St. Guillen murder

[bergenski]

Do you think the girl who was raped and murdered in NYC (Imette St. Guillen...it has gotten a lot of press) deserves any responsibility for her death?

[ApeTheDog]

Who? Not every local american issue gets covered by the international press, my friend.

From the sound of it, I'd say no. No matter what, nobody deserves to be killed - even if she did something incredibly provocative and stupid, the responsability for her death lies with her murderer.

[sasapurdue]

I guess it is probably not the best idea in the world for a girl to go out boozing on her own. Though I have done it and it would be nice if people could feel safe going out on there own.
Do I feel like she is responsible for her death though? No, I don't. I think this guy was a predator who had been working up to this. I think this is a person who harbors angry feelings toward women and is aggressive toward them otherwise. I think he was going to find himself a victim whether it was Imette or someone else.

[joft]

In the sense that had her actions been different she might not have died, yes.

In a moral or ethical sense, absolutely not.

[nottaprettygal]

Do you think the girl who was raped and murdered in NYC (Imette St. Guillen...it has gotten a lot of press) deserves any responsibility for her death?

Yup. She definitely should have seen her impending rape and gruesome murder before it happened.


[Edited to add :thelook:...just in case there was any question of my tone.]

[ApeTheDog]

The way I see it, no matter what that girl did - the one person who was responsable for the murder was the one who had the most power to stop it, and that is always the murderer.

[bergenski]

The way I see it, no matter what that girl did - the one person who was responsable for the murder was the one who had the most power to stop it, and that is always the murderer.

The question was whether she deserved *any* responsiblity for her death...not *the* responsibility for her death...

[ApeTheDog]

Right, right. I can't find any good news coverage of this - except one bit where she apparantly angered a big black bouncer guy. She should have been more careful.

Either way, though, I don't believe in putting responsability with the victim, because that implies that she in some small way deserved what happened to her.

[nottaprettygal]

Ape--

Here's a good overall view of how everything happened. There's a pretty graphic description of her murder.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11623311/

[bergenski]

Ape--

Here's a good overall view of how everything happened. There's a pretty graphic description of her murder.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11623311/

I find this to be a sensationalistic account...

[sasapurdue]

Ape--

Here's a good overall view of how everything happened. There's a pretty graphic description of her murder.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11623311/
That's a very in-depth description. I had not seen this one. Thanks for posting.

[nottaprettygal]

I find this to be a sensationalistic account...

Well, there's no way to determine whether it's sensationalized or not, but I understand what you're saying. It definitely appeals to a person's emotions and makes inferences about what she was thinking. But I had trouble finding a story that detailed the murder.

[sasapurdue]

I find this to be a sensationalistic account...
Why so?

[bergenski]

Why so?

Like nottaprettygal said, it is distinctly appealing to the emotional aspects of the killing, like a cheap drama...c'mon man, just tell us the facts and give us your expert analysis...we don't need a thorough rendition of the horrors of a killing as if there were some ominous music playing in the background...

[sasapurdue]

Like nottaprettygal said, it is distinctly appealing to the emotional aspects of the killing, like a cheap drama...c'mon man, just tell us the facts and give us your expert analysis...we don't need a thorough rendition of the horrors of a killing as if there were some ominous music playing in the background...
ok.

[nottaprettygal]

Like nottaprettygal said, it is distinctly appealing to the emotional aspects of the killing, like a cheap drama..

...Except that it's not a drama, it actually happened. I'm curious to know if you think she has any responsibility, since you created this thread and all. It appears as though you're not exactly sympathetic.

[bergenski]

...Except that it's not a drama, it actually happened. I'm curious to know if you think she has any responsibility, since you created this thread and all. It appears as though you're not exactly sympathetic.

It *is* a drama...a real one. However, a sensationalistic telling of it only heightens the dramatic aspects for sensationalistic purposes and diverts attention from the facts, which is what journalism is supposed to be.

[ApeTheDog]

Thanks, notaprettygal.

