Story here:
A heartless thug seething with "pure evil" and posing as a good Samaritan approached a blind 19-year-old college student on a Queens subway platform, offered to help her get home, then raped her inside a darkened elevator, law-enforcement sources said yesterday.
Cops said the unidentified teenager, who uses a red and white cane, got off the E train at Parsons Boulevard and Archer Avenue at around 8 p.m. Wednesday after missing her stop at Jamaica/Van Wyck.
Police sources said the attacker immediately recognized a potential victim and offered to help her.
"Are you lost?" he asked her. "Do you need help?"
She told him she had missed her stop and needed to reverse course.
The thug told the teen the station's escalators were out of order and promised to guide her to an elevator leading to the southbound platform so she could get back to her station.
The man led her into the elevator, where he placed a sharp object against her neck, pulled her pants below her knees, and raped her against the wall, sources said.
"If you don't cooperate I'll cut off more than your hair," he snarled during the 10-minute assault, sources said.
Story here:
HOMOSASSA — The body of missing 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford was found early Saturday, a day after officials said a registered sex offender confessed to kidnapping and killing the girl.
Citrus County Sheriff Jeff Dawsy said Jessica's body was found during an overnight search in a densely wooded area, only about 150 yards from the home the girl shared with her father and grandparents.
Jessica's father, Mark Lunsford, visited the search scene shortly after sunrise and later gave a brief, emotional statement to reporters.
"Everyone heard me say, time after time, that she would be home," Lunsford said, his eyes hidden behind dark black sunglasses. "She's home now."
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - concerned
shame for exploiting these crimes for "Amazon Affiliate Program" commissions.
Remove the commercials if you really mean it. All RJ posts are the same, for profit.
2 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
concerned, tell me a large news site that doesn't have adverts on its pages?
3 - RJ
"concerned," are you on crack?
ALL BlogCritics posts are REQUIRED to have at least one link to a product on Amazon.
And I don't see a dime from whatever Amazon sales are made.
So, like, get a clue.
4 - Eric Olsen
Amazon referrals help fund the site and provide art work - nothing to do with individual writers.
5 - Temple Stark
uugh. These types of incident just turn the stomach.
This is the time by the way when national media outlets are at their worst - initially anyways. Saying that, they can also help find people and the guilty, occasionally before it's too late.
6 - Eric Olsen
RJ, I completely empathize and agree with your disgust, but how do we "cure this, one way or another"?
7 - vikk
Something is definitely wrong. What amazes me are the people who helped conceal this man's possible involvement. I just heard Jessica's father on TV talking about the number of times this man had been arrested, yet he's still out and among us.
8 - Victor Plenty
These people and their crimes are not new. They are not symptoms of modern society's illnesses. Crimes of this nature, and far worse, have been committed since before the beginning of recorded history.
What is new in modern society is that we more often find out what happened to the child after she disappeared from her bedroom. We more often listen to, and believe, the young woman who tells the authorities she has been raped. We less frequently blame her for supposedly "enticing" the criminal to assault her.
The solution to these hideous crimes is to go forward, not back. To continue pushing ahead toward full equality for women, and better care and protection for children. These are moral values that are new in the modern world, having gained ground only in recent centuries.
Punishing the criminal is necessary, but by the time we reach that point, it is already too late. We must take steps to prevent the crime, and only education can do that.
Moral education in the basic core values of modern civil society is the only way to prevent these terrible crimes over the long term.
9 - SFC Ski
"We must take steps to prevent the crime, and only education can do that"
Keeping sex offenders, especially child moloesters locked up forever so they can't repeat their offenses would defeinitely go a long way in preventing these crimes from occurring.
10 - Victor Plenty
Locking up criminals cannot prevent crime. It can only reduce crime. It has to be done, yes, but it will not prevent crime.
Just take a moment to think about this. By the time the person we are talking about is a sex offender or a child molester, there is already at least one crime victim, usually a child or a woman, for whom it is too late.
Even if we instantly take the convicted rapist out behind the courthouse and shoot him in the back of the head (a step I do not advocate, despite its emotional appeal in some cases) there is still at least one crime victim for whom it is too late.
If we want to protect the innocent from the criminals, we must find ways to prevent people from ever becoming criminals in the first place. If all we do is find harsher ways to punish the criminals, there will always be someone for whom our efforts will come too late to be any real help.
11 - Dave Nalle
Preventing criminals from ever becoming criminals sounds great in the abstract, and might even be possible for some sorts of criminals, but it would never work for child molestors or serial killer types because their crimes are caused by mental aberations which may be genetic, or the results of family situations going back generations and incredibly difficult to identify and prevent.
But even for the obvious criminals - the burglars and muggers and others motivated purely by money - the prevention of their criminal inclinations in advance would require such a massive invasion of the privacy and personal security of everyone in the population that it would be worse than the cure it would provide.
From a point of view of efficiency, the best we can do is catch them after their first crime and then make sure they never commit another crime, either by rehabilitating those who can be rehabilitated, or as far as I'm concerned - for the serial killers and child molestors and other incurables - shooting them in the back of the head behind the courthouse.
Dave
12 - Victor Plenty
Moral education is the key to preventing crime. We must teach people from childhood to internalize the principle that it is wrong to commit acts of force and violence against their fellow human beings.
