual assault. And I hate to be the one to break it to you, but people who brazenly do what this so-called LEO did to this woman almost never do it just once and almost always escalate.
But that bitch had it coming by going to a bar (or a party, right?), where ids are free to run wild and anything goes!
rb
@WaterGirl: It’s a troll, I have to believe.
Aside from the obvious, one additional, smaller disappointing thing is that I happen to believe that the sex offender registry IS sometimes over-used (e.g. putting teens on there for sexting each other? An egregious travesty.)
But anyone who argues that “we” have “gone waaaaay overboard” in prosecuting sexual assault is so out to lunch that s/he almost has to be a troll.
WaterGirl
@geg6: I may try to forgive your mother another day. But not today. Good plan to walk away from this thread, I think I’ll take your advice.
Schlemizel
@WaterGirl: thank you, I thought maybe it was only me
RedKitten
It still is. And it’s sad as hell that those of us who just want to have a beer, or dance with our friends, are expected to just suck it up and “handle” being sexually harassed or assaulted, as some kind of fucked-up toll fee.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@Jess:
So, you’re fine with making excuses for mobs with pitchforks, as long as they confine it to a bar. Good to know.
rb
@Jess: But I guess you all just wanted to rant about lynching every man who ever done a woman wrong
And trollage confirmed.
Debbie(Aussie)
@Yutsano: brissie isn’t too bad at all :) we just have similar issues with the right side being arseholes when it comes to gays women etc. overall I would suggest that we are far less religious and more open. A bit more Europe a bit less USA. Can get very hot here, really muggy, hope she can cope with that.
Yutsano
@Debbie(Aussie): She’s coming from Georgia, I bet she barely notices the humidity. I’m really excited for her, and I’m predicting she doesn’t come back. Well…not as an American citizen anyway. :)
Schlemizel
@Redshift: not sure where it was but I was just reading today an interview with an “ex-virgin” who had been through he abstinence only education. She correctly pointed out that the deal sort of excused guys as not being able to control themselves but girls didn’t have that excuse. This is, of course, bullshit. Why are guys somehow not responsible for their actions if they involve violating women?
As I said in my first post, I don’t want to live on this planet any more.
patrick II
I had a friend who was in a traffic accident. He had stopped at a stop sign and the driver behind him rear-ended his car. At court the judge ruled that he would have to pay half the expenses since if he hadn’t been stopped at the stop sign the accident would never have happened. I thought it was the dumbest thing I had ever heard in a courtroom — until now. And well, ok, Scalia saying we shouldn’t have health insurance because of potential forced asparagus buying is up there too.
geg6
@Jess:
You are not a fucking feminist, full stop. That word does not mean what you think it means and you are too ignorant to know it.
And now I bid you adieu to go to bed bed with a real man, one who respects me and all women and who is more of a feminist than you’ll ever be if you live for a thousand years. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get my blood pressure down enough to sleep.
RedKitten
Not at all.
We’re ranting about the fact that you seem to think that if we can’t “handle” having unwanted hands touching our most private areas, then we have no right to be at a bar.
You’re spending more time on your “What did she expect, she was at a bar?” argument than you are on the fact that a fucking COP drove drunk to a bar and touched a woman’s genitals without her permission.
And you wonder why people are angry with you? Seriously? Maybe if you showed even half the sympathy towards the victim as you’ve been showing towards those poor drunken men who really can’t be held responsible for their actions, we wouldn’t be “ranting”.
Jess
@rb:
No. Not what I said. It’s about defining “sexual assault” and understanding that grabbing someone’s arm is not the same as patting them on the ass is not the same as grabbing their crotch is not the same as violent rape. And are you guys really arguing that a man who is badly beaten up by a group of other men (but not sexually assaulted) should get less satisfaction in court than a women who is raped by the same group? I’ve been both sexually assaulted and badly beaten (at different times), and I can’t say that one was worse than the other. But I would want both perpetrators to get harsher punishments than the guy who groped me in a bar.
I’m disappointed that so many of you can’t handle a disagreement without insults and extreme distortions to the other’s position. I expected better from Balloon Juicers.