Now I definately don't see how she could be held responsable for what happened to her. The murderer took his time, and obviously planned this - whether or not she had gotten drunk wouldn't have changed anything about that. He had intented to murder somebody that night - possibly even her specifically. He must have been thinking about this for months, if not years. This isn't something he came up with the night itself, when he spotted a possibility for it due to her being drunk.

Besides, it's not difficult to overpower a female, intoxicated or not, if you're a male - especially not if you have the element of surprise, like he did.

Should she not have gotten drunk? Should she have carried a gun? No! This is again putting responsability with the victim. Nobody should have to guard against murder. It would only lead to a completely paranoid society. She can live her life the way she wans to - and murders like this simply shouldn't happen. The more, I think, people let these kind of stuff affect them, and the more people accept it as a fact of life - the more violent people will become. It almost seems recursive.

Chances are the murderer knew her. Could it be one of her fellow students? Someone who was interested in crime scene investigations, and knew the risks involved? Someone who wanted to test his abilities? I like this hypothesis, but it's really just too movie-like, it just comes from my own imagination. (Or, of course, from the murderer's own movie-influenced imagination.)

She's not responsable at all for her own murder. Being drunk is a right, as far as I'm concerned. You're only hurting yourself, your own body and constitution - it doesn't in any way mean somebody else gets a free pass at hurting you in turn.

[sasapurdue]

Yes, this killer had thought about this before. I don't know if the plan was to take a specific person or he just saw her and felt she fit his fantasy but this is a person who has thought about murdering woman and fantasized about it and had a script of sorts in his mind for how the scenario would go. Like I said before, if she wasn't the victim someone else would have been.

Consider the murder of Dru Sjodin in North Dakota a few years ago. She was taken at knife point from a crowded mall parking lot during broad daylight. Are we going to turn around and say she is in part responsible because she shouldn't have been walking in a mall parking lot, during the day, by herself? No, No one would ever say that. These types of predators will take someone if they want to take someone.

[ApeTheDog]

Exactly, and if you want to draw responsability away from the murderer, then put it on society. The degeneration of violence plays a part in these extremely violent actions. Not that they are to blame, of course, but the more violence you see, the more violent something needs to be to give you that same thrill.

40 years ago, seeing a woman in a bathing suit was considered an extreme turn-on for all the guys in the village. Boys would round each other up if they had spotted a woman without a bra, walking down the street.

Things certainly have changed since then. Now, 14 year old girls are prostituting themselves in bars in exchange for a free breezer. And that is entirely because there is no threshold anymore. They see porn on the internet, they're not longer intimidated by it, and they think what they do is normal. And sex is normal - but exchanging it for a drink isn't. That's what exposure does to people, I think.

And that's just sex. Sex doesn't get shown on tv all that much. There is a long history of violence on television, though, which leads me to imagine that, compared to several years ago, it will take a lot more brutality for your random freak to get his thing on in this day and age. Perhaps 40 years ago, this murderer would simply have hit his wife, or his children, or would have gotten into bar fights all the time. Not something to be condoned, but certainly something of a lesser magnitude than a planned execution/torture session.

[abathur]

I guess it's all anecdotal but I don't buy that it has to be that way. I've seen more violent media than most and was playing games like doom from the time I was in gradeschool. When Columbine happened I was practically a walking stereotype for "kid who snaps and kills everyone." I can look at some pretty gross stuff without freaking out, yet, I've never even hit anyone and wouldn't at all consider it unless I was in a situation where I had to defend myself.

Sure, I was exposed to just about everything but LIVE explicit violence, but I was taught from a young age that violence is not a solution to my problems and that the only time I was allowed to resort to violence was in the defense of my person or in defense of another.

I don't buy the "more violent" stuff either, really. Most people work their way up to a seriously violent crime, starting with animals and stuff. I don't think many people wake up and say, "I want to kill something today but I've seen so much violence on TV that I'm definitely going to need to go straight to brutally murdering people"

I think bad parenting is a problem here, and that people who are clearly working their way towards being capable of horrible things aren't checked earlier. Killing pets, for example. There are only a couple good reasons to do it, none of which require torturing the animal.

