Teaching adolescents right now, I am shocked to see how close violence is to the surface of their lives. Not all teens, far too many who I have encountered in our school district. And of course rape is a violent act. Despite the effort to teach character education in the schools, it seems to me that many kids are uninterested in issues of right and wrong. I see a strong sociopathic strain in our culture. The question of why is very complex...

As a survivor of rape, yes, I absolutely care.

That poor girl. To have that happen to her is horrendous, to have her attackers boasting of it with videotapes is revolting. There is no excuse for what those young men did, especially not those already legally adults.

No girl deserves to have that happen to her at any age, no matter how she dresses.

This is absolutely horrific. I haven't watched the videos yet but just read the NYT story. I know what you mean about the weird focus on everyone but the victim. For some reason, the lament about this tearing the community apart bugs me the most. This is a crime against a young victim, a child. One single vulnerable child is traumatized, perhaps for life, so whining about this tearing the community apart just seems like the wrong focus. I have the same feeling about the person who wondered where the mother was. This is an outrageous sadistic breakdown of morality by the males who did it (assuming they did, etc., etc.) and I feel like that should be the primary focus.

The only explanation I have for the comment about the boys living with this for the rest of their lives, which I agree is an outrageously misguided emphasis if they did it, is that perhaps the person who said that was meaning that this will stick with them forever and it would be bad if one or some of them actually did nothing wrong and are being included wrongly. It's true that that would be an injustice.

I don't really know how to make this a commentary about the culture at large, Susanne. I am loathe to say things about "kids today" or "parents today" or stuff like that. I would like to think this is a fluke, an abomination, an aberration limited to a rarefied population of miscreants. I'm tired and this has depressed me and my muse has left the building.

No one wants to look at that, pictures of deserts are more pleasing to look at. I see nothing surprising here at all, this is normal American behavior, it's just seeping down to lower ages as kids always model after adults. Men get away with this stuff a thousand times a day. Women are starting to do the same stuff, but as yet, it's still considered unnatural for a woman to harm her own child.

Every time someone did something terrible to me I got blamed, if not I'm supposed to take responsibility for "changing my life." The pablum is the power of positive thinking or be hopeful, or be nicer or get away or something. Now I just stay away from people, then I can't be blamed for what they do and I don't have to keep fixing myself.

I live in Idaho now so it's a lot more prevalent here than it was in California. We have 58 dedicated beds in Boise for battered women with children. Our legislature passed a bill a couple of years ago so that insurance companies could make a a doctors visit for domestic abuse a "pre-existing condition" so they can deny you coverage. It's always the victims fault and the victim is responsible for cleaning up their life after. Same as it ever was, it's just spreading.

One of the things I think we totally fail at as a society is to give children a civics class on what is rape, violence, stalking, abuse. We assume they know what it is and what it isn't, and that someone else told them in time. Not condoning the behavior at all, but wonder how many of the younger ones realized this was actual criminal illegal and immoral behavior. If there only "sex ed" is through the streets and porn and violent video games, how is this not the fault of our government for not requiring civics education? All children should know what rape actually is at a much younger age, or molestation, or assault, in part because many of them have already experienced this. This is not part of a sex ed class, this is about personal violence and responsibility.

This just leaves me somewhat speechless. Maybe that was part of why people didn't respond to it; what do you say about something like this? It seems odd that it took so long to surface. There must have been many others who saw the video before the kid who reported it.

I'm of the opinion that this is largely a result of the character of the individuals involved than it is of society at large. Of course, I did get the impression, perhaps wrongly, that they are residents of a low-income environment; I'm not sure how that might figure into their worldview that allowed them to commit this horrible crime.

The idea that there are so many of them involved and that not one of them had the character to stand up and do the right thing is particularly troubling. I only read the two articles, so I don't think we can make a fair judgment about the townspeople in general just based on what the reports chose to reveal, but what was revealed does not seem to speak well for those who made the statements that were quoted. We'll have to keep our eyes on this to see where it leads.

