Girl Seeks Help On Facebook During Assault 417
A 12-year-old girl who was being assaulted by her mother's ex-boyfriend used some quick thinking by sending a message on her iPod to a friend's Facebook account for help. The friend was able to contact the girl's mother who then contacted the police. 42-year-old Raymond Ernest Cesmat was arrested and charged with two counts of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree. He is being held at the Dakota County Jail on $175,000 bail.
Why's this on Slashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)
The girl was raped and the guy left the room. It's not like Facebook saved the girl from being raped. She contacted her friend and requested she contact her mother, then she escaped and called her mother herself from a payphone, then the guy was arrested. There's not much of a Facebook tie-in.
Re:Why's this on Slashdot? (Score:5, Informative)
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There's mention of an iPod. But I don't see anything for the Apple fans to bite...
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except that with apple, one is just as likely to get attention from the other side.
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Its not slashdot, just a particular 3 editors slashdot has that I like to refer to as the 3 stooges. timothy, kdawson, and samzenpus.
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Unfortunately even Taco has succumbed to this kind of shit.
At least it's a pro-internet story (Score:2)
A story like this demonstrates to people that Facebook, and the internet in general, can be useful, even life-saving.
In that way, it may do something to counteract the typical "internets are corrupting your children!!1!" moral-panic type stories that propagate so widely across the news media. (E.g., see the current hysteria about kids listening to binaural beats on YouTube.)
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Every soldier that survives in afganastan posts on facebook therefore facebook saves soldiers lives...
Facebook is better than body armor...
Facebook stops bullets!
I remember my marketing and journalism classes from college, Can I be a marketing executive? I'll take low 7 figures.
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Re:Why's this on Slashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Children are not allowed to possess a firearm unless in the presence of an adult, and 12-year-old kids in general do not have the judgment necessary to carry one on their own.
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I think a 12 year old who was about to be raped would probably find a reasonably good use for a firearm.
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and how many extra gun deaths do you think letting 12 yo have guns would cause ?
hint: http://www.gun-control-network.org/International.gif [gun-control-network.org]
(and that chart is only for INTENTIONAL deaths, you can add accidents to that, not that there are ver any accidents with guns...)
Re:Why's this on Slashdot? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why's this on Slashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)
(the stereotypical 'hey look, it's dad's gun' scenario)
If that can be reduced to a near zero factor through education. When you get the gun, don't hide it in a drawer. The kids WILL find it. Kids love to plunder and find stuff. Instead, let the kids know when you get the gun (if it's an "event" like that - in many gun-friendly households the kids are just born into it). Afterwards, take them out to the range shooting. Show them how to use it effectively, and safely. Tell them WHERE it's at in case they need it. Then, they're not going to run across it on accident, and they're not going to find the "magical" gun lying around there. They're going to know the location of a tool that's as interesting to them as a socket wrench or a drill.
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That to me is the most important thing, to demystify guns. They are tools, highly dangerous tools to be sure, but tools nonetheless. The first step is to demythologize them, or more to the point to de-Hollywoodize them.
Come on, buddy (Score:3, Interesting)
A drill or a socket wrench cannot kill you if you drop it, or if you think it's unloaded, or if you get angry with your pregnant stepmother and decide to kill her while she sleeps [go.com].
Guns are designed to destroy life. They make it too easy to turn short term emotion into permanent tragedy. Throw in accidents, carelessness, sociopaths, and the primate violence found in all human societies, and there's no reason not to regulate it just like we regulate explosives or dangerous chemicals.
Having said that, I am awa
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Your argument is a slippery slope. Owning a gun does not inevitably mean that you’ll be tempted to use it to murder someone (much less actually use it to murder someone), nor does it inevitably mean that it’ll be used on you eventually.
You could replace “guns” with butcher knives, baseball bats, crowbars, or just about any other weapon and your statement would be just as fallacious.
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Not many. I had my first firearm at 10. I had a 22/410 and went hunting on my own a lot when 12 on my parents property.
Kids that are trained in the use of firearms and their danger are more capable than a 40 year old uneducated moron that leaves a loaded pistol on the table.
In fact MANY farmer kids from 8-13 have and own a firearm of their own.