Schlemizel
@Jess: I am tired beyond belief of the excuse that drunkenness is an excuse for anything. Asshole are asshole drunk or sober. But the question at hand is not really if this particular asshole should be labeled a sex offender. The question at hand is should the judge have held the woman partially responsible.
Would the judge hold the bank partly responsible for having cash on hand if the drunken asshole decided to rob a bank? No! There are only 2 crimes that society seems to think drunkenness forgives, sexual assault & vehicular homicide. The result is you don’t see many people committing drunken bank robberies but driving murders and rape? Yeah thats understandable & in the case of sexual assault is sort of the womans fault for being available for the crime to take place.
GG
@RedKitten: You’re right of course. I have some local pubs where it really is ok for single women to be there. So I need reminding that “then” is also now, too often, and much worse, it could be Then everywhere .
NancyDarling
@Jess:
I’ve never gone into a bar with that expectation.
Debbie(aussie)
@Yutsano: That is quite possible. My D-I-L is an Oregon native. She’s been hear six years and loves it. Planning to get dual citizenship, unless Rmoney wins then Aussie all the way :)
RedKitten
@Jess: Strawman. Nobody here is saying that groping is as serious an offense as a severe beating.
What we are objecting to is the fact that you stated QUITE clearly that women just kind of have to expect to be groped at bars, and that if we can’t handle it, we shouldn’t go. And that, as everybody else has pointed out, is utter crap. And it is offensive crap. And you’re totally not getting it.
scav
Isn’t it nice of Jess to come down from on high and assert just what Truth(tm) and Perspective(tm) is for now and ever and all purposes, forevermore, amen. All hail the fact that men and cops in Jess’s Feminist wonderland are universally acknowledged to to be unable to control themselves and their ids in bars and all should just gonad up and accept it before venturing out into her fingerfucking freeforall. How dare anyone get upset at something she find perfectly minor, if not fun?
? Martin
@Jess:
Wow, I’ve been doing it wrong all these years. I didn’t realize I was expected to grope the women there. Sorry to have disappointed you all. I’ll work harder in the future.
Ash Can
@Jess:
No, we fucking do not. We go to bars to have a fucking drink, usually with friends. Period. Basic rules of acceptable behavior do not change, in any way, shape or form. Deviations from them are not excused; if a person can’t hold his or her liquor sufficiently to still be capable of behaving, then the onus is upon that person to stay the hell out of bars — not the other way around.
It doesn’t have to be “radical,” but it should be treated differently because it damn well is different. You’re not generally going to see some short, skinny guy assault a woman who’s half a foot taller than him and visibly more muscular. Sexual assault is a power play, an attack directed at someone perceived as weaker. It’s not just an act of aggression, it’s an act of dehumanization. And that goes for any kind of deliberate unwanted sexual contact, whether it’s groping or full-blown rape.
To clarify, I’m not saying that the punishments for rape and groping should be the same, and in fact they’re not. But sexual assault is most definitely not just like any other kind of assault.
The prophet Nostradumbass
Did you, by any chance, play college football?
Mnemosyne
@eldorado:
In Arizona, you can carry your gun in a bar. Maybe that’s what the judge’s beef with the victim was — she should have known that some jackass would grope her in a public place and brought her weapon with her.
Schlemizel
@Jess:
Jess Are you cute? If so what bars do you go to? I have never in my life groped a woman against her will or forced myself on one. But since you seem to think you have it coming maybe it would be wrong of me not to feel you up. If it makes you feel better I can have a couple of beers first.
Jesus I can’t believe I just wrote that. If you really are a woman you are way too smug and sanctimonious for your own good.
I have to go take a shower now, maybe with Lava soap to try to feel clean again.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@Jess:
Yeah, especially when we say things like this:
Oh, wait. That was you.
mark
this thread: wow.
that is all
Jess
@RedKitten: No, go back and read what I actually said. And quit trying to distort my position.
