Students suspended after charges in Panama City Beach sex assault
Source: WFTV
Two Alabama college students have been suspended after authorities discovered a cellphone video that allegedly shows them sexually assaulting a woman at a Florida beach while a large crowd of spring-break revelers watches.
Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen described the video as "very, very graphic" and called it the "most disgusting, sickening thing" he had ever seen. He said the footage shows several men surrounding an incapacitated woman on a beach chair.
The victim told authorities that she thought she had been drugged at the time, and she did not remember the incident well enough to report it.
Both students attended Troy University.
Delonte Martistee, a 22-year-old senior from Bainbridge, Georgia, and Ryan Calhoun, a 23-year-old sophomore from Mobile, Alabama, were arrested Thursday in Alabama on Florida warrants. Martistee remained in jail Sunday in Panama City. Calhoun was released on bond.
Read more: http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/students-suspended-after-charges-panama-city-beach/nkr9k/
Cannot believe no one stepped up to help
XemaSab
(60,212 posts)If they're innocent, they should be allowed to attend class.
If they're guilty, they should be expelled.
What is suspension? Guilty until proven innocent, or a ridiculous slap on the wrist?
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)aren't allowed access to more victims.
Susannah Elf
(140 posts)This is just the latest manifestation of a disturbing trend. Maybe it's the use of cell phones as an intermediary between the person recording and the events being recorded. It's as if putting your phone in front of your face turns everything to entertainment, to fiction. Then there is the bystander effect when everyone waits to see how the rest of the crowd reacts. Really, it would have taken just one person to break the spell of inertia.
cynzke
(1,254 posts)That one of my kids was there and did nothing, they would be punished. I would expect them to write a letter of apology to the community and to do at least eight hours of volunteer service in lieu of their lack of character and judgement. To be involved even as a bystander/witness and do nothing would be an insult to one's parents and family.