[sasapurdue]

I think it is probably a complex set of factors that leads someone to carry out violent crimes.
In terms of serial murderers, a very large percentage of these people exhibit at least one of the following behaviors: cruelty to animals, setting fires, bed wetting after age 12.
To me this says it is possible there is some sort of inherited element to their personality that predisposes them to becoming violent and then possibly life circumstances, exposure to violence, or whatever brings out the urge to kill.
Just my little theory.

[cjs55]

Victims can of course be blamed, if they are unreasonably stupid. Just because a human being is a perpatrator doesn't mean the victim automatically can't be a recipient of a darwin award. Of course, this doesn't mean the perpetrator isn't responsible for his or her crime. The former is an example of failing the test of survival, the latter failing an ethical one.

Still, I don't see how you could say that's the case here though. As has been pointed out, this isn't really a case of being unreasonably stupid, at least to my eyes.

[Biff_Loman]

I think it is probably a complex set of factors that leads someone to carry out violent crimes.
In terms of serial murderers, a very large percentage of these people exhibit at least one of the following behaviors: cruelty to animals, setting fires, bed wetting after age 12.
To me this says it is possible there is some sort of inherited element to their personality that predisposes them to becoming violent and then possibly life circumstances, exposure to violence, or whatever brings out the urge to kill.
Just my little theory.

I suspect that this kind of sadistic aggression has always been with us. In fact, speaking of sadeism, I doubt the Marquis himself was raised watching too much violent TV. Ditto for Erzebet Bathory, who makes the Marquis look angelic.

I have a pet theory that tales of werewolves, vampires and other human/monster creatures are a way of describing pre-industrial serial killers. We can blame Bram Stoker and the Victorians for sexualizing the image of the vampire, but were they actually incorrect? I think our forebears might have got it exactly right: if someone turned up in the woods brutally murdered, even tortured, they might have been the victim of another human's sexualized aggression.

It must have seemed so strange to pre-modern eyes to find a body beside the road, or dumped in a well, or washed down the river without any possible motivation for the crime. Perhaps the victim was a young woman who was raped; that is a crime common to human experience. But then to kill the victim? Perhaps the rapist needed to conceal his identity, lending a diabolical logic to the crime. But when the body would be lacerated, mutilated, missing digits, eyes, limbs, exhibited bite marks, chunks of hair and scalp torn out - what possible explanation was there? No animal had done that, but then again, what human would? It must have been something demonic, half-human and half-beast.

Imagine the ghoulish experience of preparing the desecrated body for burial, in a small community. Whoever took care of the body would have known the victim well. It would have been so different from the normal process of preparing a victim of accident or disease. The horror of the killing would have surrounded the corpse, lending it power. Imagine the feelings of rage and hate for the inhuman murderer that would spread throughout the community. Imagine the suspicion if there were no obvious suspects ("He seemed so ordinary!"). No wonder the myths included the concept that the victim would become the perpetrator - the vampire-bitten corpse rise again to stalk new victims. That kind of event could shake a small village to its core, and the crime would haunt the community for years to come, especially if they had no rational explanation for the event.

[ohnoaninfp]

Thats awflu what happened to her.

[sasapurdue]

Thats awflu what happened to her.
Extremely. I think about these things and I feel terrified! I can not imagine what it would be like having that last hours of your life be that way. The thoughts you would have...It is torturous to even think about it, experiencing it would be something else completely.

[bergenski]

Extremely. I think about these things and I feel terrified! I can not imagine what it would be like having that last hours of your life be that way. The thoughts you would have...It is torturous to even think about it, experiencing it would be something else completely.

Yeah...I have a kind of morbid fascination with it because it is so horrible...because we talk about these things in a kind of distanced fashion when the reality must be kind of unbelievable...like the war in Iraq...you hear about people being killed, etc., but it is all in a kind of desensitized fashion...they should show people what it is like to have these soldiers be killed and see if they can then talk so glibly about greater purposes, etc., when they see a young guy get his arm blown off...

