Conquer Club

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Eight days after allegedly being sexually battered while passed out at a party, and then humiliated by online photos of the assault, 15-year-old Audrie Pott posted on Facebook that her life was ruined, "worst day ever," and hanged herself.

For the next eight months, her family struggled to figure out what happened to their soccer loving, artistic, horse crazy daughter, whose gentle smile, long dark hair and shining eyes did not bely a struggling soul.

And then on Thursday, seven months after the tragedy, a Northern California sheriff's office arrested three 16-year-old boys on charges of sexual battery.

"The family has been trying to understand why their loving daughter would have taken her life at such a young age and to make sure that those responsible would be held accountable," said family attorney Robert Allard.

"After an extensive investigation that we have conducted on behalf of the family, there is no doubt in our minds that the victim, then only 15 years old, was savagely assaulted by her fellow high school students while she lay on a bed completely unconscious."

APRIL 11--The FBI yesterday arrested a 39-year-old man for allegedly molesting a sleeping female passenger on an American Airlines flight en route from Miami to Regan National Airport in Virginia.

Saurabh Agarwal was named today in a felony complaint charging him with engaging in abusive sexual contact with the victim, who is identified only by her initials, “R.C.L.” Agarwal, who was born in India and lives in Sterling, Virginia, is jailed in advance of a detention hearing tomorrow afternoon in U.S. District Court in Alexandria.

In a sworn affidavit, FBI Agent David Wiegand reported that “R.C.L” was seated next to Agarwal on American Airlines Flight 1142, which departed Miami around 5:45 PM. After falling asleep following departure, the woman awoke to find Agarwal “hugging her body, with his hand inside her bra, fondling her breast.”

“Because of fear,” however, the woman “pretended to be asleep.” Wiegand noted that Agarwal “kept squeezing R.C.L.’s body tighter” and “squeezed her nipple.” The woman, who was in the window seat, told investigators that she “did not show that she was awake due to being scared of” Agarwal.

When a flight attendant approached with a refreshment cart, Agarwal “moved off the victim,” only to subsequently return to touching her as she continued to pretend to be sleeping. Agarwal, Wiegand charged, also leaned up against the woman and “pressed his legs up against R.C.L.’s legs.

The woman then said that she “needed to use the restroom, left her seat, and went to the back of the Boeing 737-800, where she told the flight crew what had happened,” Agent Wiegand reported.

A second woman, who was in the aisle seat next to Agarwal, told agents that she observed him “hugging R.C.L., smelling her, and putting his hand in her shirt.” The woman “assumed defendant and R.C.L. were traveling together,” adding that she was “irritated by the defendant’s behavior.”

The witness said that after “R.C.L.” left their row, Agarwal touched her leg, claiming he had dropped his drink. The woman, Wiegan noted, “quickly jumped up and went to the back of the plane.” There, she “observed R.C.L. crying” and realized that “Defendant and R.C.L. did not know one another.”

crispybits wrote:The last girl that passed out in my flat after a party actually had a go at me because nothing happened afterwards and I just tucked her up in my bed and slept on the sofa. We can't win! (doesn't matter how much they've been flirting with me, and call me old fashioned if you wish, but once they pass out then that's the end of the fun until they're awake again in my book) .

2dimes wrote:You can choose to join in or do your best to rise above like crispy and be a better person, but this sort of thing has probably been going on since the dawn of time.

It's better now. 40 years ago most people would have just said the woman in the plane should not have been traveling alone. That sort of thing was bound to happen.

PLAYER57832 wrote:

crispybits wrote:The last girl that passed out in my flat after a party actually had a go at me because nothing happened afterwards and I just tucked her up in my bed and slept on the sofa. We can't win! (doesn't matter how much they've been flirting with me, and call me old fashioned if you wish, but once they pass out then that's the end of the fun until they're awake again in my book) .

How about just leaving before someone passes out?

Sometimes you have to use basic sense.

but kudos to you for condemning the rape/asaults.

