Girl Accuses Construction Worker of Rape–an Unbelievable Outcome
Amazing–a middle school girl makes a false allegation of rape against a construction worker who is working at her school, and the result is:
a) An outpouring of support and sympathy for the falsely accused construction worker.
b) A tearful apology from the false accuser to the falsely accused construction worker.
c) A tearful apology from the false accuser’s parents to the falsely accused construction worker.
d) A call for increased awareness of false allegations of rape.
e) A call for increased vigilance against construction workers.
If you picked “e”, you’re correct. The unbelievable story is below.
I suggest readers contact the reporter, Gina Davis, and ask her why a story of a man being terribly victimized was instead turned into an exercise in anti-male fear-mongering. She can be reached at 410-494-2938 or at gina.davis@baltsun.com.
Sun reporter Jennifer McMenamin, who also contributed to the story, can be reached at 410-494-2940 or at jennifer.mcmenamin@baltsun.com.
Police say girl lied about school attack
Perry Hall Middle student was not assaulted, they say
By Gina Davis
Baltimore Sun, 1/12/08
A sixth-grade girl at Perry Hall Middle School lied about being sexually assaulted this week in a school restroom, Baltimore County police said yesterday.
Based on their investigation, police concluded that the incident did not occur, said Bill Toohey, a county police spokesman.
Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott D. Shellenberger said that prosecutors have reviewed the facts of the case and decided not to charge the 11-year-old girl.
“The [girl's] family acted extremely appropriately,” Shellenberger said, “and we’ve decided that the situation is better handled in the family and not in the criminal justice system.”
County schools spokeswoman Kara Calder said yesterday that she did not know whether the girl would be disciplined by school officials, and would be prohibited in any event from discussing the issue because of student privacy concerns.
The girl described her alleged attacker as a construction worker employed on a renovation project at the school, but police determined that he had no involvement, Toohey said.
Police said their investigation included interviewing the girl and the worker and reviewing video from one of the school’s 18 surveillance cameras.
About 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, the girl reported to the principal’s office that a man had followed her into the restroom between classes and sexually assaulted her, police said. The girl said she fought off the man, ran out of the restroom and reported the attack to a county police officer stationed at the school, police said.
Police initially incorrectly said yesterday that the girl had admitted to lying, but soon after said she hadn’t made such a confession. Though relieved to hear the girl hadn’t been harmed, parents said the incident helped raise awareness about the potential dangers posed by contractors working in the buildings during the school day.
Some said school officials should consider requiring background checks and fingerprinting of contractors and their employees, as they do of teachers and other school workers. They also said construction workers should be further restricted from areas where children might be.
“I’m glad nothing happened and I feel sorry for everybody involved, but I still think maybe it was an eye-opener,” said Crystal Curtis, whose son, James, 11, also is in sixth grade. “Everything happens for a reason. Maybe this is something they want to look into.”
Amy Vahle of Perry Hall, whose daughter, Alexis, 11, is in sixth grade, said construction projects such as the two-year renovation under way at the school should be limited to weekends, holidays and summer.
“The school system should not allow contract workers or outside sources during school hours,” she said. “Even if a school is a good school, bad things can happen. Instead of waiting for something to really happen, they should make some changes.”
Calder said she did not know whether the system would begin requiring background checks of contract workers.
She stressed that while police had concluded that nothing had happened to the girl, the school had made changes in response to safety concerns.
Children were instructed to travel in pairs, more teachers were in the hallways between classes and more police were stationed at the school.
Also, construction was curtailed the day after the girl’s accusations were made to give the general contractor, James Ancel Inc., time to install a separate entrance to the work zone by replacing a window with a door, Calder said. Any worker who doesn’t use that entrance during school hours will be barred from the project, Principal Allen H. Zink said earlier this week.
Calder said she believed the entrance was installed Thursday and workers had returned to the 1,500-student school yesterday.
“In the past 10 years, if not more, we have had a huge scope of projects,” she said. “By and large, we’ve been very successful at getting them done in conjunction with operating schools successfully and safely.”
Calder said it isn’t always possible to limit construction to off-hours, weekends and holidays.
“Our primary objective is for the work to happen before school, after school, during holidays and summer, but given the breadth and scope of projects, it isn’t always possible to do the work at those times and meet the public’s expectations that we improve the physical quality of the schools,” she said.
| More from Glenn Sacks
Stumble It!