[SensEye]

I wouldn't say responsible, but perhaps her actions put her at greater risk. Bad luck mostly. Bad luck in the sense that every weekend in NYC there are probably a fair number drunk girls going home with men they just met in a bar. If one of those men turns out to be a psychopath, they are in trouble.

[Claverhouse]

In fact, speaking of sadeism, I doubt the Marquis himself was raised watching too much violent TV.

Just to be fair, and without respect to the rest of your excellent post, I know little about the Marquis, but he was rather a deranged fantasist, one of the pioneers among the moderns ( for the ancients had them too ) of uncontrolled free expression and rejection of any authority or imposed morality: I don't think he ever hurt anybody in his life, merely acted as an enabler for future disciples so to do.

He should have stayed in the Bastille though...


Claverhouse :ph34r:

[ApeTheDog]

No, Marquis de sade never enacted his fantasies.

One of his favourite fantasies was having anal sex with somebody as he slit their throat - the rigor mortis process, so he believed, would cause the muscles in their body to stiffen and convulse, which he thought must have been very stimulating. Another one of his fantasies was where two people were kissing, and one started vomiting in the other persons mouth - which in turn would cause the recipient to vomit back - which would lead to the original vomiter to vomit again, which in turn... and so on. He thought it was romantic.

All of this I learnt from one of the greatest teachers I ever had in school - anything we wanted to know about could be discussed.

[Claverhouse]

I didn't say he was a delight to have around...


Claverhouse :ph34r:

[ApeTheDog]

What - I was agreeing with you! And, okay, also mostly showing off my knowledge of useless facts, yeah...

[Claverhouse]

I know that: just pointing out that I, like the King's Officers of France; the Revolutionaries; Napoleon and nearly everybody he came in contact with after a while, would prefer him in jail.

( As for useless facts: just read earlier that he wasn't really a marquis, just a count: of course it wouldn't matter now, but back then that made you a bit dodgy if you assumed a title... )


Claverhouse :ph34r:

[ApeTheDog]

A title like, say, Royalist Freikorps Feldgendarme?

[Claverhouse]

Ah no, self-created titles are fine, once nearly all titles were self-assumed ( like in heraldry, there's a myth that coats of arms are only valid if granted by someone in authority: really, in England, and most of the Continent I think, you can create your own provided it doesn't copy any other ); but taking a noble title you aren't entitled to, well even now people laugh...

I don't care for any aristocracy myself: but you've always got them even if they aren't called that.


Claverhouse :ph34r:

[Claverhouse]

Come to think of it, you nicked your title of 'Señor Member' from somebody else...


Claverhouse :ph34r:

[ApeTheDog]

No I didn't - they actually nicked it from me.

[Claverhouse]

That's what all aristos quarrelling over a title say...


Claverhouse :ph34r:

[Carebear]

I have a pet theory that tales of werewolves, vampires and other human/monster creatures are a way of describing pre-industrial serial killers. We can blame Bram Stoker and the Victorians for sexualizing the image of the vampire, but were they actually incorrect? I think our forebears might have got it exactly right: if someone turned up in the woods brutally murdered, even tortured, they might have been the victim of another human's sexualized aggression.

It must have seemed so strange to pre-modern eyes to find a body beside the road, or dumped in a well, or washed down the river without any possible motivation for the crime. Perhaps the victim was a young woman who was raped; that is a crime common to human experience. But then to kill the victim? Perhaps the rapist needed to conceal his identity, lending a diabolical logic to the crime. But when the body would be lacerated, mutilated, missing digits, eyes, limbs, exhibited bite marks, chunks of hair and scalp torn out - what possible explanation was there? No animal had done that, but then again, what human would? It must have been something demonic, half-human and half-beast.

