It Is Getting To Be A Regular Sunday Post

Another football player was investigated for rape.

This time it is a Florida State player, the prosecutor said that there was not enough evidence to go forward with the case. The case was fumbled by the local police department,

FSU’s Winston won’t be charged
Prosecutor says too many gaps in sexual assault story
Journal Gazette
Gary Fineout | Associated Press
December 6, 2013

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida State quarterback and Heisman hopeful Jameis Winston will not face any charges in a sexual assault case, mostly because there were too many gaps in his accuser’s story, a prosecutor said Thursday.

State Attorney Willie Meggs said the woman’s memory lapses about the events last December were problematic and there was not enough evidence to win a conviction.

“It’s not inconsistencies, it’s lack of memory most of the time,” Meggs said.

The woman told police she had been drinking at a bar with friends and went home with a man she didn’t know. She said the alleged assault took place at an off-campus apartment, but she couldn’t remember where it was.

A month later, she identified her alleged attacker as the quarterback. Winston’s attorney said the sex was consensual.

There are inconsistency in the report about the police handling the case, according to the victim,

The accuser’s family has been sharply critical of the Tallahassee Police Department, accusing the agency of delaying the investigation and discouraging her from going forward with the case because of the public attention it would receive.

“The victim has grave concerns that her experience, as it unfolded in the public eye and through social media, will discourage other victims of rape from coming forward and reporting,” according to a statement from the accuser and her family.
[…]
Police said they opened an investigation and were collecting evidence when they were told in February she didn’t want to pursue the charges. The woman’s attorney has denied she wanted to drop the investigation.

ESPN reported that the DNA sample that was left on the victim underwear matched that of the player but he claimed that the sex was mutual. However, her blood alcohol was reported to be 0.10, legally drunk so I do not see how it could be considered mutual when one person could not give informed consent. The ESPN article went on to say,

On Wednesday night, Tallahassee interim police chief Tom Coe said the accuser stopped cooperating with police in February. A statement released earlier Wednesday by the accuser's family through her attorney, Patricia Carroll of Tampa, said Tallahassee police warned the accuser not to pursue the case, saying Det. Scott Angulo told Carroll, "Tallahassee was a big football town and the victim needs to think long and hard before proceeding against him because she will be raked over the coals and her life will be made miserable."
[...]
Carroll's statement also said police failed to do a proper investigation, did not collect blood work or DNA samples from Winston and refused to interview Winston's roommate, who the accuser says witnessed the attack. The statement also criticized police for approaching Winston's attorney in February with details of the case.

Because of the way the police handled the case we will never know the facts of the case. One thing that we do know is,

The alleged victim was an FSU student, but she left school last month as media reports of the case surfaced.

So once again the victim was revictimized when she came forward to accuse a football player who might be this year’s Heisman Quarterback.

Mother Jones has an article "40 Years of College Football's Sexual-Assault Problem" where they look at how sexual assaults by football players are swept under the rug,

Ultimately, Winston—whose DNA was found at the scene and who claims the sex was consensual—may not be charged. But the case has highlighted a disturbing and long-standing pattern in college football. At top football schools the sport is a major moneymaker, and many big-name universities (and law enforcement authorities in those jurisdictions) have too often shielded players accused of rape—even going so far as to smear and punish victims who speak out. Here's a brief guide to college football's sordid history of addressing sexual assault:

They begin the list with University of Notre Dame case in 1974 where the victim was called  "queen of the slums with a mattress tied to her back." where no charges were filed in the case. And it ends with a 2013 case at Vanderbilt University where,

Four Commodores players were charged with raping an unconscious woman in a player's dorm room. One player transferred to Alcorn State University, before being kicked off that team too because of developments in the Vanderbilt case, which is ongoing. In mid-November, Vanderbilt students filed a federal complaint alleging that the university had turned a blind eye to sexual assault on campus.

We place our athletes up on a pedestal to be worship as idols who can do no wrong and as gods they feel that they are entitled to everything they desire.

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An update on the Lunenburg story that I wrote about a couple of Sundays ago; the mother in the case is now a “person of interest” in the spray painting on their house.