It was just after 2 a.m. on a pitch-black Friday morning when Bernadette Greene-Placentia’s life changed. The Democratic candidate for Congressional District 8 strolled across a parking lot to repair a damaged campaign sign. It was a routine she’d followed all summer. This time, she only made it a few yards.
An attacker smashed her over the head. She blacked out. She woke up to find a strange man on top of her.
Greene-Placentia struggled to open her eyes. She felt a sharp pain below her waist. The attacker was pulling his penis out of her.
She heard him mumble something like, “-ic bitch, not a very good fuck,” which her mind filled in as “Democratic bitch,” she recalled. She wasn’t sure that was exactly what he said.
One leg was out of her jean capris. She wore brand-new tennis shoes and a campaign t-shirt. Another man came over. Greene-Placentia felt his weight nudging her left leg further apart. She began swinging her foot at him. “Not even worth it,” she heard the man say as he moved away. He wore black boots and had small feet, she recalled.
The two men left Greene-Placentia face down in the parking lot. The hatch of her silver Jeep Grand Cherokee was still open. The car was still running. She heard music.
She doesn’t remember pulling up her pants or picking herself off the asphalt parking lot. She doesn’t remember closing her Jeep’s hatch and putting her foot on the gas. She doesn’t remember pulling her car into the driveway and collapsing into her bed.
“It’s just these little tiny flashes of things that I do remember,” Greene-Placentia said in an interview with Phoenix New Times. “As much as I don’t want to remember, I’ve tried very, very hard to remember more stuff. But that’s where I’m at.”
This is so fucked up. The events suggest she was being survielled so the attackers knew her routine. It follows they intentionally damaged the sign knowing she would go out in the middle of the night to fix it (she said herself it was a routine). Also they picked a sign that wasn’t near a camera.
Not only are they rapists, they’re terrorists (because it’s pollitically motivated). Are there more people insthe group? Are they being funded? Who’s giving them money?
What’s really fucked up, is that the FBI should investigate this, but they won’t because they, like other parts of the government are compromised (by MAGA).
And Americans tell me where I live is so dangerous. Shithole fascist country.
i don’t like this story. i mean other then it’s a rape case.
first of all, while a woman should be able to go any where and do anything without the fear of this happening… her story about going to a secluded location at 2am to fix a campaign sign, in a remote unrecorded parking lot, alone is absurd. “it’s not hot at 2am” is a WILD reasoning. her campaign has staffers that do this work, and road side work alone is dangerously for many reasons. but sure, if there was evidence that this was a habitual action then fine.
second, she was targeted and attacked within…YARDS!? of leaving her running vehicle…. in a parking lot… at 2am. ok? that is impressive distance coverage, or a straight up ambush.
she did not see the attack coming and was hit hard enough to concuss immediately, when she started to come too she did not see anything identifiable even when in direct contact. ok, maybe the memory is fuzzy, she has more important things to think about at the time.
what she does remember is that they said “…ic bitch” and pointed at this being a political motivated attack and pointing at republican assailants… except ingrained in the republican lexicon, they specifically do not use the word “democratic” to refer to people of the dnc. they say “democrat bitch” because they are trying to decouple the power of the name from the democratic process. it is an open strategy of their culture war. listen to their shock jocks, they will ONLY refer to democrats as democrats even in situations were saying the full title is warranted. well maybe she miss heard?
this is aperently a two man ambush, no identifiable characteristics other then republican.
they then left her there, and left, apparently confident they could not be identified by her or surveillance.
she then drives concussed back home, and when safe collapsed. that was irresponsible and dangerous to her self and others, she needs an ambulance right away! But she was running on adrenaline and people do not make the same choices as from hind sight from someone not facing such terror.
she then wakes up, AND DESTROYS ALL THE EVIDENCE OF THE ATTACK AFTER REGAINING HER WITS! excuse me!? what the fuck? …maybe she somehow didn’t know that they could get primary evidence from her clothes?
well at least she went to the police so they can search the scene. SHE WAITED TWO WEEKS BEFORE INFORMING THE POLICE WHICH GUARANTEED THAT THERE COULD BE NO USABLE EVIDENCE RECOVERABLE AT THE SCENE?!?!?!?!?!? … ok um well… maybe she was so distraught that she had to convince her self to not cover up the attack?
… expect she openly reported the attack right after telling police, using the platform of her candidacy? and implying it was because of republicans?!
i don’t understand this, like this reads as if a republican AM radio host invented the details of the attack to build a straw man to spend the next few days attacking before the truth comes to light. this makes her look bad, if i was on her campaign, i would SERIOUSLY PUSH to keep the matter private, unless she was going to outright accuse her opponent as the one who raped her. because at no point, not a SINGLE action she took, before, during, after, the medium she used, and the means she accused a political ideology, did her ANY favors.
so please tell me this is a warped story by a lieing republican shock jock. if this is true then… well she won’t have to worry about having an instigation or a court case interrupt her campaign
That’s a lot of words to confess you have no knowledge of trauma responses.
I really, really wanted to tell you to go fuck yourself, but I really shouldn’t stoop to the disgusting level that you’ve shown here.
I believe this is a case where rape was weaponized specifically against the victim, to teach the Democratic bitch a lesson for running for office; the second attacker just gave up cause the point was already made. I believe many women experienced the same due to their support of the suffrage movement 100 years ago.
Heinous and despicable act by fascist Republicans.
I fucking hate rapists with every fiber of my being. I’d skin god alive if it meant I could torture every single rapists that has ever walked this forsaken planet. The soulless, mindless, evil you have to have in you to force yourself on someone .
My partner is a survivor, and I swear on any god that is listening if I ever get the chance, god have mercy on my soul the things I would do to them.