Many of you seem shocked at the idea that “id’s come out to play” at bars. Why is this so amazing to you? People go to bars to drink; why do you think people drink? Have you not been noticing what happens in bars? Again, I AM NOT SAYING THAT THIS GIVES PEOPLE PERMISSION TO BEHAVE BADLY. Or that women get what they deserve when they go to bars. I’m saying that it’s just a fact of life that some people–men and women–do not behave well when they’ve been drinking and their id takes over, and if you can’t handle it, then maybe bars are not the best place for you. Again, THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT DRUNK PEOPLE CAN BEHAVE BADLY WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES. Okay? Just that I, for one, don’t hold them to the exact same standards that I would elsewhere.
Please, people, read what I actually wrote, not what you wish I wrote so you could get your hate on. Is this how you discuss things face to face with people? Or do you hold yourself to different standards on blogs when you don’t in bars?
JoyfulA
@efgoldman: And your daughter was praised in comments for her great writing!
jl
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Was going to post a response to Jess’ theory that bars are really bordellos, but I see at least three commenters beat me too it.
I don’t know whether the punishment was appropriate or not. If they guy will be a registered sex offender the rest of his life, that seems pretty severe, and I wonder can this sleazeball still be a cop?
From the link, it seems like that in addition to criminal perviness, the cop also abused his authority when he threatened to (or actually tried, or did?) arrest the bouncers who threw the guy out after he went on a criminal gropefest on several women in the bar. But this jackass’ boss stand up for him, and I don’t see he got anything for abuse of authority.
I’m not sure, I was too disgusted to read carefully by the end of the article.
So, the problem is more than this one bad cop and the judge. But I guess in our new SW wingnutpia, barbarism is OK if you have the power to get away with it. This is the ‘America’ they want back?
mclaren
@Jess:
Whoa. Shorter Jess:
“If you can’t handle getting raped, you shouldn’t go to a bar.”
WTF?
Jess
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker: Yeah, that was me after trying to deal politely with quite a lot of profanity, insults, and bizarre accusations for daring to suggest that maybe community service and probation was just about right as a punishment for drunkenly groping someone in a bar. I really don’t think that merited the reaction I got. I’ve been commenting here for years, and have always tried to treat everyone with respect even when I disagree with them, and I’m always willing to reconsider my position if someone offers up a good counterargument–which is not what happened tonight. Oh well.
jl
@Jess:
O for God’s sake. Everyone I know, and I as well, go to a bar to get a drink. Maybe play darts or watch some damn sports thing on the teevee. Period. Full stop. End of story. No excuse for what the guy did. And from linked story, looks like a lot more garbage going on in Flagstaff than the bad cop and the stupid judge.
I guess some may think that it is also intuitive that when we get behind the wheel of a ton or more of portable steel, another facet of our ids come out, and pedestrians should GTF out of the way. But most people would disagree. The law sure disagrees.
Redshift
The projection is strong in this one!
Why would you “expect” that, since you’ve never shown up here before? That “civility” crap may let you extend your trolling a little longer at some other blogs, but if you drop into our little corner of the web with some appalling views, you’re going to get it with both barrels. Which you’d know if you were actually someone interested in hanging out here, instead of an appalling troll following a “war on women” filter.
mclaren
@jl:
Exqueeze me?
This asshat was a police officer. He misused his authority to finger-fuck a girl in a bar. This douchebag should be a registered sex offender for the rest of his fucking life. And no, that is not pretty severe, not if he was a police officer at the time and using his badge to get away with molesting innocent girls in a bars. This slimeball needs to spend the rest of his life using an industrial stapler to put up photos of himself on posters reading WARNING! REGISTERED SEX OFFENDER IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD! on trees within 1000 feet of his house for the rest of his goddamn life.
A guy who uses his badge to molest girls is dangerous.
? Martin
@Jess:
And that’s the problem.
You’re perfectly free to excuse boorish behavior. But laws are laws, whether you’re in a bar or a boardroom. You seem to not respect that.
Jess
@mclaren: No: If you can’t handle getting groped, then don’t hang out in bars–or at least the wilder ones. And by “handle” I mean handling it yourself, giving the guy the smackdown he deserves, and getting on with your life.
Mnemosyne
@Jess:
If you punch someone in the face in a bar in Arizona, that’s a Class 1 misdemeanor, and you can get up to six months in jail for it. Under Arizona law, assault is defined as the following:
So you are now on record as saying that physically grabbing a woman’s crotch should be treated less seriously under the law than verbally threatening to punch her since threatening to punch someone can get you six months in jail but grabbing a woman’s crotch only requires 100 hours of community service, and you seem pretty upset that he was even brought to court over this minor inconvenience in the first place.