Just watched the vids. Sigh. I don't know...

The abject poverty is striking. The theme of reckless adulation of sports heroes comes to my mind. The idea that sex and sexual assault mean something different to a generation and a population different from mine occurs to me. I wonder if it is possible that the perpetrators are so uneducated, so culturally base, that they thought an 11 yo who came on to them, who flirted with them in some way, who herself is so unsophisticated that she thought making eyes and talking dirty was harmless fun--assuming anything like this happened, and unlike many OSers who would reject that immediately, I don't because I've seen it way too many times in the poor classrooms in which I teach, girls who feel empowered to act this way--that these boy/men actually really thought, Hey this is OK!

I don't really know. But I do care. And now I won't sleep.

Dr. Freeborn, you had me in the palm of your hand before this "...a girl's parent(s) failed to teach her what she needs to know to be safe." I'm sincerely hoping you weren't being serious - instead, commenting upon the referenced article. But I read the article and can't find any reason you'd be commenting upon it negatively.

To say, in all seriousness, that somehow this victim's parents are to blame for ANYTHING is either to know more than the article states or to be as unfair to the people who brought her into the world as her attackers. I don't know the girl's past and I shouldn't. But how do you know what her parents did to rear her? How could you possibly know if they're heartbroken because their daughter failed to do what they taught her to be safe? Isn't it possible that both the victim AND her parents did what any person in their respective positions would do?

Doctor, I apologize if I misread or misunderstood what you wrote. But I'm not new to critical reading. What I quoted above was unfortunate wording at best; it was downright unfairly judgmental at worst.

That girl didn't know not to get into a car with someone who didn't have the permission of her parents. That's what I meant and forgot to say.

Lenny, I've read a lot of news articles and watched a lot of video about this incident. One of the first arrested suspects had been taking that girl out in his car for some time before the incident, so apparently she did not know that going in cars with anyone that you didn't hear your parents give permission to give you a ride was dangerous. I am not blaming her. She is not responsible for anything about this, she is a child.

I just don't think anyone can wisely raise a child that they then allow to walk around alone without making sure that they know how to get from point A to point B safely. That means that said child should understand what a stranger is, and they should know that no one should ever touch them in particular ways. This girl is innocent. No matter what she might think she knows about the world, she doesn't understand the consequences of her acts or the motivations of those around her, among other things.

Gang rape is not as uncommon as many folks would like to pretend. It happened to my little sister when she was about 14 and to one of my best friends when she was in graduate school. I knew a lot of young women in college who disclosed incidents of some form of rape. These were educated, privileged college girls.

As a rape crisis counselor at one time, I read a lot of reports, descriptions, clinical notes and listened to callers to the rape crisis line. Many rapes could be prevented if we educated our children on how to be safe and to know what is legal and what is not. It's a matter of fully expressing our love for our children to teach them everything they need to know.

Thank you to each of the commenters. I have a few more comments on my Facebook page too. It's just so hard to confront this kind of tragedy. I believe we must.

I can't watch them, I don't really need to. The behavior is not just sexual. It is repeated in just about every aspect of peoples lives anymore. I don't think it is conscionable to even suggest that an 11 year old bears the responsibility for the attack is absurd. No when we can allow for the legal system to lose all sense of right or wrong we cross over to a bizarre world where the desire for justice is lost and the only thought is to beat the system. I think I'm too angry right now to compose this.

I hadn't heard about this -- absolutely unthinkable, from the rape to the complicit-ness of adults. I agree with Patrick Frank below--antisocial behavior is tolerated in this country, from teenage cyberbullying to Wall Street and Big Business barons exploiting the middle-class and the poor.

I have been told I'm too matter of fact but I can't afford to be emotional when I state the facts of matters that happened, it would only make me dangerous or hysterical. I got beat up a lot as a small child at school and no one intervened, those are facts I learned early, most people are busy. Then I got married, then there were financial problems and it became the same situation, not much changed. You're pretty much left to put yourself back together as best you can. I hate every word I'm writing because they are ugly truths and I had to learn them the hard way. Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. I wanted to be safe, now I have a lot of experience in safety.

