Tag Archives: National News

Fear of Losing Connection — to Safety

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Sit up straight. Cross your legs. Carry this pepper spray at all times. Call me when you leave. Listen to your surroundings. Don’t go anywhere alone. Keep the police on speed dial. Don’t stay out past dark. If you do, you’ll be asking to get assaulted. It’s scary being a woman. In a matter of one week, at least 3 women from across the United States appeared on our local Texarkana news station as physically assaulted and beaten by men in broad daylight. 2 of these women died. Did they ask for this? Seeing the horrifying and gruesome images cast on-screen, alongside the details from the sole survivor, pulled me back to a recent concert I attended in Shreveport, Louisiana. Originally I was going to write a review, but there’s a more pressing issue here. There were no cellphones allowed at this concert.

Some might argue that it’s just Gen Z/millennial exaggerated worry of exiting the digital world, but it goes deeper than that. The worry wasn’t a loss of letting everyone know I was at a concert. The problem became more intense every time I had to leave my seat. True enough, the of exposure to stories of pain rather than pleasure skews our perceptions a bit, but the fact that my first thought when told I wasn’t allowed to have a form of digital communication was not ‘how will my friends know I’m having a good time,’ but ‘I shouldn’t go to the bathroom by myself.’ The fact that this occurs to women to the extent it does is disgraceful and disgusting.

According to NPR, in 2018, 81 percent of women had been sexually harassed at some point, with 77 percent having been verbally harassed, 34 percent being followed, and 27 percent being sexually assaulted. And the fact that one cannot google search the amount of women assaulted in a time frame without running into anything but sexual assault cases is baffling. Understand that women who feel this way aren’t just terrified of rape. Fear of leaving the side of someone else for various reasons strikes some women. These include being beaten to death, being raped, being shamed for being raped and wanting to abort a fetus that resulted from it, being shamed for what they wear, hearing people say that they could have prevented it, and the list goes on.

This is in no way meant to say that men do not experience some of the same things, but they certainly do not to the same extent (a Huffington Post article says that 90 percent of rape victims are women) and cannot fully understand the scope of the matter because they have not lived it. This is true for any situation involving someone of a different gender, race, or ethnicity. We cannot begin to comprehend some of the things our brothers and sisters have experienced. For this reason, women all over are just begging anyone to listen, a basic human interaction that many women don’t always get.

In terms of cell phone use, the problem with taking them away during a large public event where everyone are strangers is that something terrible, like the above mentioned beatings, could happen to anyone. But, as a woman, I felt more threatened. Accompanying men thought I was being ridiculous, but that is the meaning behind saying it’s difficult to understand if you haven’t been there. And, whether it’s the media or a random stranger who doesn’t know anything about the victim, someone will offer the ideas mentioned above: that they did something to deserve this, that they could have prevented it, and so on. And if they’re lucky enough to survive, they have to live not only with the traumatic experience, but also the pain of harsh side glances and crude gestures.

The gender problems in society run deep. Having to raise our daughters to constantly watch their backs, only wear one ear bud at a time, make sure their always wearing long pants and t-shirts, and so on, is terrifying. Having to design products specifically for women, like bejeweled pepper spray or security bras is insane. The problem has shifted from needing protection to needing self-defense training and better human interaction education.

So, don’t stand around and wait for big companies to tell you what is safe, because, despite rape incidents dropping sixty percent since the nineties, an alarming number of our women are still experiencing issues and feeling trapped. Get out there and fight for a better future, not just for you, but for your daughter, mother, girlfriend, self.

Double Jeopardy

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Breann Cooper

Not the movie featuring Ashley Judd and Tommy Lee Jones, the right to not face charges for the same or similar crime after a legitimate acquittal or conviction. Amanda Knox, the American college student studying abroad in Italy convicted and then later acquitted for the murder of Meredith Kercher, faces the possibility of extradition for retrial in Italy.

March 26 of this year an Italian appellate court ruled to retry Knox as Italy does not have a double jeopardy law.  Knox will not have to appear before the courts in the retrial that will take place in Florence, Italy and will not face possible extradition unless the trial court finds her guilty and that guilty verdict is upheld by the Italian Supreme Court. If both courts find her guilty she would then only face possible extradition because the United States decides whether or not to extradite citizens case by case.