January 14th, 2008 at 10:53 am
If I were that contractor I would pack up and leave. A young girl lies and men are still suspect. Typical now days. Now I understand why more men will not help a child in distress. Kids are being programed to distrust men. How many children will not be helped when needed or hurt because of this?
http://www.move-off.org
January 14th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Are the construction people all male? How SEXIST. Why don’t they hire women for 50 percent of the workforce? Maybe because construction work is real manual labor and all the dears really want is a cushy office job where they don’t sweat or get calluses on their hands. Equality.
January 14th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Yea the ’school officials” wanting to invade the privacy of the construction workers and never mention the lie the little girl told. The little girl needs to be suspended from school , grounded for six months and any other action taken to make her understand that she did something wrong.
It is good that people finally understand that even sweet little girls can lie!Now if we can get the all the other millions of misandrist outthere to see that people are not stupid, that the hate filled acts against men will no longer be tolerated. If you lie, if you make up a false rape allegation, you will be punished. You will be charged , arrested and treated like a crime has been committed, which it has been.
Pretty soon we won’t have many false accussations. I say many, because it will take a while to make some of these people understand that this type of behavior will not be tolerated anymore.
January 14th, 2008 at 11:23 am
It boils down to “don quiote” style missplace protectors!!
Most U.S. judges are of the male baby boomer generation. This is the first generation of the (perverted, missplaced protector) persuasion.
Generations prior to this generation of (perverted, missplaced protectors) still protected their sons.
Males are now gladly and eagerly choking their sons, for more female (missplaced protector status)..attention.
This generation of males will die off over time, and the next generation… (the falselly accussed) generation will have to pick up a shattered judiciary!!
January 14th, 2008 at 11:47 am
If I ever see a woman being raped or assaulted I will simply keep walking and not say a word.
It is not worth the hassle.
January 14th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
I agree that the boomer men are the ultimate culprits. They simply sat out all discussions when the women went ahead and made demands without the limits of fairness and justice for men and boys being factored in. They sold out succeeding generations of boys and men.
The sooner they go to the big waiting room in the sky the better.
January 14th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
This is so stupid, but typical. What would have happened if the girl had not confessed to lying? You can bet your a$$ SOMEONE would be arrested. Someone (read: a male) MUST be held accountable (as long as it’s a male).
January 14th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
I sent this to the following addresses:
jennifer.mcmenamin@baltsun.com; gina.davis@baltsun.com.; jimsmith@baltimorecountymd.gov; publiceditor@baltsun.com.letters@baltsun.com
I saw you steal that $100 sitting on your co-workers desk!
Of course I did not but suppose one of your co- workers did make that statement and then told your boss? How would you feel? Now suppose they said you committed a crime that could send you to prison for 20 or more years, a crime you would have very little possibility of showing your innocence? THIS is what happened to that construction worker! Imagine ladies how he felt when he heard those words?
I am applaud with the so called journalism shown by your article in the Baltimore Sun on January 12, 2008
It reeks of misandry and once again, as we see so often in our society, it demonizes good men trying to earn a living for their family, men who would very likely give their very life to protect someone that could easily destroy them in one quick statement…..”He raped me”
Crystal Curtis does need to worry. Her SON may well be the next male to be accused of a rape he did not do. He may not be as “lucky” as this construction worker or the three men at Duke who were falsely accused of rape. (Remember them? It was stated that NO CRIME occurred that night but there was…by the accuser and later by the D.A.)
I ask you to imagine for one moment the horror it was to these men to be accused of this crime. Regardless of what they do, they will lose most of what they have worked for and ladies…YOU have just helped them to lose.
How? By making them once again the victim of a crime for which the one doing it seldom even gets a slap on the hand while those they falsely accused have often spent decades in prison or have died from their accusations.
The false accusation of rape is not rare. One reason it is not is that there is little risk to the accuser for anything to happen to her. The men they accuse can lose everything even when proven innocent.
Why Do Women Lie About Rape?
The National Organization for Women, radical feminists and Women’s Studies departments often deny that women make false accusations about rape by asking the naive, simplistic and self-serving question, “Why would a woman lie?” It turns out that there are plenty of reasons women lie about rape, either deliberately or out of desperation.
A U.S. Air Force study, The False Rape Allegation in the Military Community (1983), investigated 556 cases of alleged rape, and found a 60% rate of false rape accusations! As part of the study, women who were found to have made false accusations were asked “Why?”