Congratulations, you are officially an asshole.
Ash Can
@Jess:
::headdesk::
jl
@mclaren: Why do you waste time coming here and apparently intentionally misreading what people say so you can launch an asinine rant?
What the hell did I type that indicates in any way that I thought the bad cop should NOT be a registered sex offender the rest of his life? Or suggest that he should not be barred from being a cop?
I just said I can’t judge whether the punishment was appropriate or not.
I deem that you did not make enough fuss about this bad cop’s abuse of authority, or his boss vilely and corruptly trying to influence the decision for lighter sentence.
You are a fascist. QED.
mclaren
@Redshift:
Fixed that for ya.
Pro tip, Jess: telling girls that if they go into a bar and get raped they should relax ‘n enjoy it,well, that don’t go over real well on this forum. In the immortal words of Marsellus Wallace:
“I’m gonna get medieval on your ass. … I’m gonna call a couple of hard, pipe-hittin’ brothers, who’ll go to work on the homes here with a pair of pliers and a blow torch.”
Mnemosyne
@Jess:
So, again, groping someone’s genitals is a-ok and shouldn’t even be a crime at all, but threatening to punch them needs to be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
Good one.
Redshift
@Jess: Nice try. You said it was not as serious because it was in a bar and women can handle getting groped or they shouldn’t go there, because bars are kind of an outlaw zone.
You’ve spent the rest of the thread trying to pretend that you just said the punishment wasn’t too mild, and accusing people responding to what you actually said of distorting it.
mclaren
@Jess:
Shorter Jess:
“Hey, baby, it’s just a little finger-fucking, what’s the problem?”
Lemme guess: you’re in management. With lots of women working for you.
GG
@Debbie(aussie): Lucky her! I’d move in a second if it were feasible, even though the cost of living (well, in Melbourne anyway, which is where I was most recently) is fairly breathtaking.
(Just cut many stories of ppl I know successfully moving to Oz, or still wishing.)
mclaren
@Mnemosyne:
I think what Jess is really trying to say is the cop should’ve used rufies.
Pete Mack
Um. What exactly should be the penalty for a drunken grope? Is it more than getting in a barroom brawl?
I would have expected a $5000 fine.
amk
wonder what jess’s reaction would be if another man stuck a finger up his ass.
Steeplejack
@Geoduck:
Wow, in the sidebar poll with that story, 86% think the judge should be recalled. AZFamily must be a commie socialist site.
Jewish Steel
Why is it that anytime someone post something about sexual assault, and this seems to be an internet wide phenomena, it brings out some POS like jess?
Do they really think that through the power of their argument they will convert someone, anyone to their depraved point of view?
Mystifying.
EastVanHalen
@Jess: Men who try to finger bang non-consenting women in bars are being “exuberant”? Come back when you’ve figured out how to differentiate sexual assault from a pillow fight.
Mnemosyne
By the way, here’s the simple, harmless behavior by Office Evans that Jess is defending as something that shouldn’t have been prosecuted in the first place:
I mean, really, who doesn’t go into a bar expecting to have an off-duty cop shove his hand down your panties and then flash his badge and announce that he’s going to have the bouncers arrested for daring to throw him out for his behavior? Just one of those things that the other patrons barely even notice these days.
Clearly I’ve got to find some more interesting bars to go to ’cause I sure as hell haven’t seen anything like that in any of the ones I’ve been to, and I live in Los Angeles.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: Yip. According to Jess totes normal behaviour and if that hoor knew any better she would have cleaned his clock after he stuck his hand up her skirt. But totes her fault cause she should have known better than to go to a bar and not expected to be sexually assaulted amirite?
Fuck. I need a long hot shower after typing that.
mclaren
@Pete Mack:
It’s not just “a drunken grope,” it’s a drunken grope perpetrated by a police officer who used his badge to get away with it.
At the very least, the absolute very least, this asshat should be stripped of his badge and fired from the police force and prevented from ever, ever, ever working in any law enforcement position again. Ever.