Knox was accused of killing housemate Meredith Kercher who was murdered November 1, 2007. Arrested on November 6, 2007, Knox spent the next four years in an Italian prison pleading her innocence. Kercher, a college student from London, was found naked and stabbed multiple times in the throat.  Knox, her boyfriend of seven days Raffaele Sollecite, and Rudy Guede an aquatintents of the young men that lived below the flat Knox, Kercher and two other women shared.  Guede’s DNA and fingerprints were found all over Kercher’s bedroom, clothing, and body. His size 10 shoe print was found in her blood.  Guede had a criminal background that fit the MO of the murder having broken in to a nursery by throwing a rock through the window and found with a stolen knife, laptop, cell phone and cash.  Yet Knox was convicted of murdering Kercher on mishandled evidence and her broken Italian. Knox has maintained her innocence throughout the case even when her actions were not those that the world or Italy thought she should have.  Italian police criticized and attacked Knox on her actions and lack of grieving for her housemate.   Claiming she did a myriad of gymnastic moves and appeared not to be in distress over the murder instead continuing to kiss and cuddle with her new boyfriend.  Knox denied most of the police’s statements to her behavior in an interview with Diane Sawyer which aired on ABC’s 20/20 April 30, 2013 stating “The police claimed I was doing the splits and cart wheels and all these gymnastic moves.  I did the splits, that’s all one time. It was immature of me but I don’t think I understood the gravity of what was happening.”

The Knox trial lasted 318 days convicting all three defendants in the end; Guede’s sentence a mere 16 years in prison due to his cooperation with police and testifying against both Knox and Sollecite. Sollecite received 26 years for his part in the murder, never admitting to either his or Knox’s involvement in the Murder.  Knox’s sentence was light compared to what the prosecuting attorney would have liked, requesting “life imprisonment with nine months in solitary confinement” according to court records. Knox was sentenced to 29 years in prison on December 9, 2009.

Knox served four years of the 29 year sentence before an Italian appellate court ruled in her favor and over turned her conviction October 3, 2011. The court stated in their official report that the guilty verdict “was not corroborated by any objective element of evidence”. Referencing that neither Knox’s or Sollecite’s DNA having been found in the room Kercher was murdered in, mishandling of evidence by leaving crucial evidence in the crime scene for 45 days before retrieving it and handling evidence with visibly dirty gloves. Also labeling the police interrogations as “obsessive duration” and any incriminating statements made by Knox during the interrogation were evidence of her confusion under “great psychological pressure.” The judge also overturned Sollecite’s sentence allowing both to return to their families.

Photo Creative Commons Flickr.com/Beaconradio

Jodi Ann Arias, Scorned Lover or Abused Victim?

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Breann Cooper

http://flic.kr/p/dUR7B5

Jodi Arias is currently standing trial for the June 4, 2008, murder of her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in his Mesa, Arizona home.  Arias admits now to stabbing Alexander 29 times, slitting his throat from ear to ear, and shooting him once in the head but claims self-defense.  She also says that she has no recollection of the actual murder and the events leading up to the murder are foggy. Although Arias first claimed innocence explaining that two masked intruders had broken into the house killing Alexander and allowing her to go, she could give no explanation as to why she did not contact authorities in that scenario alerting them to Alexander’s situation.

Defense expert psychologist Richard Samuels testified that Arias had PTSD early in the trial saying that is why the events leading up to and the actual murder where foggy or non-existent. Another expert for the defense, domestic violence expert Alyce LaViolette testified that Alexander was an abuser and Arias was forced to kill him in self-defense.

The Arizona v. Arias trial reached its fiftieth day on Thursday, April 18, 2013.  Prosecution psychology expert Janeen DeMarte was on the stand answering questions from the jurors. Arizona is one of the few states that allow the jury to ask questions of witnesses in order to clarify testimony.  DeMarte diagnosed Arias with “borderline personality disorder.”

According to HLNtv.com DeMarte compared a person suffering from this type of disorder to “an immature teenager with identity issues.”  DeMarte also discredited Samuels during cross examination.

“During the fight or flight response the brain will usually record something,” Demarte said.

Samuels had stated early in the trial that Arias’ PTSD was likely behind the memory loss of the murder.

DeMarte also testified that giving gifts and spending too much time with the person a psychologist is evaluating can lead to bias and cross the line from evaluation to therapy which can lead to more bias and sympathy and skewing of results, referencing a self-help book Samuels had given Arias and the forty hours LaViolette had spent with her.

The trial resumed Tuesday, April 23, 2013 with the prosecution’s rebuttal followed by the defense’s and then the closing arguments. The trial looks to last into May. For more on the Arias trial catch the live blog at hlntv.com.

photo http://flic.kr/p/dUR7B5