Imagine the ghoulish experience of preparing the desecrated body for burial, in a small community. Whoever took care of the body would have known the victim well. It would have been so different from the normal process of preparing a victim of accident or disease. The horror of the killing would have surrounded the corpse, lending it power. Imagine the feelings of rage and hate for the inhuman murderer that would spread throughout the community. Imagine the suspicion if there were no obvious suspects ("He seemed so ordinary!"). No wonder the myths included the concept that the victim would become the perpetrator - the vampire-bitten corpse rise again to stalk new victims. That kind of event could shake a small village to its core, and the crime would haunt the community for years to come, especially if they had no rational explanation for the event.

Quoted because it's brilliant.

As for the sensasionalized account, it appalled me almost as much as the actual murder. Sounds like the journalist is getting a hard-on of his own account. If he'd been a local reporter, I'd put him at the top of the suspects list.

[Claverhouse]

Ah, he's not a journalist; but a respected professional exFBI profiler:


During his 25-year career in the FBI, Van Zandt was a supervisor in the FBI's internationally renowned Behavioral Science Unit at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. He was also the FBI's Chief Hostage Negotiator and was the leader of the analytical team tasked with identifying the "Unabomber."

Certainly he sounds a bit nuts, but that's what many professional people are. It doesn't stop one being highly regarded in one's field. He would have done well working back in those old ( British ) Police Gazette days in the 1890s, or for William Randolph Hearst. 'Orrible Murder ! Blood all over the place ! Unspeakable Atrocities ! Victim 'Interfered with' !

But at least he, nor they, never suggested the victim was responsible.


Claverhouse :ph34r:

[Carebear]

Ah, didn't know. Yep, that explains his nuttyness. Gotta be one to catch one.

And yes, as long as he doesn't say "the bitch had it coming", I can forgive him his enthusiasm.

[bergenski]

Ah, he's not a journalist; but a respected professional exFBI profiler:


He may be respected but he still doesn't have to give a sensationalized account...


I just want to say how much I admire the lawyer who is defending Mr. Littlejohn against these allegations. He has proven himself to be a fine lawyer in that he is dedicating himself to ensure the system runs its course and the trial is not hampered by undue process...even at the risk of making himself out to be the heartless defender of a killer...that is HIGHLY admirable in my opinion...(though perhaps the standard for criminal defense attorneys...I am not sure) Regardless, I find it to be quite compelling how "noble" (for lack of a better word) he is for ensuring the case is run according to the mandates of the legal system...

[ShadyShady]

Incendiary words
Police sources say detectives suspect woman's remarks sent bouncer into rage that ended with her death
BY ROCCO PARASCANDOLA
STAFF WRITER


March 9, 2006
A racially tinged comment, uttered by an apparently inebriated Imette St. Guillen, may have sent bouncer Darryl Littlejohn into a murderous rage, detectives now believe, according to police sources.

Just before Littlejohn was ordered to escort St. Guillen out of The Falls, a SoHo bar, on the night she was raped and killed, she told him: "That's why all you black people are in jail," witnesses told police. The remark came after a brief, contentious discussion with Littlejohn, police sources said.




Littlejohn has been questioned in connection with the crime but has not been charged. The conversation with St. Guillen was relayed to detectives by witnesses at the bar, where she was last seen before her body was found Feb. 25, sources said.

The witness accounts, police sources said, vary slightly in detail and come after days of questioning by investigators. Littlejohn, who maintains his innocence, is being held without bail at Rikers Island for violating the terms of his conditional release from prison on a Farmingdale bank robbery conviction. He spoke to police for about a day before asking for an attorney. His lawyer could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Told of the comments witnesses say she made, St. Guillen's family said in a statement that they found it difficult to believe she would say such a thing.

"Imette was a kind and loving person," the family said. "She was not the type of person who would ever make such a comment about anyone."

St. Guillen's statement, sources said, also seemed puzzling because it followed Littlejohn's claim that he was a U.S. marshal.

"It doesn't make sense, but we think it was because she had been drinking," one police source said. "Everyone said she was being nasty the whole time she was there. It may have been because of the alcohol."