It is not a quick or easy solution, but it is the only one that has ever been shown to work.
You're absolutely right that we cannot prevent crime by trying to "detect" criminals before they have done anything wrong. The loss of vital freedoms that would entail is unacceptable, and there is no reason to think we could ever come up with reliable methods for detecting criminal tendencies.
Moral education is also the only way to save capitalism from itself. We must teach people, from childhood, to understand that it is wrong to exploit other human beings or damage the natural environment for short-term economic gain.
13 - SFC Ski
"If we want to protect the innocent from the criminals, we must find ways to prevent people from ever becoming criminals in the first place."
Sure, we are talking about 2 different things now. It is hard to identify a molester, rapist, or killer, prior to them actually committing the act, so wish in one hand...
Something that we can do is ensure that once the above are identified by committing these acts, is that they are put away from the general populace so they cannot do it again.
For what it's worth, any one convicted of multiple acts of the above could just as easily be killed for all I care, they've shown that they are more a danger than they are a benefit to society.
How would you propose to teach morals when all morality seems to stem from an initially religious teaching, the ACLU has a fit if the Ten Commandments are anywhere in public, can you divorce morality from its religius origins?
Last, I agreed with your arguments until you through in the "evils of capitalism" sentences, let's stick to the matter at hand, Iran is not a capitalist society, and it just had a serial murderer case with 20 victims.
14 - Victor Plenty
Moral education does not require religious instruction. All the laws of a civil society carry moral implications, which can be taught equally to children whose parents believe in any religion or in no religion.
We don't have to post the Ten Commandments at the front of the classroom to teach children it is wrong to hurt, steal from, or otherwise exploit human beings.
Lastly, I've said nothing about any "evils" of capitalism. I talked about preserving the benefits of capitalism. This is not directly related to preventing violent crime, although both subjects are connected by the same thread of showing us the need for moral education.
15 - Rodney Welch
Where do you hail from, Victor? Disneyland?
16 - Victor Plenty
Wow. I am stunned by the force of your logic, Rodney. Such a brilliant assemblage of facts and reasoning is a testament to your mastery in the world of rational thought.
17 - JR
How would you propose to teach morals when all morality seems to stem from an initially religious teaching, the ACLU has a fit if the Ten Commandments are anywhere in public, can you divorce morality from its religius origins?
The Ten Commandments weren't posted in my school, and I've never sexually assaulted anyone.
Are the Ten Commandments posted in Catholic churches? (I wouldn't know, I've never been in a church.)
18 - Rodney Welch
Force of logic? Assemblage of facts? Mastery of rational thought? I am innocent of all these charges. What I delivered was a gut-level catcall to a bullshit artist.
19 - Victor Plenty
Replace the word "to" with "from" and your self description will be more accurate, Rodney.
20 - Steve S
Rodney, I often find that I agree with your comments, but this one leaves me puzzled. Reading through this thread, I find I agree with Victor, and don't understand what you're talking about. Is this some sentiment carrying over from another discussion? I don't understand the response he's getting from you here.
21 - Steve S
How would you propose to teach morals when all morality seems to stem from an initially religious teaching
I would disagree that morality stems from religion. My daughter is 2 and a half and it is instinctual in her to not attempt to harm another human being or the pet. There is moral goodness in many aspects of her behavior, in addition to the morality we are instilling in her. She has no concept of God or religion.
If people became stranded on an island, and over time a community developed, a community devoid of religion and God (something never happened before, I know), do you think it is likely that a community would develop where murder is a fact of life that goes unpunished, it's accepted without morality? I would disagree with that possibility myself.
The Goodness in us does not stem from religion. Rather the religion in us stems from fear and irrationality but needs to co-opt the value of goodness in order to sustain itself. My humble opinion.
22 - Eric Olsen
I did not have the impression Victor's idealism is unmitigated by reality - nothing wrong with working from basic principles.
The essence here is placing the balance between society's needs and the privacy and assumption of innocence rights of the individual - this is exactly the essence of the Homeland Security/Patriot Act debate as well, with similar dynamics placing pressure on the fulcrum.
As far as preventing crime goes, two words: Minority Report
23 - Victor Plenty
Idealism? No, I'm a radical realist. In the physical sciences, everyone knows it makes sense to start from the basic principles of physical law.
You don't call an architect an "idealist" if she takes the different tensile strengths of wood beams, steel girders, and reinforced concrete into account when designing a building.
What I'm saying is that in the social science of designing a civil society, it makes sense to start from the basic principles of moral law.
Advocating moral education as the long term solution to crime is just as much an example of hard-headed practicality as the architect who prefers reinforced concrete over dried mud bricks for a stronger building.
24 - Rodney Welch
Let's just say I find Victor's comments extremely learned and bloodless, disconnected from human life, and smug. Victor strikes me as the kind of fellow who would invite a child murderer for coffee so that the two of them could discuss a rational approach to dealing with his problem.
25 - Victor Plenty
You must not have read my comments very carefully, then, Rodney. Several times I've said it is necessary to punish people who commit crimes. A person definitely proven to have killed a child deserves to be executed, or at the very least locked up forever.
But the child will be better off if we find ways to deter the murder before it happens.
Moral education is a key element in this, although not the only one, of course.