Re:Why's this on Slashdot? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nonsense! I learned firearm safety around age 6 and have been using/carrying firearms on my own for over 30 years. Children who learn to hunt know very well the consequences using a firearm. I am not advocating that 12-year olds should carry weapons, but had she known how to use one, she certainly would have been justified in defending herself.
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Re:Why's this on Slashdot? (Score:5, Funny)
I am not advocating that 12-year olds should carry weapons, but had she known how to use one, she certainly would have been justified in defending herself.
I knew a kid growing up that picked up a target rifle when someone broke into his house and attempted to rape his mother.
You know, I can't condone rape under any circumstance, but raping your mother while someone's breaking into the house just seems particularly unwise.
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My parents always taught me to give away as many material things as needed (money, phone, whatever) and/or run away screaming. That will work in 99.9% of cases. Is it worth the risk of the child being hurt in those 99.9% of cases by arming the child?
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I lived in chicago for a long time... the best is to keep your money on a money clip and seperate from your wallet. when robbed, take out the money clip and drop it and walk away fast, their eyes will be on the cash not you.
works great. Works best when it's a thick wad of 1's covered with a 20 dollar bill and a pocket full of change.. I drop it at their feet and yell "TAKE IT" as I walk away... they always grab the cash and run. Most of the time it's a crackhead looking for dope money.. so $30.00 i
Re:Why's this on Slashdot? (Score:5, Funny)
different from a random bugler or rapist
I, for one, live in fear of random buglers.
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(I've also met twelve year olds who were more responsible than some people are at the age of majority.)
Re:Why's this on Slashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Children are not allowed to possess a firearm unless in the presence of an adult,
Haven't you read the story? There was an adult right there!
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Oddly enough, at one time 12 was considered old enough, particularly in emergencies. Of course, at that time, one of the prizes in cracker jacks was a "match shooter"; you insert a match, pull back the hammer and release and it strikes the match and propels it a short distance away.
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I don't know about the law where you are from - but where I live, kids can own their own weapons with parental approval. The parent is ultimately responsible, of course, but the weapon belongs to the kid. I bought my first rifle when I was twelve, bought my first NEW rifle when I was 16. The salesman only asked that I bring an adult to the store, so that he knew I was allowed to buy the rifle. He might have raised an eyebrow, had I been purchasing a pistol - or not.
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There are quite a few "Armed American" stories that involve children picking up legally owned firearms to defend themselves and/or their families against violent assaults.
And there are quite a few more stories that involve family members picking up legally owned firearms in a moment of anger to kill another family member, or in a moment of distress to commit suicide.
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No, not really.
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Yes, the stories are out there. But, like yourself, most liberals, and even some moderates, discount all the accounts of self defense. "Oh, big deal, granny killed a rapist. Some moron killed his son last month!" Like - you're keeping score, and one accidental death negates 100 successful self defenses.
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More like 1 act of self-defense does not negate the 100 murder's, robberies and suicides.
But don't let facts stop you now!
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Re:Why's this on Slashdot? (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet liberals plug their ears and scream "I CANT HEAR YOU" when you present the solid and provenfact that gun laws DO NOT STOP gun violence as criminals, suprisingly, do not care what gun laws say... Criminals have no problems getting guns even in places like the UK.
Gun laws simply disarm honest people. That is it. there is no other use.
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I assume you have some statistics to back your claims. Do you mind sharing them with us?
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I am not a gun owner, nor do I plan to be one, and feel that if I end up needing a gun for self
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Suicide numbers are irrelevant and dishonest (Score:5, Insightful)
Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, but almost no guns. The US has less than half their suicide rate, with guns freely available.
People who want to commit suicide will use whatever means handy. The availability of one method, guns, has no impact on that.
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Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, but almost no guns. The US has less than half their suicide rate, with guns freely available.
And, clearly, the availability of firearms is certainly the only social, political, cultural, or economic difference between those two countries.
People who want to commit suicide will use whatever means handy. The availability of one method, guns, has no impact on that.
Not having a gun handy very likely doesn't affect the number of suicide attempts, but it may reduce the number of successes. Not all methods of suicide are equally effective.