St. Guillen was found in a remote patch of weeds and garbage at the edge of East New York.

She had been choked to death, raped and sodomized, sources said. Her body was wrapped in a thick blanket and her head and face were swathed in packing tape.

Littlejohn, 41, of South Jamaica, is being held for violating the 9 p.m. curfew that was one of the terms of his 2004 conditional release by parole officials after serving more than eight years in prison. According to the terms, he also was not supposed to be working at a bar.

Before deciding whether to charge Littlejohn, police are awaiting the results of DNA tests being conducted on a batch of forensic evidence, including skin found under St. Guillen's fingernails and hairs and fibers that have been recovered.

St. Guillen, 24, a popular dean's list graduate student at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, spent the last hours of her life out with a friend. They went drinking at The Pioneer, a bar on The Bowery, before the friend left and St. Guillen went on her own to The Falls, on nearby Lafayette Street.

St. Guillen, who lived on the Upper West Side, had two drinks at The Falls, sources said. As closing time approached, she was offered another drink, which she refused.

"I don't need another drink from you people," witnesses remembered her saying, sources said.

At that point, sources said, Littlejohn moved in, possibly in an effort to calm matters down, though some accounts describe him as seeming to be attracted to her.

"Leave me the -- alone," St. Guillen is quoted as saying, police sources said. "I'm a FBI agent."

Littlejohn, who was known to walk his South Jamaica neighborhood pretending to be a federal agent, had a quick retort, police said.

"Oh yeah?" he said. "I'm a U.S. marshal."

St. Guillen then made the comment about blacks, sources said, prompting Littlejohn's boss to order him to escort her out of the bar.

Workers - who, according to police sources, described St. Guillen as appearing drunk - have told detectives they heard an argument a few minutes later but did not check to see what was happening.

[bergenski]

...

Uh, don't you think it would be wise to put the publication where this came from? (You can also put the link here, you don't have to reprint the whole article...)

[ShadyShady]

Hey, Over Here, Look at Me -- I'm Blaming the Victim

Of all of brain-dead liberalism's mind-numbing catchphrases, possibly the most inane is "That's blaming the victim!" -- variations on which include: "How dare you blame the victim" and "Oh, my God, he’s blaming the victim!"

The cliché rests on one of the pillars of modern liberalism -- that actions, in fact, do not have consequences, and individuals bear no responsibility for their behavior.

No one can play the don't-blame-the-victim card like feminists, who insist that women should be able to do whatever they please (wherever and whenever), regardless of how imprudent or dangerous.

If they end up raped, dead or in relationships where they're abused -- society is to blame, because we didn't provide them with enough protection, because men are beasts, or because we haven't yet created a world in which the improvident are completely insulated from the foreseeable consequences of their dopey behavior.

Which brings us to the tragedy of Imette St. Guillen, a graduate student from Boston who disappeared from a Manhattan bar late last month.

Seventeen hours later, the 24-year's nude body (wrapped in a blanket) was discovered in Queens. She had been brutally raped and sadistically murdered. Darryl Littlejohn, a bouncer at the bar and a parolee with an extensive criminal record (once described by the New York State Parole Division as "a menace to society"), will likely be charged. Police just announced that DNA evidence ties Littlejohn to the crime.

On the evening of February 25, St. Guillen went out drinking with her friends. The latter decided to call it a night (or morning) around 3am.

St. Guillen went to another bar, alone. She was last seen being escorted from an establishment called The Falls, at around 4am. The bouncer, who escorted her out of the bar, is the prime suspect in the case.

Boston talk-show host John DePetro took his life in his hands by stating the obvious -- "As tragic as it is, your first reaction is she should not have been out alone at 3 or 4 in the morning, because look at what can happen."

"Are you saying she asked for it?," the harpies sputtered. "Are you condoning this horrible crime?" "This isn't about what St. Guillen did -- or didn't do -- but what was done to her."