Motivations Given by the Women Who Acknowledged They Had Made False Accusations of Rape
Reason Percent
Spite or Revenge 20
To compensate for feelings of guilt or shame 20
Thought she might be pregnant 13
To conceal an affair 12
To test husband’s love 9
Mental/emotional disorder 9
To avoid personal responsibility 4
Failure to pay, or extortion 4
Thought she might have caught VD 3
Other 6
Total 100
The study found that most false accusations are “instrumental” — they serve a purpose. If the purpose isn’t avoiding guilt or getting revenge, it might serve a more focused purpose, for example telling her parents “I didn’t just go out and get pregnant – I was raped”; or telling her husband “I didn’t have an affair; it wasn’t my fault, I was raped.”
An unrelated Washington Post article, “Unfounded Rape Reports Baffle Investigators” (6/27/1992) also found a wide range of motivations to falsely accuse men of rape. Anger towards boyfriends was common. One woman had her boyfriend spend 13 months in jail before she acknowledged that she lied. One woman accused her newspaper delivery man of raping her at gunpoint because she needed an excuse to be late to work. Neither woman was prosecuted or even reprimanded for lying to the police and attempting to have a man frivolously imprisoned.
All rape accusations need to be considered seriously as no doubt rape does indeed occur. But a balance needs to be maintained between the claims of the accuser against the all-too-often legitimate denial of the accused. (there are NO false rape accusation hotlines)
Women who are found to have made a false sexual assault complaint should receive the same jail sentence as the male victim would have received if he had been convicted. That will put the brakes on fake rape.
YES YES YES,….there are real rape victims. Many women in Shattered Men can verify that. but many were also sexually abused by their mother or other women but nothing is done about that. More important I contend that if more then a slap on the hand was given to false accusations of rape…AND domestic violence, then we can get REAL help for the real victims both male and female.
I contend that anyone male of female that willfully accuses another of a crime should face the same level of penalty as the accused would have. If the accused faced a first degree felony, then the false accuser should also face a first degree felony for doing so. If this were done across the board, we could get real help for all victims of crime including rape and domestic violence.
There is another major reason….they can get away with it! Not only are they not charged, they get a lot of sympathy from news reporters for being a NON VICTIM!
Good job ladies. I feel sorry for your husbands, brothers, sons and uncles!
Pastor Kenneth Deemer
Director Shattered Men
P.O. BOX 166
MARION INDIANA 46952-0166
shatteredmen@earthlink.net
JUNE is Domestic Violence Against Men Awareness Month
Web site: http://www.shatterdmen.com
Interactive Group: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Shatteredmen/
January 14th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Salute, Kenneth.
Glenn, I will send an email too, at your suggestion. Well done for bringing this to our attention.
January 15th, 2008 at 3:16 am
Done…
January 15th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Lets start here, Gentlemen,
As a woman and a ‘true’ rape victim, I, too am very upset for what that child did and the reaction of the press and school.
This is a very bad thing to do BECAUSE it hurts not just the wrongly accused gentlemen BUT because it also hurts other men, woman and children.
No one is the winner in this sort of thing.
As many of you have already stated:
1) How many children will not be helped when needed or hurt because of this?
2) If I ever see a woman being raped or assaulted I will simply keep walking and not say a word. It is not worth the hassle.
3) The sooner they go to the big waiting room in the sky the better.
4) Good job ladies. I feel sorry for your husbands, brothers, sons and uncles!
No one wins when this happends. Men – Woman – Childern. No one wins.
January 15th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Mrs. V said,
Lets start here, Gentlemen,
As a woman and a ‘true’ rape victim, I, too am very upset for what that child did and the reaction of the press and school.
This is a very bad thing to do BECAUSE it hurts not just the wrongly accused gentlemen BUT because it also hurts other men, woman and children.
No one is the winner in this sort of thing.
As many of you have already stated:
…
No one wins when this happends. Men – Woman – Childern. No one wins.
Not only does no one win, Mrs. V, everyone loses and loses big time!
Since articles move off the front page here at MND so quickly, I don’t know whether this conversation is dead or not. But, in case it isn’t, I have to pose the question – where in the world do we go from here?
A lot of this has that sickening feeling about it like those ugly few moments between when you realize you have lost control of your automobile and when you slam into the bridge. During that time there is absolutely nothing you can do to avoid a very bad outcome, and you know one is coming.
Though relieved to hear the girl hadn’t been harmed, parents said the incident helped raise awareness about the potential dangers posed by contractors working in the buildings during the school day.
