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What is wrong with human beings that makes them capable of such depravity? These filthy raping bastards are so low that I’d want to take a Taser to their “boys.” They wouldn’t want me on a jury. (CNN):
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s investigators made a public appeal Thursday in seeking at least four men who were videotaped sexually assaulting at least 10 women who appear to be severely disabled, including women in a care home.The video came from 11 DVDs that an anonymous tipster dropped off last March at the Sheriff’s Department headquarters in Monterey Park, California, said Sgt. Dan Scott. The video was shot by a security camera and a handheld camera, Scott told reporters at a news conference.
One segment shows a woman victim wearing a diaper while in a wheelchair, Scott said.
“This is extremely serious. These women are developmentally disabled. It’s awful to take advantage of anyone, but especially someone who could not defend themselves,” [Sgt. Diane] Hecht said.
I suppose that if these men are arrested, you’ll see the “it’s not me on the tape” kind of defense, because I can’t think of anything else plausible to run with.
From the LA Times:
The attacks appeared to have taken place at residential care centers, authorities said, and most of the attackers are believed to be employees. One suspect appears to be a paraplegic patient, hoisting himself off his wheelchair, before removing his diaper and that of his victim’s, and beginning his assault.Detectives are also hoping the tipster who dropped off the package will come forward. The footage left at sheriff’s headquarters in Monterey Park came with a note explaining how he discovered the video. He had been commissioned by a man to scrub a computer hard drive, but before he did, he burned 100 hours of video files onto DVDs.
Detectives said the women in the videos appear to be between 20 and 40 years old, some appearing almost entirely unresponsive. The men appear to also be between 20 and 40.
The sad truth is that I suspect that this sort of heinous behavior is probably not as rare as we wish it to be (though videotaping it probably is). In facilities where lax security, poorly paid staff and victims who will not speak out exist it creates a perfect storm environment for sociopaths like these men to do what they did.
We have to ask a lot of questions about how these men were able to do this without any fear of being caught. What are families with disabled relatives in nursing homes or care facilities feeling right about now? Are your relatives safe from sexual predators like these men?
Look at this CBS report from 2004 about a case in Florida and horrifying stats:
[Sandra Banning] thought her mother, Virginia Thurston, would be safe at Southwood Nursing Center, until the night she was sexually assaulted by another resident: 83-year-old Ivy Edwards, as CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports.“He had taken his wheelchair and lodged it up underneath the door so no one would interrupt him,” says Banning.
…Edwards was sent to the nursing home after he was found wandering the streets. A Florida court declared him a “vulnerable adult … in need of protective services.” Edwards’ criminal file is 13 pages long and includes 59 arrests, including child molestation and sexual assault.
…[Nursing home watchdog Wes] Bledsoe searched records in 37 states and found 380 registered sex offenders living in nursing homes. That doesn’t include other felons and older sex offenders, like Edwards, who are not required to register.
“We don’t know how big a problem this is, but if there’s no locked door between your loved one and that offender down the hall, then it’s your problem,” says Bledsoe.
Minnesota’s Atttorney General Mike Hatch just shut down one nursing home after sex offenders transferred from prisons were caught fondling, beating and sexually assaulting other residents.
Or this horror reported by the Chicago Tribune just last January when it was uncovered: Nursing home sexual violence: 86 Chicago cases since July 2007 – but only 1 arrest.
Allegations of criminal sexual assault, or rape, were reported in a quarter of Chicago’s 119 nursing homes during those 2 1/2 years, government records show.…Almost all of the 86 cases the Tribune examined involved residents attacking other residents. Only a handful of the alleged attackers were employees or visitors; the lone successful prosecution was of an orderly.
The frightening atmosphere is another consequence of Illinois’ unusual reliance on nursing homes to house younger psychiatric patients with sometimes violent criminal records. Many understaffed facilities are ill-equipped to treat these residents or monitor their behavior.
Government records show that the 30 Chicago facilities where rapes were reported were roughly twice as likely to house convicted felons and mentally ill patients as the 89 city nursing homes without a sexual assault allegation.
This present-day case in L.A. needs to be a wake-up call about the way nursing homes and care facilities operate, not just about putting these sociopaths on videotape in the slammer.