Making the TV chatter circuit, Wendy Murphy -- a former prosecutor -- was in Hillary overdrive. Murphy: "One of the most grotesque things I've heard about this case is people suggesting that she shouldn't have been out that late….And no one should judge this woman because the fact that she was out is her constitutional right. She has the right to drink. She has the right to walk around…and that doesn’t give anybody the right to take advantage of the fact."

I have a constitutional right to go skydiving without a parachute. (If I end up looking like a pressed flower, am I a victim of gravity?) You have a constitutional right to go away for a week and leave your house unlocked, with a sign on the door -- "Valuables inside; doors open." Angelina Jolie has a constitutional right to walk into a bikers' bar in a sheer negligee.

In certain circumstances, the exercise of your constitutional rights can be lethal.

Although it shouldn’t be necessary, we will willingly stipulate to the following: 1) St. Guillen did not deserve to be raped and murdered. 2) Her death was horrible and tragic. 3) Her killer is an animal who deserves to be tossed out of a plane over Gaza, naked, with an American flag tattooed on his chest.

Still, honesty compels us to admit that St. Guillen's actions contributed to her death. If you can’t deal with that, then you can't deal with reality -- which would make you a liberal.

Men and women both are more vulnerable after spending a night drinking. Petite, attractive women who drink by themselves at 3 am -- in the city where criminals never sleep -- are particularly vulnerable.

Except in action movies, the average woman can be subdued by the average man. The average large man can overpower the average petite woman in a New York minute.

Liberalism's leniency toward career scum has led to an explosion of urban predators. Feminism has taught young women that they have a right to be reckless. On top of all that, we're raised a generation that thinks personal responsibility is a four-letter word.

Liberals think cause-and-effect is a vast rightwing conspiracy. For them, reality is completely malleable. While worshipping what-should-be, they studiously ignore what-is.

To glimpse the world they've created, consider a news story in The Boston Globe of March 9th, in the aftermath of the St. Guillen slaying ("Fearless in the city: Some women still party as if invulnerable").

The reporter surveyed bars in Boston and New York. In a bar two blocks from The Falls, "A young woman named Jovana is in the corner, kissing a young man she met hours earlier." (Is he a crack-addict -- a sex-offender? Does she care?) In response to St Guillen's murder, a young lady in serious need of a dope-slap comments, "It happens here. It happens everywhere. (In church, on Sunday morning?) What can I do about it?"

The story notes that TV shows like "Sex In The City," have given some young women a sense that sex is an amusement park ride (both thrilling and safe). Cell phones give them a false sense of security. And, to annihilate the few remaining inhibitions, female binge-drinking is the latest trend.

The Globe (Boston's liberal paper, by the way) reports: "Visits to nightclubs in New York and Boston this week found many young women slurring words, making out with men they hardly knew, and, in one case, sobbing alone in a back alley, shoeless, after a night of drinking. Seven of the 12 women at the clubs interviewed by the Globe said they didn’t think they would ever be victims of violent crime and felt no need to change their behavior to avert becoming one."

If one of these net-less trapeze artists ends up dead, don't dare to suggest that her carefree attitude and bizarre behavior contributed to the tragedy.

By not talking about the mistakes victims make -- by not demanding that twenty-somethings start acting like adults -- we are helping to create more victims."


:popcorn:

[ShadyShady]

Uh, don't you think it would be wise to put the publication where this came from? (You can also put the link here, you don't have to reprint the whole article...)

http://www.amny.com/news/local/newyork/nyc-nyslay094655392mar09,0,5760379.story?coll=am-topheadlines (http://tinyurl.com/on243)

[bergenski]

http://www.amny.com/news/local/newyork/nyc-nyslay094655392mar09,0,5760379.story?coll=am-topheadlines (http://tinyurl.com/on243)

Thank you...

[Claverhouse]

Tinyurl is your friend.