Some said school officials should consider requiring background checks and fingerprinting of contractors and their employees, as they do of teachers and other school workers. They also said construction workers should be further restricted from areas where children might be.
“I’m glad nothing happened and I feel sorry for everybody involved, but I still think maybe it was an eye-opener,” said Crystal Curtis, whose son, James, 11, also is in sixth grade. “Everything happens for a reason. Maybe this is something they want to look into.”
Amy Vahle of Perry Hall, whose daughter, Alexis, 11, is in sixth grade, said construction projects such as the two-year renovation under way at the school should be limited to weekends, holidays and summer.
“The school system should not allow contract workers or outside sources during school hours,” she said. “Even if a school is a good school, bad things can happen. Instead of waiting for something to really happen, they should make some changes.”
So many people reacting to a lie, known to be a lie, proven to be a lie – as though it were the truth. And, no consequences at all for the liar whose lies might have completely destroyed the life of a completely innocent man.
And, why were there no consequences?
Because the character of the average man has been completely assassinated by feminists over the past 4 decades.
A complete lie – and the only reaction is to act as though it could have been true, and if it was then it would be something to worry about. I wonder what it must be like to live inside the head of someone who fears that every lie could come true. The world has so very many lies in it.
Denis looks forward to the day when all the men of my generation are dead. And, I can’t say that I blame him. He’s right – most of the boomers are complete idiots, and very destructive ones. I can say that with authority because I have lived among them my entire life.
He also says that if he were to witness a woman actually being raped that he would not lift a finger to help. I can’t blame him for that, either, because I would do the same. How in the world could anyone maintain concern for someone who would as soon throw them under the bus as look at them?
Most construction workers are family men. Those who haven’t been through the divorce meat grinder, yet, go home to wives and some of them to little girls that no one could distinguish from the pathological little liar in this scenario. It could have been her very own daddy who was just going to work one day, so he could keep a roof over her head and food in her tummy and her cravings for iPods and Hannah Montanna tickets marginally satisfied. Then, suddenly, on nothing more than the word of a little liar he is now not just a criminal, but the worst kind of criminal anyone can imagine. And, the little princess’s world that daddy helps provide would come crashing down around her ears.
So, while we are talking about “potential” harms, and all these terrible things that “could” happen, let’s talk about the lives of good decent men, good and loving fathers, and their entire families torn apart because some snotty little brat lied.
Did she learn anything from her lie? Was the commandment about not bearing false witness against thy neighbor mentioned to her at any time in any way? Not that we can tell from the article, which dwells on the imagined terror of “what if…? – what if those lies had been true.
If you had a son, Mrs. V, who was 11 years old, and you knew that his pool of potential mates was filled with girls like this – who knew how much power their lies have and how immune to any sort of consequences from lying – what you tell him? I know a woman who has an 8 y/o son. She actually hopes that he turns out gay so that he will have some measure of safety from girls like this. I can’t blame her, either.
It’s one hell of a world we live in, eh? Based on the lies of one stupid little brat, lots of stupid parents are treating an entire group of probably very decent men like convicted criminals. How much inherent decency do you suppose it takes for those men to not eventually come to think the same way toward the people who treat them that way?
Like foxhole_104th said, if I were that contractor I would return the contract to the school and tell them to go to hell. If I ever bid on a job for that school again, I would double the price and pay all my men double time, and refuse to do any work at all when there were either kids or parents within 1,000 feet of the grounds.
If I were the man who was falsely accused, or even any other man on that construction crew I would have too much pride to put up with being treated like a criminal and I would quit. And, in order to make sure I would never be forced to go back to work because “I had a wife and family to support”, I will simply avoid having either a wife or a family. Everyone just keeps on losing.
When no one wins, the only way to “win” is to be the one who loses the least. Sad, but that is the way it is. Cutting people like this stupid little snot and all these stupid parents completely out of his life is about the only thing a man can do to cut his losses.
Maybe, some day 10 – 20 years from now, this lying little slut will actually get raped, and the only men around will be men like Denis and I who, forced by people like her to become numb to atrocities in order to survive, simply look the other way and keep on walking.
Good job, ladies. I really don’t feel all that sorry for your husbands, brothers, sons and uncles! More and more men are waking up and simply backing away from women because they have become so dangerous to be around. They, we, are adapting because they have no choice – if they want to survive, that is.
I do, however, still feel just a tiny bit sorry for you, though. You have to live with these women, too.