That includes: bailiff. Traffic cop. Prison guard. Jail guard. Central booking officer. Intake officer. Any law enforcement position, anywhere, ever.
Second, since the penalty for people who abuse and molest women under the color of authority should be much harsher for law enforcement personnel than for ordinary guys on the street, we should be looking at a $20,000 fine plus several years of imprisonment in a friendly local state penitentiary where former Officer Grope can become intimately acquainted with the consequences of the theory that “if you don’t want to get molested, hey, just don’t go there!” Meaning, when those Aryan Brotherhood guys form a conga line to serially anally rape Officer Grope in his jail cell, well, y’know, if Officer Grope didn’t want to get buttfucked by 73 different Aryan Brotherhood guys all down with the White Power cause, then he really shouldn’t have gone to prison.
And lastly, once Officer Grope gets out of state prison, he needs to get put on a sex offender registry for life. Forever.
Punishment should not be lighter for law enforcement personnel who abuse their authority to molest women than for the average guy on the street. Law enforcement personnel should be held to a much higher standard than the average guy on the street. So the punishment for LEOs should be much much more severe.
? Martin
@Mnemosyne: Wait, so in addition to my position of privilege being a white male, who is probably physically stronger than the women in the bars who expect me to grope them, and being in Arizona where I may well be conceal carrying, I can also use my official position of authority as law enforcement to not be kick out of the bar where the women expect to be groped?
Man, there are many, many, many things I was doing wrong.
suzanne
@Jess:
Going to a bar isn’t being in a cage match, asshole. You’re still expected to NOT VIOLATE MY SEXUAL ORGANS in a bar. There is NO PLACE, NO SCENARIO, NO “CONTEXT” in which that is acceptable.
Were you raised by wolves, or did you consciously choose to be the degenerate that you are?
mclaren
@Jewish Steel:
Because America is a sick twisted country that loves violence, especially violence against the weak and defenseless — meaning, especially sexual violence against women.
80% of the serial killers in the world are in America. As the FBI head of VICAP put it, “Serial murder is basically an American invention.”
America is a very sick society. Jess is just a symptom.
You want a statistic that’ll make you physically ill? One in five college girls has been raped.
Here’s another shocking statistic: one out of every three women in the U.S. army gets raped by a fellow soldier.
Yes, America is a badly fucked-up society.
Geoduck
@mclaren: Subjecting sex-offenders (or anyone else for that matter) to prison rape really.. doesn’t solve anything. And he was fired, so the police department is one up on the judge.
mclaren
@Jess:
No, the responses you’re getting from women and men are clear proof that there’s something seriously fucking wrong with you. You are a scary guy. I expect to see you doing a perp walk on AMERICA’S MOST WANTED on a special on serial rapists someday soon.
Yes.
Getting sexually violated can destroy a person. It can scar a woman for life. That’s very different from getting punched in the face.
If you don’t realize that getting sexually violated is wildly different and totally distinct and immeasurably worse than just getting smacked in the face, you need to talk to some women who’ve been raped. You’ll wind up weeping uncontrollably unless you completely lack empathy.
Which is why the punishment for this cop must be much more severe, since he was a law enforcement officer who used the power of his badge to get away with his crime.
Why not?
Why shouldn’t all men be held to a basic standard of common human decency towards women at all times, in all contexts?
Please explain that to me.
mclaren
@Geoduck:
I would venture to suggest that if Jess were raped in prison, his cavalier attitude toward getting sexually violated might mysteriously change. Ditto the police officer.
Mind you, I’m not suggesting that either of these people should be raped in prison. I’m just speculatin’ on a hypothesis, as the mayor says in Miller’s Crossing.
dance around in your bones
Haven’t read any comments yet, but all I have to say is gah! Gah! GAH!
Shit.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Geoduck: mclaren pretty much always poisons anything reasonable she says with something truly disgusting.
RareSanity
I won’t wade into the waters of the philosophical argument that has broken out but. I will say this…
The fact that this was a police officer, committing a crime…any crime…should receive whatever the maximum punishment for that particular crime is. It should be completely unacceptable for a law enforcement official, to be held to a lesser standard than the citizens that they enforce laws on. Period.