Claverhouse :ph34r:

[dubbeltop]

So what would people say if the victim was a black man instead of a typical well to do rich girl. yup no one cares. This case is another example of how media hypersickness. Why doesnt the newspaper cover the story like a normal event and reports something like:female slain blalalbla stop. Because somehow this mediaoutlet is trying to create a hype. So actually its exploiting someones death too sell newpapers or to draw attention too the newspaper itself. Oh wow did you read the ....or did you see that on tv channel xxxxx. But we have a right to know blablablablab. Yes we have a right to know that the killer is arrested and sentenced the rest is just hype.Lets just pay respect too the family and hope they get the killer.soo...thats my view on it.

[wildcat]

Victims can of course be blamed, if they are unreasonably stupid. Just because a human being is a perpatrator doesn't mean the victim automatically can't be a recipient of a darwin award. Of course, this doesn't mean the perpetrator isn't responsible for his or her crime. The former is an example of failing the test of survival, the latter failing an ethical one.

Still, I don't see how you could say that's the case here though. As has been pointed out, this isn't really a case of being unreasonably stupid, at least to my eyes.
stupidity is not a crime.

[cjs55]

The great thing about extreme stupidity is that it's usually punished by natural causes, even in a society that does it's best to shield people from them. Stupidity is a crime in a natural sence of cause and effect: Someone stupid enough to try to fly by jumping off a large building will die shortly thanks to the laws of the universe. Human beings are both part of the laws of the universe, and (maybe) moral agents, which means that while the perpetrator is still responsible for murder, an extremely stupid victim is not going to illicit much sympathy from myself, because this would still simply be nature at work. At the least, obviously, it is not benefical for a society to keep around people that randomly murder others...

Although maybe if they only killed the extremely stupid. Oh my, I've almost talked myself into another evil position...FUCK.

But, as I said, this does not seem to be a case of extreme stupidity.

[ShadyShady]

"In nature, stupidity is a capital crime. The sentence is carried out immediately, judgment is absolutely impartial, and there is no appeal."

[Carebear]

... an extremely stupid victim is not going to illicit much sympathy from myself, because this would still simply be nature at work.

He or she would have my sympathy. I feel for the stupid people. Just because they happened to get moronic parents and crappy genes when entering this world, they're doomed to a life where they hurt themselves, and most people don't even feel sorry for them.

I think the "not feeling sorry for" is a defense mecanism. Someone has a terrible accident. You start fearing you'll be next. You start looking for ways to put yourself in a whole other category than the victim. (In a way saying the victim deserved it, I don't. As if fate cares.)

"Ah, but she got hit by lightening because she was stuid and carried an umbrella. I never carry one."

"Sure, but he was really stupid to be there at exactly that time. I never walk into a petrol station at 09.30 PM"

"Hm.. she was wearing a very short skirt, that's why he picked her. Most of my skirts almost touch my knees."

"He wouldn't have fallen if he hadn't been washing those windows. I never wash windows. He was stupid, I'm smart."

"He died because he was investigative, intelligent and curious about how things work. I'd never... eh... I don't think I'd ever do exactly that... not after I've seen how bad it can go at least... eh..."

[cjs55]

Ok, sympathy isn't the right word. I don't have any actual sympathy for anyone I don't know. Intellectualized sympathy is someting else, it's more me relating to the person and seeing myself in their shoes. If I can't see myself in their shoes because they did something so ridiculously stupid ala the darwin awards, I can't really relate to them at all and don't have any intellectual sympathy for them.

You're right that it sucks for stupid people. And Goddamn, if I were a universally caring person, who felt things for people I didn't know, I would feel sorry for them.




I think the "not feeling sorry for" is a defense mecanism. Someone has a terrible accident. You start fearing you'll be next. You start looking for ways to put yourself in a whole other category than the victim. (In a way saying the victim deserved it, I don't. As if fate cares.)

It certainly could be, but I really don't think so at least in my case. If it were, I would probably be one of the people in the case of this thread saying 'she was stupid and deserved it'. It's hard to deny that some of these people are just idiots though. http://www.darwinawards.com/ Sometimes it's not about fate, it's about idiocy.