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If they did not have a gun, then it would have been a knife. Dont even dare to try and make it sound like that the gun perpetuated the violence.. It was the unstable person that did it.
Unstable wackjobs will do what ever it takes... Ohh look, a wine bottle, that will kill someone nicely.
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If they did not have a gun, then it would have been a knife. Dont even dare to try and make it sound like that the gun perpetuated the violence.. It was the unstable person that did it.
Unstable wackjobs will do what ever it takes... Ohh look, a wine bottle, that will kill someone nicely.
Doctors who try to fix these victims up, and cops who investigate murders to prosecute them in court, say that's not true.
It's a lot easier to kill somebody on impulse with a gun -- guns are designed to be easy to kill people. If you hit them with a wine bottle, you won't necessarily kill them, and they can defend themselves or run away. If you shoot them from close range, they're most likely to be dead.
Take a fight. Somebody might get hurt. Add a gun. Somebody gets killed.
I remember a cop describing a typi
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Perhaps the Open Carry folk could try and think a little bit harder and try to address the epidemic poverty, horrible education and nonsensical drug policy instead of pourin
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Many of those "socialistic governments" actually manage to be more "free" than the US. Fascinating, isn't it, how the world doesn't fit into neat little ideological boxes.
As for health care, you forgot the proviso "if you have money". As in, the American system is the best in t
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Yep. Also much better for righting all wrongs: more playstation time, less spinach, marbles thiefs, bath-time enforcers. Thankfully 12 year old kids are in full control of their emotions (like all adults, too), and gun possession would never cause a shouting match or fistfight to graduate to gun murder/
Re:Why's this on Slashdot? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why's this on Slashdot? (Score:5, Funny)
"PLZ water my farm 4me, being raped IRL!!! BRB? :'-("
I'm so ashamed that I find this as funny as I do...
*shame*
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If watching years of stand-up comedy (and South Park) taught us anything it's that nothing is exempt from being funny in some strange way.
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To be fair when someone gets murdered and the guy 5 doors down owned an 18 rated computer game or whatever then computer games get blamed so I see these kinds of stories as balancing it all out!
No seriously though, both types of stories are equally retarded.
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A shame the guy isn't an award winning director living in France, the he could have Whoopi Goldberg explain why this wasn't, "Rape, rape."
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The girl was raped and the guy left the room. It's not like Facebook saved the girl from being raped. She contacted her friend and requested she contact her mother, then she escaped and called her mother herself from a payphone, then the guy was arrested. There's not much of a Facebook tie-in.
From the article:
He later walked in naked and tried to pull off her pants, she said, but she kicked him away and screamed, according to the complaint. When he left, she got out her iPod and found an acquaintance on the social Advertisement networking website Facebook.com. She begged her friend to contact her mother and tell her to come pick her up.
As she was sending the message, Cesmat went back to her room and sexually assaulted the girl, the complaint said.
So no Facebook didn't "save her from being
Mother... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Cesmat, who has a sizable criminal history,"
The girl's mother is an idiot.
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Re:Mother... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Mother... (Score:4, Informative)
It gets better:
"The mom was no longer dating Cesmat but he continued to live with them."
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It's called making the rent.
aka: i dont want to be homeless
Re:Mother... (Score:5, Informative)
While I agree, none of the criminal's prior offenses included either violent crimes or crimes of a sexual nature.
His priors were for fraud and such. I'm not saying the mother was not an idiot, but it's not like she left her with a known pedophile or rapist.
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The girl's mother is an idiot.
No shit..not to mention the guy totally looks like a pedophile/rapist. Way to ignore all red flags...
What do pedophiles and/or rapists look like? Are they a race unto their own? Do they have some soft of discriminating mark on them? If so, why aren't we just rounding people up based on this one trait alone?
Oh... You mean I'm just feeding a troll? Sorry! :-(
Re:Mother... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Mother... (Score:4, Insightful)
You said,
No shit..not to mention the guy totally looks like a pedophile/rapist. Way to ignore all red flags...
And then you said,
It's called intuition. Some people have it more than others apparently...