2dimes wrote:You can choose to join in or do your best to rise above like crispy and be a better person, but this sort of thing has probably been going on since the dawn of time.

It's better now. 40 years ago most people would have just said the woman in the plane should not have been traveling alone. That sort of thing was bound to happen.

Haggis_McMutton wrote:

2dimes wrote:You can choose to join in or do your best to rise above like crispy and be a better person, but this sort of thing has probably been going on since the dawn of time.

It's better now. 40 years ago most people would have just said the woman in the plane should not have been traveling alone. That sort of thing was bound to happen.

That's the key point I think. It's vastly better now than it ever has been before.
If you don't believe me you should either read Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature or Sade's 120 Days of Sodomy. I always get those 2 confused.

crispybits wrote:How about we were both knocking back Sambuca shots and having a good time after everyone else left and I went to pee and by the time I came back she'd fallen asleep. In my flat. Where was I meant to go?

macbone wrote:Hey, you're right about that, 2dimes. Crap like this has been going on forever, and at least now women like the one on the American Airlines flight can get some justice. It just depresses the hell out of me, that's all.

john9blue wrote:people are selfish, and people form groups to ensure their own self-interests.

our society isn't becoming "more moral"... we are just getting better at enforcing our collective self-interests. nothing has fundamentally changed about our motivations.

on the contrary, there's also the idea that our increasing access to other people's perspectives had caused us to more often view others as extensions of ourselves, leading to higher empathy... not sure how much merit that idea has, though.

muy_thaiguy wrote:Empathy in some, and built up "defenses" in others. For example, if you heard that 300 people died in Syria simply because they were caught in the crossfire between government and rebel forces, would you feel empathy to them or go "that's a shame" and continue whatever it was you were doing and not give it a second thought?

john9blue wrote:people are selfish, and people form groups to ensure their own self-interests.

Haggis_McMutton wrote:The fact that we even acknowledge that humans half-way around the globe are actually people like us and worth empathy is a huge step forward from the times when we all thought it was cool to butcher and make trophies from the genitalia of the tribe next door.

Seriously, not so long ago seeing people tortured to death for petty offenses was entertainment. And now we feel sick at the thought that someone was raped. You have to try really hard to rationalize that as not being progress.

BigBallinStalin wrote:

Haggis_McMutton wrote:The fact that we even acknowledge that humans half-way around the globe are actually people like us and worth empathy is a huge step forward from the times when we all thought it was cool to butcher and make trophies from the genitalia of the tribe next door.

Seriously, not so long ago seeing people tortured to death for petty offenses was entertainment. And now we feel sick at the thought that someone was raped. You have to try really hard to rationalize that as not being progress.

When I become President, I'll allow voluntary Gladiator fights.

Haggis_McMutton wrote:The fact that we even acknowledge that humans half-way around the globe are actually people like us and worth empathy is a huge step forward from the times when we all thought it was cool to butcher and make trophies from the genitalia of the tribe next door.

Seriously, not so long ago seeing people tortured to death for petty offenses was entertainment. And now we feel sick at the thought that someone was raped. You have to try really hard to rationalize that as not being progress.

Phatscotty wrote:

Haggis_McMutton wrote:The fact that we even acknowledge that humans half-way around the globe are actually people like us and worth empathy is a huge step forward from the times when we all thought it was cool to butcher and make trophies from the genitalia of the tribe next door.

Seriously, not so long ago seeing people tortured to death for petty offenses was entertainment. And now we feel sick at the thought that someone was raped. You have to try really hard to rationalize that as not being progress.

Sure, it's progress......against violence. But let me ask you somethin, possibly just for entertainment purposes.

Let's say one people thinks it's cool to butcher genitalia of their neighbors, and a neighboring people get physically sick at the thought of a rape, and the first people attack the second people. Given all things being equal (the both only have bows and arrows/both only have 50 warriors on each side etc) which people, would you speculate, are most likely to win the battle?