IANAL, but I think that there are different “degrees” of sexual assault. So whatever the maximum sentence was for this “degree”, he should have got it. If that includes being registered as a sex offender, jail time, termination from the police department…so be it. If a law enforcement official breaks the law, their job should be in jeopardy, the system should not be set up to attempt to protect from the consequences of their illegal actions.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@RareSanity: I don’t know about Arizona, but I believe that, in California, there’s an extra charge that can be used on a cop for committing an assault “under color of authority”, which can be used to give them a heavier sentence. If Arizona has one, it sure as hell should have been used in this case.
Mandalay
@Geoduck:
Yes, a real non-apology from the judge: “I apologize to the victim for any additional anguish my comments may have caused,” the judge wrote in her statement.
Why do people bother apologizing at all if they feel the need to include caveats in the apology?
Still the victim accepted the apology, and gave a really classy response:
Jerzy Russian
This seems like drunk driving to me. He should have received a heavier sentence for his sexual assault conviction, and not a lighter one.
GG
@RareSanity: Oops, you just did anyway, (and I wimped out earlier because I srsly did want to ignore the troll) but you’re spot on. The creep was a police officer. So he’s now supposed to be let loose to… Stop lone women on a highway after having been slapped with a wet noodle, but publically. Oh good. Truly makes me want to go back to AZ next time I’m supposed to.
GregB
There are large chunks of the citizenry of this nation who are losing their fucking minds. We just had some sheriff candidate in NH tell a reporter that he’d kill a doctor who performed an abortion.
When called out he was just so terribly sorry about the misunderstanding.
These loony shitheels say what they mean and mean what they say all the time.
They have been marinating in their own political toxic juices for so long that they have no public governor to conceal their madness anymore.
This next election needs to be a big enough repudiation to shove their noses in their collective shit.
Geoduck
@GG: Again, the creep was fired by the police department after the assault, so he’s not currently tootling around in a squad car. But yeah, he’ll probably get another job somewhere before too long.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Geoduck: I dunno, a felony conviction is usually a rather large obstacle to being hired by a law enforcement agency.
RareSanity
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
I would hope that similar laws exist in every state in the union, our problem is idiots like this particular judge, actually applying them.
As a side note to Jess, I’m a guy, and I know that there is an unspeakable amount of difference between touching a woman on the behind, and forcibly reaching up a skirt and and touching the “most personal” of places.
Touching a woman’s butt is unacceptable, but grabbing her genitals, under her skirt?
In the vein of the saying, “that’s not even wrong”, what that cop did is “not even unacceptable”. It’s so bad, that it can’t even be measured on the acceptable/unacceptable scale.
Mandalay
@GregB:
And don’t forget this “brave” Republican: “Ohio’s Secretary of State, Jon Husted, refuses to reinstate early voting on the final weekend before Election Day because he believes a change in the schedule would “confuse voters.” Husted has appealed a recent court ruling and will not comply until the appellate court decides on the matter.”
Of course he eventually folded like a cheap suit, and apologized for the misunderstanding.
It seems Republicans have become the party of scofflaw and order.
mclaren
@GG:
Exactamundo. This is the scary part. If this cop gets drunk, drives to a bar and uses his badge to get in without paying a cover charge, then gropes some woman and flashes his badge again to avoid getting his ass tossed out of said bar by a bouncer…what the hell else will this asshat do? When this AZ cop is patrolling? Let’s say some attractive young lady is in a car that’s broken down late at night on some lonely stretch of highway?
What else will this wacked out AZ lech cop do and use his badge to get away with?
I don’t wanna know. Which is why at the very minimum this asshat should’ve been hit with a sex assault conviction and forced to register as a sex offender.
YellowJournalism
Jesus Christ, I love my husband. I was telling him about this thread and mentioned how the only thing I might agree with is the guy not getting, say, five years for the assault. He turned to me and said, “Why the hell not? What if it had been done to you? What I had been the one to do it to some woman?”
I told him he would deserve a life sentence, but he wouldn’t be alive to serve it. “Exactly.” So I started thinking about the possibility that this was not the first time this asshole cop has done or at least tried to do this while hiding behind his badge. That maybe he doesnt need jail but surely deserves some time as a registered sex offender. Then I started re-evaluating my own thoughts on this subject. Too bad people like Jess can’t do the same.