I raised my kids from about age 5 to be very careful and not put themselves at risk. I needed to know where they were day and night until they graduated. They know never to be alone after dark at any age. They know if you come out to your car at night at a store and there's a van next to the driver side, open the passenger side and crawl across. If I go dancing with girlfriends and they leave early I have a bouncer or friend walk me out to my car in the parking lot, so do my girls. I live in nice neighborhood, I wouldn't walk down my street after dark. If I have a repairman, I check all the windows are locked when he leaves. When I get the mail, I lock the door when I come back in. I watch my garage door close completely when I pull in. Long hair flying behind you is hand hold, keep it short or pinned up if you may need to run. You can get a collapsible baton (like what a police officer carries) for your purse and it will help even out that men have longer reach, doesn't even out their upper body strength, best not to walk alone at night even in a parking lot. Never count on strangers to save you, they are still strangers.

My kids learned early if someone grabs you INSTANLY fight, kick, bite, scream, run, better to be shot on the curb than what will happen if they get control of you, then shoot you. One night 5 years ago my youngest was walking down the block in her middle class neighborhood (big mistake to forget my warnings) and two men in a car pulled up, the passenger opened the door and tried to pull her in. She went into autopilot and got away with just a torn shirt scratches, bruises and an evening with the police in her home, thank goodness her fiance was there to support her. She called crying hysterically and thanked me for irritating her all those years, she said the only thing that ran through her head was all my words. Those men got someone elses daughter the next night, my child was safe.

My friends tell me I'm paranoid and I made my kids paranoid. We are in Idaho, I would rather have them learn to be safe than be brutalized. On Sept. 4, 2009 a woman was too drunk to drive home from a dance club and took a cab to be safe. Patrick Ellinger, the cab driver, raped her. He was convicted and sentenced to 20 years and we are safe from that man until he is released. She will have to be responsible for getting over it, hopefully she can afford counseling, hopefully she will stay safe and recover somehow. I read the news alone and cried for her, she got into a car with a stranger.

If "not many people, etc", it may just be that many or most people go elsewhere for their news than just "our" pages.
I never knew about your "facebook page" and have been very aware of this as, I read it at several sites.

As for as, ""What really gets my goat is the comment about how the boys will have to live with this for the rest of their lives.", the sure way that they wouldn't have to live with it is if they DIDN'T DO THIS!!
Since they did CHOOSE to do this, they deserve to live with it the rest of their lives.
What is true however, is that they won't give a damn about what they did and be angry and resentful about getting caught and going to jail where they will go, hopefully.

"This is the kind of story that tells me we are failing to raise our children well."
Exactly who is "WE"?

What is real and true is that, the redder the community neck and the blacker the twon, the more this is likely to occur.

Forget being politically correct, pc costs way too much and gets in the way of living in the real world.

These vermin are of the sort of life form which has no legitimate reason to use up air.

As for that "we" above, WITHOUT blaming the victim, exactly where are/were the parents of this 11 Y/O?
Se was removed from the3 home and, it's pretty damn clear that it wasn't because she failed at being a kid.
It is because the parents failed to teach their kids.

As for that two bit ambulance chaser attempting to blame her, this is exactly why we CORRECTLY have a low opinion of them.

Her siblings were not removed from the home. What does that tell you?

I picked this up first noted on the feeds of my home page, and like you I wonder that with all of the seemingly great concern for the bullying aspect of youth suicide, we seem to have some kind of blank spot for other forms of bullying (and worse) and results of same. It's a social puzzle (a puzzle which is already missing a lot of pieces).

Something serious is broken. I'm glad that my crystal ball remains cloudy for the most part, for I'm wary of the future of us with the past we're building today.

Rated for the fine print.