Nope. You're just too stupid to realize how stupid you are. You are the type of person who votes in bad politicians because of the suits they wear and the confidence in their voice, and who convicts innocent people of murder (if on a jury) because you see "evil in their eyes". People like you also let guilty people go free because they don't look evil [pappastax.com].
You also remind me of some people who said that Heinrich Himmler (the Nazi in charge of the Final Solution) has a pleasant, school teachers face. And of the victims who don't put up their guard when dealing with handsome and polite serial killers and wife beaters.
You can judge people with your intuition, but I prefer to judge people based on my intelligence and logic skills. I don't need to know what you look like in order to judge you, I can tell merely by the type of arguments and reasoning you use.
Martin Luther King once said,
It's too bad that based on your "intuition" (what the rest of us call prejudice), so many people will be continue to be demonized, bullied, ostracized, under-employed, glass-ceiling-ed at work, and generally marginalized.
In reality, it should be how people are on the inside that counts, not on the outside.
Mr. Rogers [wikipedia.org] said that looks don't matter: [pbskids.org],
So you can live inside of your fantasy world where pedophiles and rapists are ugly, white, unemployed men who generally have goatees; and good people are handsome, suit wearing businessmen who are successful at sales. I'd rather live in reality.
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You can judge people with your intuition, but I prefer to judge people based on my intelligence and logic skills. I don't need to know what you look like in order to judge you, I can tell merely by the type of arguments and reasoning you use.
Precisely why Lady Liberty is often shown wearing a blindfold.
Good for something (Score:3, Insightful)
Sad. (Score:2)
Yes, this isn't a Slashdot story, and no, this had nothing to do with Facebook as it could've been a text message instead for all it was.
But a kid was raped, and that's not so awesome that everyone should be hopping on the "lol rape jokes" bandwagon.
Let's just chalk this up to bad story moderation per editor, do our internal-pity-thing for the girl for a sec, and move on.
Why is this on Idle? (Score:5, Insightful)
A 12-year-old girl, victim of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree. Hilarious.
Why do women live with such abusive criminals? (Score:2)
Something that everyone seems to be ignoring: (Score:5, Insightful)
The girl grabbed her iPod. Not her iPhone. Not her cellphone, the home phone, the anything-phone, her iPod. Her cellphone was taken away. So everyone who's going, "Why didn't she call 911?" or "This could have easily been a text message," it couldn't. iPod. Had that been me, I'd probably have searched frantically for a phone, even venturing outside my room, and ultimately running to the payphone. It shows incredible presence of mind for her to realize she could get a message out from her iPod (via Facebook, but it could easily have been email or pretty much any other internet communication).
I think that puts it firmly in the realm of Slashdot, and the debate should be something more along the lines of, "Should police departments have Facebook/other social networking accounts for the purpose of getting crime reports similar to 911." Probably not (too much spam), but it's something to consider. Sometimes it's easier to get on the internet than to a phone.
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What stinks about this is (Score:2)
"Cesmat, who has a sizable criminal history,"
No caring mother would put their kid in harms way, good to see the child can take care of business, she should have gouged the a**holes eyes out.
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To be fair, his sizable record was for check fraud, not violent crime. The mother might not have shown the best judgment in men, but it's not like he was a serial rapist.
The Mom should be in prison (Score:2)
Leaving a minor alone with any non-relative man is dubious at best.
A 12 year old girl and a known criminal ?
"Assault"? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's called "Rape"...
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Come on, he's 42 and she's a young hipster. He probably thought it was a bar of soap, not an iPod.
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Don't break your hip!
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I'm in the 18 - 24 Demographic and ultimately have more hipness than anyone over 40 could ever possibly achieve.
It's not something thats up for debate or competition, thats just the way it is.
It's kind of like ketchup on eggs you know?
Yeah, I'm sure, you get it now, that was a great analogy.
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I was taught that steak sauce was invented to disguise the bad taste of a 30 year old bull. I wouldn't know, because I avoid 30 year old bull meat.
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"You guys are so unhip it's a wonder your bums don't fall off."