GG
@Geoduck: Thx, I usually read more carefully initially. But with Sheriff Joe clones out there, as you said, I guess the point is still fairly valid.
Suffern Ace
@Mnemosyne: What? We have a flame war about a court case and you want to actually introduce the facts of the case? That’s unheard of…
GG
FYWP!
~ undefined
pragmatism
@Jess: @Jess: So you have commented here for years. Great. You should be familiar with these sorts of interactions and how ridiculous it looks when someone who says something dumb gets hammered for it but keeps doubling down and accusing the entire commentariat of being too stupid to understand. It’s not a good look.
Ruckus
@Jess:
WTF
Yea it’s a tough world and we should all just accept that.
I call BS. Equality is a real thing. You can’t be equal if you are expecting to be molested, no matter the location/situation. I don’t go into a public place expecting to have the shit kicked out of me. I don’t expect that someone will try to kill me when I ride my motorcycle. I know that it might happen, because people
can beare assholes.And with attitudes like this they will never learn any better. Dog on a saltine how do women put up with men? You never know which one of us is a fucking asshole. Some days I’m amazed that with all the guns in the US there aren’t more men found dead by the side of the road with a gaping bullet hole where their genitalia used to be.
Honr
I’m a prosecutor in Arizona and I can say that –at least in my county– it’s routine for first-time felony offenders to receive probation, with no prison time. I wouldn’t say the sentence here was out of the ordinary, though I would’ve argued strenuously for something more severe.
If this guy violates a term of his probation, he can be resentenced.
TS
@Jess:
And there – in a nutshell – is EXACTLY what the Judge said – and that is what the GOP view of women is all about.
TS
@Jess:
If you’re not a troll – your a great excuse for one. Nice ladies stay home, get married, bear children and die. Some of them stand next to their husbands and gaze adoringly into their eyes while they lie to the American people so this farce that you think is life can continue. Go peddle your sh-t some place else.
AA+ Bonds
That reminds me, we have to get that Danegeld together or Cnut will have our balls
AA+ Bonds
Haha nice, Jess
TS
@Jess:
Everyone is long gone – but I can’t stop
If the woman involved had even touched this man on the arm she would have been arrested – so how the hell was she to “handle it herself”
I’m more upset with you than the Judge – that took some doing.
Mnemosyne
Also, too, remember this, ladies and germs:
If the victim had not come forward to press charges, this off-duty police officer would have suffered no penalty whatsoever and would still have his job even after driving drunk, groping unwilling bar patrons, and threatening to arrest the bouncers who threw him out of the bar. It was only the fact that she pressed charges that forced the department to fire him.
That’s the world Jess wants to live in — one where it’s no big deal for a police officer to commit multiple crimes in public because, hey, we all let our id run wild when we go to a bar, amirite?
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I still don’t get this. OK, I’ve come to my senses, there are republican woman and they seem to expect to be housewives, barefoot and pregnant their whole lives, and quite possibly sexually assaulted anytime they leave the confines of their homes. And not only are they OK with that, they expect every other woman to be. Well at least there is some equality in the US, men and women conservatives are equally fucked up in the head.
Yutsano
@AA+ Bonds: Once again: piss off and die you useless copulator of rodentia. Why do you bother peddling your bullshit here anyway when you’re regarded as best a joke? You’re no fucking Marxist socialist wanna-be, you just make noise that the Bard covered best in Macbeth. And cheering on a rape enabler just makes you that much more disgusting. Go. Away.
AA+ Bonds
@Yutsano:
I enjoy the craft of a good derail in service of vice or virtue, kind of like how the Obama team has adopted Karl Rove’s tactics
AA+ Bonds
Of course, I may have read Balloon Juice wrong and there are all sorts of people on here waiting for a pseudonymous poster to enable them to rape
AA+ Bonds
How about it, folks, anyone converted by Jess into a sexual predator
How about a world full of men seriously endorsing the Jess POV, or are you the sort of person generally resistant to that sort of influence
Lojasmo
@Jess:
You fucking moron…this was not analogous to a “shoving match.”. This is analogous to an unprovoked punch in the face, which is not part and parcel of going to a bar for a drink and witty conversation.