Blender David Phillips also Tweeted me this link to an article in today’s WaPo:
There are over 200K ppl under 65 in US nursing homes, increasing # of young adults: http://t.co/tEvpLN7and
LGBTQ need to wake up cuz we’re more likely to live in those places, in absence of children, other family ties
About 15 percent of nursing home residents are under 65.
14 Comments
All these perps are straight, right?Gee. How can this be? I was under the impression that only gays are perverts. Hmmm….
Need a Separate FacilityI worked in a nursing home where there were residents who threatened staff and generally soaked up precious time that was needed to care for the other residents.
None of them were mobile, but all of them should have been in a facility that was designed to handle patients with a history of violence and/or behavior problems.
Everyone deserves care as a human right, sometimes for the sake of our own standing as a society, rather than their personal merit. But dumping dangerous people in a nursing home for the elderly is irresponsible.
PamThe hell with using a taser on their package. My solution is to surgically remove it with a bare amount of anesthetic, so they can see their fellows being emasculated.
Profoundly disturbingThank you for publicizing this outrage, Pam. It’s quite surprising the perps haven’t been identified yet, unless someone is covering for them. But there is no question that they will be caught and dealt with. The horrifying thing, though, is how widespread this problem must be, and how rarely discovered.
When you ask about the cause of such depravity, I can only guess at psychopathy: the complete absence of conscience, afflicting between 1 and 4% of the population. Predators put themselves where they can prey.
This is just SICK……and wrong on so many levels. What’s more disturbing is that this was all documented on computers that were set to be scrubbed. So either someone wanted this footage gone intentionall, or one one at the facility was monitoring the video footage.
One way or another the facility bears somoe responsibilty for what happened to these women. Heads need to roll.
Hopefully these bastards will be caught and thrown into gen pop at some heinous prison facility.
Geek, that’s what’s shocking to me herethis was caught on a security camera?
What was the hired, I would assume) security doing that this was not reported.
Then again, a relative of mine in a “nice” (as far as it goes) residential facility in Michigan was found dead because she apparently wandered outside in freezing temperatures and was found dead 9she had Alzheimer’s).
Shocking…yes. Surprising? Sadly, no.
depravityPam asks, “What is wrong with human beings that makes them capable of such depravity?”
You will recall that the original Swedish title of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is “Men Who Hate Women”. There may be no explanation for this in other terms. However gratifying it might be, I think castration is the wrong punishment. Rape is not (usually) about sex. If they were castrated, they would simply find other means of abuse. There is nothing to be done with such people except kill them or sequester them for the rest of their lives. I doubt their defense attorney would want me on the jury, either.
Life in prison……with no chance of parole.
In my opinion, that is the only thing that can be done with people like this. Death is an easy out for them, but life in prison is a living hell.
Two of the men have been identified as per the Associated Press.One was already in prison on other sex and abuse charges, he worked at a care facility before his imprisonment. CA cops identified both of the men on the basis of their prior dealing with them. Two down, two to go…
What the Freaking Hell?If their rap sheets are that long and their crimes so heinous BEFORE this, why are they even OUT in the first place?!
This will only get worseAs government budgets are slashed, facilities are closed that could more safely house elderly criminals and abusers (as well as severely mentally ill people of any age) who are not safe to the general public — not safe to the general public, certainly not safe for people who are disabled or otherwise especially vulnerable. Nursing homes turn into dumping grounds.
This is such a sad story on so many levels.
IndeedAnd allowed to work with the elderly and disabled!
I meanHave they HEARD of BACKGROUND checks?!?
Ahhhh..But you see, IMNSHO, this has been a deliberate act by folks like Daddy Bush’s Carlyle Group and other radical organizations trying to tear down our social net.
Remember… before FDR, the burden for elder and disabled care was on the family or in badly-run institutions where they died swiftly due to sub-standard care and food. With the advent of Social Security under FDR, and Medicare and Medicaid under LBJ, the free hand of the free market system promoted by the radical right was largely derailed.
Now with these same kind of radicals in charge not only of the US House, but nearly 20 state legislatures, look for further destruction of the social net; and more and more Americans having their food assistance cut, their HEAP assistance slashed, higher co-pays, Section 8 housing vouchers eliminated, ad nauseum.
The war on the middle class and the poor has just started.