Bay Area girl gang raped at school while witnesses watch but do nothing

A 15-year-old girl who went to her homecoming dance was repeatedly gang raped and beaten at Richmond High School for at least two hours while more than a dozen witnesses saw the assault but failed to call police, authorities said today.

The attack occurred Saturday around 9:30 p.m. after the girl had left the dance and was waiting for a ride from her father. She saw a male student she knew, who took her to a dark alley behind one of the school buildings, Richmond police said.

Police said alcohol was consumed but were awaiting toxicology tests.

The male student and about six others began raping and beating the girl. As she struggled, more than a dozen witnesses passed by or watched what was going on. The ordeal lasted 2 to 2 1/2 hours, police said.

"The victim was beaten, sexually assaulted and robbed," said Lt. Mark Gagan. "What's equally disturbing is that other people saw what was going on and did nothing."

Police were finally called after a female student overhead people talking about the rape. She called 911 and told dispatchers what she had heard, according to Gagan.

The girl was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

A former student, Manuel Ortega, 19, was arrested a few blocks away Saturday night and booked on charges of rape, robbery and kidnapping, Gagan said. Ortega was being held Monday on $800,000 bail.

Investigators were questioning two students Monday evening at the police station in Richmond, a city of 104,000 16 miles northeast of San Francisco.

-- Robert J. Lopez

Comments

[Christina Lopez]

This is so sad. People saw that was going on and did nothing. If they were to scared they could have at least called the police. I feel so bad for this girl and i hope she is going to be okay, and the guys that did that to her go to jail!

[Mike]

That's pretty sick.

[grace]

Animals will always be animals. But I am outraged that these people did not have the decency to do something about it. Where are their morals. One day someone they love will suffer like this, and then they'll realize just how inhumane it is to stand by and watch.

[Cris]

It doesn't surprise me that no one did anything. Thats what this country produces now is a bunch of cowards. Todays society has accepted criminals over the saviors of our society. Our society needs a rude awakening.

[Acadian Canadian]

We have a few psychos up here in Vancouver, BC, but this is beyond anything we've ever experienced. And people just walked by or stood and stared! I'm 24 and a college graduate and I'm shocked that young people today have no respect for human life. Lock them up and keep them locked up!

[Verballistic]

Richmond is the troubled area featured in the well-known movie, "Coach Carter", which was based on a true story of a hoops coach who helped turn around a pathetic high school basketball team, teaching some valuable life lessons in the process!!

Looks like Richmond not only needs a lot more Coach Carters, but a lot more cops policing the campus area, since too many of the students lack even enough of a conscience to call the police when they see a brutal rape/beating taking place right in front of their eyes!! Compared to that, the hoops team really wasn't that pathetic after all...

[Walt Barker]

This should never have happened.
It should never have been allowed to happen.
Someone should've stepped up to the plate.
We should all feel ashamed about what happened to this poor little girl.

[msladygee]

This pains my heart...what kind of world do we live in where people see someone being assaulted and do nothing...God have mercy on us!!

[Tracey]

I cannot fathom why people would not be concerned about someone being beaten much less raped. Let this be a less to women that while men may be stronger than us they are be no means willing to use their strength (or their cellphones) to help us. Thankfully a women called 911. The next time I see a man getting beaten, maybe I will walk on by too.

[JP]

Pathetic! How do you "witness" such an act and do nothing? Not even left a finger to call the cops. They should identify and publicly publish the names of those who saw what was going on and humiliate them all. COWARDS! What if that girl was one of your loved ones? I hope you are all proud of yourselves!

[Jane]

I agree that it's horrible that it took more than two hours for a person with a drop of conscience to call 911. But I'm not surprised...try searching the LA Times web site for the names Tyquan Knox and Khristina Henry to see what happens to a high school student who dares to report a crime to the cops. They don't protect witnesses from retribution, so of course people are too scared to report anything. If we really want to crack down on crime, we need to help the people who are brave enough to report it, so more people will come forward.

[Alice]

To Verballistic: More police doesn't seem to be a solution. In fact, I think people are all too willing to avoid personal responsibility by relying on others (such as having more police), when they could easily have called for help. It seems to me that to some extend, it is everyone's personal responsibility to ensure the area they live in remains a safe place. Sadly, it seems to me that in your country it's quite fashionable to avoid personal responsibility and blame just about everything on someone else.

[Bealzabubba]

Like everyone else, I think, I'm absolutely appalled at the lack of response by those who witnessed, but chose not to act.

This is apparently referred to as the "bystander effect," and sometime, more appropriately, as the "Genovese syndrome."

Google "Kitty Genovese" if you want to learn a bit more, and see that this sickening lack of action is sadly nothing new.

[Dan]

This is inexcusable and disgusting, but it's neither new nor surprising. Diffusion of responsibility (a.k.a. the bystander effect), a phenomenon in which otherwise good (or at least neutral) observers do nothing because they assume someone else will, has been well-known since the days of Kitty Genovese, whose prolonged assault and murder was witnessed by 38 people, none of whom so much as called 911 - in fact, some even pulled up chairs next to their windows to watch. As a society, we have a long way to go - don't think for even a second that this just has to do with "kids nowadays".

[Kala]

What do you mean non-life threatening injuries??? She is going to develop severe, SEVERE psychological issues. How is that not non-life threatening... My thoughts and prayers go out to her.

[Mike]

way to try and make this about sexism Tracy....

and of course two wrongs make a right...

stick it to the "evil Men".... by letting someone innocent get beaten...

you disgust me... the same mental gymnastics you use to justify your horrific statement are probably the same as what some of the witnesses were thinking...

[Adrienne]

How horrifying! What the hell is wrong with people who have no moral compass? All of these boys (?) need to go to prison for the long haul. Their parents as well. What are they teaching (or NOT) these kids? Sick, sick, sick. They aren't all here illegally, are they???????

[Karen]

My heart go out to that young ladie . My mind go crazy to now poeple was watching n didn't do nothin about it what the world coming to that a shame .I hope all them boys pay for what they done and to the young ladie ,I wish u well and your family . I will keep you in my pray.

[curious]

Tracey, please don't make this a male versus female battle. You are forgetting the countless number of males who have, and continue to, come to the aide of females in dire circumstances, or whom have sacrificed their lives so that females may have the chance to live.

Concentrate your anger on the subjects who brutalized this young girl, not on the male gender, in general.

[John Smith]

Richmond, California is a sample of what the rest of this country will be like in a few decades. But, hey, at least the Democrats will increase their political power (more government-dependent people equals more Dem's), and a few millionaires will have their cheap labor. Hurray.

[LR]

The people that are guilty of this crime are animals. We need to bring back the stockades from centuries ago and put these savages in shackles in front of the whole community...street justice.

[Erica]

I think that the people who simply stood by and did nothing to help the 15 year old should be charged failure to aid the young girl. I think they would think twice of not helping out another human being in a dire situation when they lose their freedom for a nice orange jumpsuit and spending some time in bars. Those people disgust me as much as the rapists.

[Politically Incorrect]

No one reported it while it was in progress because she was white. In today's multicultural Amerika, whites are the victims of racial onslaughts at hundreds times the rate of other races, yet the media only screams when something happens to the protected classes. If this girl had been black and the perpetrators white there would be 24/7 news coverage on all networks and Sharpton And Jackson would be marching at the head of the lynch mob.

[Warren]

We can only hope that street justice takes care of Manuel Ortega while he's in jail.

[kristasimmons]

This is an example of displacement of responsibility for the psych books if I've ever heard one. Human beings can be such sad, sad creatures.