Fuck off.
RedKitten
And none of us are misinterpreting that, despite your shrieks to the contrary. Believe me, we know EXACTLY what you are saying: that when we go out to bars, that we have to expect that it’s a real possibility that we will be touched against our will, and unless we’re bold and brash (and possibly stupid) enough to knee the guy in the stones for it, we really just should stay out of bars.
FFS, has it never occurred to you that maybe some women can’t “handle it themselves” because they’re scared? Maybe the guy was fucking huge and intimidating, or surrounded by hooting, cheering friends. Maybe they’re just more non-confrontational in character. According to you, that means that they should not be in bars. And if they do go to a bar, and someone grabs them in the crotch, they pretty much have no right to complain.
No, we get exactly what you are saying. And we’re STILL disgusted.
But hey, it’s just a fact of life that some people on blogs do not behave well when confronted with utter idiocy. And if you can’t handle it…
Carl Nyberg
If judges aren’t going to enforce the law against cops who violate the rights of citizens then vigilante justice is going to be seen as a legitimate response to misconduct by cops.
monkeyfister
“probation and 100 hours of community service”
Shepard Fairey was given probation and 300 hours of community service for coloring up a photograph.
Some FUCT sense of Justice, there.
dance around in your bones
@Alison: That had me laughing so hard I almost peed. Thnx.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@Jess:
Sorry Jess, but you haven’t been misunderstood. Your entire argument is that crimes committed in bars should be held to a lesser standard than crimes committed elsewhere, and that “we” somehow all tacitly agree to that by being in the vicinity of alcohol.
But the reason you’re getting such angry reactions probably has less to do with your nonsensical rewrite of the law than with your weird, armchair-warrior hostility toward the victim. You say you “hate the judge for lecturing her,” but there’s really no difference from your lecture:
You sound like John Derbyshire lecturing the survivors of the Virginia Tech massacre on how HE would’ve heroically jumped the attacker.
We have laws precisely because people like the guy who shoved his hand up the woman’s skirt (remember him? the one who actually did something wrong?) count on being able to find victims who aren’t large enough or physically strong enough “handle” defending themselves physically. If it hadn’t been her, it would have been someone else. The victim handled it by pressing charges, which was the right thing to do, and the one response that lessened the chance of him committing the same crime again.
Patrick Phelan
Speaking as a guy who can’t throw a punch fr the life of me, I was under the impression that the reason we have police and a legal system is so that I don’t have to “handle things myself” by giving a criminal “the smack down he deserves”.
I mean, what if he’s a better fighter than me? And he will be. Because I can’t throw a punch, and wasn’t under the impression that combat prowess is a necessity for equal treatment under the law.
I mean, if someone gropes my balls, and I turn and give him my best ineffective slap, and he’s armed, then, as I’ve learned recently, he’s allowed to kill me, because he’s standing his ground.
I mean, this all sounds like a can of worms to me. Simpler to just give it to the justice system, and ensure that they prosecute it correctly by raising a stink if they don’t.
Which sounds like exactly what certain people (or trolls, or fake feminists, or Jess) are arguing against.
It’s a good thing I don’t drink. Apparently going to a bar requires you to abandon civilisation and expect nothing short of Thunderdome.
Greyjoy
The general consensus is that if you are in a location and someone violates the law, the proper response to the law-breaking is to punish the lawbreaker, not to explain it away, say the law is stupid, blame the victim, or imply that the presence of liquor in some commercial zones means that the law doesn’t apply there.
If we don’t enforce the law, then some people will use that as license to do whatever they want, as evidenced by a law enforcement officer using his authority to break the law. When you further undermine the law’s authority by saying that’s okay, then why bother having laws at all? Is that the society you want to create, one where people have to expect to be assaulted or killed just going about their daily business? That’s bullshit and you’re wrong. The end.
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@Jess: Horseshit! I hung around and collected bad assed bars, and I have never seen this kind of behavior. Frankly, most of the guys would’ve beaten the shit out of this guy. Maybe I hung around the wrong kind of bars.