-Zaphod Beeblebrox
Re:wait, this is slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
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This was rape, yes, but not pedophilia. Doesn't make it any more or less abhorrent. Pedophilia is by definition a sexual interest in prepubescents. The guy is not a pedophile simply due to raping a 12 y.o., as she was likely sexually mature. On top of being a rapist, he may be a pedophile, too, but we can't tell just by what he did now. In my mind pedophiles deserve lifetime prison sentences with no possibility of a parole. This guy deserves a couple decades in jail for sure, but it's really not pedophilia.
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Are you implying rape of a minor doesn't deserve life in prison without parole, or even rape in itself. In my book they are both equal, and very much deserve the same punishment.
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Please, raping a 12-year old? The trauma inflicted is staggering.
He should get a first class trial with a first class appeal and if found guilty on both cases he should get tossed into a wood chipper.
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A term (if you want one) is hebephile [wikipedia.org].
In my opinion, paedophilia is worse, and the word should be used accurately. I don't see much/any difference between raping a 15yo or a 16yo (or a 60yo), but I do see a difference between raping a 15yo and a 5yo.
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OK, I wasn't clear: I meant to imply pedophiles who act on their urges. Mere mental issue that somehow never gets a pedophile into abusing a child is not what I was after. I wonder how may of those are out there -- it's a genuine question. Do all pedophiles end up hurting a child? Are there any studies on that out there?
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Yes, it's very easy to conduct such studies - because in an era when pedophile means "witch to be burned forever in hell or at the stake whichever we can get to first" people are completely willing to admit to being a pedophile...
It's impossible to take such a measure, because our society has made it virtually impossible to discuss the issue in a rational manner. Imagine if someone WAS able to make such an assessment - "in an anonymous survey of one million self professed pedophiles such and such a percenta
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Heh, but notice how this is not the fearsome predator that lurks on Facebook or other places on the very, very scary Internet.
This guy was actually invited by her own mother there.
In other words, the people to fear are not the scary strangers on the net, but the ones we have right near.
Re:"911" it isn't that hard to do. (Score:5, Informative)
While that's a great thing to teach and learn, in this case the girl had no cell phone, but was able to ask for help on an iPod Touch.
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Good point, I suppose her home could be rather like my current one ... no landline.
When I was a kid, nearly every phone in the house had a POTS phone, so I made a bad assumption.
But then again, I'm ancient!
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"Prison inmates aren't kind to guys who go after kids."
Citation needed. It would be fine if rapists and pedos got the Father Geoghan treatment, (too bad it didn't last longer, but ++ to his killer for planning and execution!)
but we'd hear a bit more about it if they did.
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A better question is: Why the fuck you din't read the article? Was it so hard to click on the link.
Dumbass.
Re:Screw 911 - Update Status! (Score:4, Informative)
Please, please, please read TFA. Especially before you accuse a girl of being stupid because she was raped and had no way of calling for help. It really makes you look stupid when you make up facts to support a viewpoint that accuses the victim of stupidity.
First, she made the communication BEFORE being assaulted.
- Cesmat had confiscated her cell phone earlier in the evening. She had no telephone. Hence no ability to make calls.
- Cesmat had briefly left her room after attempting to remove her pants and her fighting him off. She had no way of knowing she was ABOUT to be raped (get the timeline right), so she used her only communications media to get a friend to have her mom come home and get her away from Cesmat ASAP. Little did she know he was about to re-enter the room and rape her.
- After the rape, Cesmat left. She then blocked the room off and escaped through the window, found a payphone, and called her mother (who was enroute already).
Could leaving the room immediately have prevented the rape? Maybe. Or maybe he was just outside the room at the time and her attempt at escape could have turned this deadly.
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Re:Dumb mom (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to feed AC trolls, but please prove proof of your "Every crime ever committed against children comes from the current or ex boyfriend of some mother." claim.
I know you can't but I'm sick of the crap some people are willing to spit out. I would encourage you to also "use your freakin' brain" you moron.
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Next time I'm assaulted and don't know how to get help, I'll try forcing lots of air through my tightened vocal chords. Who would think of that?
Yes, keep doing that, and maybe some good samaritan will help you in the middle of the night. Hey, worked for Kitty Genovese [wikipedia.org], right?
And for the record, the girl in TFA did scream.