Fucking sick motherfuckers.
I went to Fox News to read the comment section about this. It’s as expected - vile and calling her a liar.
Another horrible crime, and makes me question how people become abusive and controlling criminals, and research points to the theory of “cycle of shitty people”, punching down on others, taking their turn, and this is normalized as macho, but it’s toxic. The abuse in homes, military, sports, frats, politics, it’s all related. Yes, not all turn out abusive and help to break the dysfunctional cycle is needed. Some people will read this and let their egos flare up and insist the healthy ways are “woke”. They’ll vote for the violent types again, and their female loved ones are worse off for all this toxic pollution. This is not an excuse, but hurt people need therapy, healthy community and healthcare to recover.
When someone becomes controlling or abusive, the clearest drivers are childhood maltreatment and witnessing violence between caregivers. Research using ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) scores shows a dose-response pattern: people with higher ACE counts face dramatically elevated odds of perpetrating violence later in life. These experiences normalize coercion, damage emotional regulation, and create insecure attachment. The pathway is learned behavior and cumulative trauma.
We need better sex education in this country as well. We need to teach our youth what consent looks like and what lack of consent looks like. There’s so much that goes into this that is ignored for the status quo.
That would certainly help in some cases, but in this particular one there’s a 0% chance these guys were confused about consent. They simply didn’t care.
We need to be doing this moving forward to help reduce these situations.
We don’t disagree that consent education is super important. There are a lot of cases where it will help. This one, though, they knew. They were going to rape this woman regardless. From her account it sounds like the rape was the point.
I just think we can do both at the same time. Appropriate punishment for rapists and education for our youth.
I absolutely agree.
You’re missing the point. Some folks are just monsters. Whether you believe in a soul or not some folks are just missing that piece that makes them human. They are pure evil. There is no education to help with this. What we need is better security for women and people who can become victims.
You’re missing the point that we have a vibrant rape culture in this country and educating our youth will help reduce the amount of rape and sexual assault.
When people know more about consent, people respect it more.
We can do both. We can target current rapists and punish them appropriately and educate our youth to help reduce the amount of misogyny that’s encouraged in our society.
I agree we can and should. I’m saying there is folks who don’t give a damn. Some folks are just evil.
That is true, but I don’t want to discourage anyone. It is possible to create a better world for all of us.
Unfortunately I’m not sure if anything would have helped here, other than a bodyguard. They knocked her out from behind, before she even knew anyone was there. She had no opportunity to run or fight back. Scary shit.
Completely insane that there are comments here assigning any degree of blame to her for this situation. The fact that it was 2 in the morning isn’t an invitation to rape or be otherwise assaulted.
Hell, I don’t care if someone were nude and fixing a sign that advertised their services as a prostitute. Still not “asking for it”.
I’ve been shocked and disgusted to learn the mundane activities that my wife considers too unsafe to risk. Not just being out alone at 2am, not just being out alone at night, but being out alone at all. I go for solitary hikes in the woods to restore myself but she won’t even walk her German shepherd in an area where she can’t see other people at all times.
I mention all this not to say “these are the rules - women should know to follow them.”
I mention all this with outrage that anyone anywhere should ever feel like they need to live this way. These are completely unreasonable limits for any human being. It truly breaks my heart that my loved one will never know the joy of sitting meditative at a mountain peak looking out over the valley where we live, or know the pleasure of walking her dog under the stars.
Same. My wife has told me there is a massive difference between going shopping and I just tag along and going by herself. Even in public areas, she just notices less stares and gets less random comments from men.
Once, long ago, I dated a woman with really flashy good looks. Pale blond hair, big tits, beautiful face, the works. She got so much attention that even when I was with her I could sense it myself. In fact I got a special form of the “male gaze” which was reserved just for me: these sneering looks like “who’s that piece of shit with her?” It wasn’t an all day every day kind of thing but if we went out to bars it was palpable. It was very interesting to actually get a personal taste of that kind of attention. As a dude you typically just have no idea.
At the risk of being called a “not all men apologist” here, I, as a man, can’t fathom how anyone could be motivated to rape someone. The mere thought of violating consent to such a degree is physically repulsive to me. And to then add physical assault to that and violate someone who is unconscious, I am at a loss for words. In fact, I can’t even being to imagine how you can even go through with that act physically.
At some level it makes me think that the people perpetrating these acts aren’t even human, but that’s also a way too convenient excuse to let them off the hook. The really challenging part for me (and I suppose many other men) is accepting that they ARE human, and they walk among us. I have no idea how to deal with this, legitimately.
I always presume that everyone I meet is a reasonable, non-violent, “normal” person, and it’s things like this (rape statistic numbers) that shatter that world view to the point of leaving me simultaneously feeling incredibly angry, powerless, and paranoid about my fellow humans.
I am so sorry for her and all other victims who’ve had to experience something so far beyond what I can even begin to imagine, and I know that nothing I say here will make a difference. I hope you’re able to heal back to some semblance of yourself before this happened to you, and I will support both monetarily and vocally any effort to eradicate this behaviour from our societies.
Downvote me if you want for providing this personal perspective in a thread about a victim (and victims) of rape. I don’t intend to grandstand here, take attention away from the victim(s), or make myself look like some sort of white knight. I just need a place to share my perspective and I hope Lemmy will allow me to do so.
Because we have learned that about 25% of us are pasychopathic sadists.
The rest of us have empathy, which means that we can never feel good if we hurt someone.
A psychopath doesn’t care if they hurt someone
A sadistic psychopath, enjoys other’s suffering and will do anything to satisfy that urge. This is what MAGA is. The white house is staffed with sadistic psychopaths that post ASMR videos of immigrants in chains. They laugh as ICE agents brutalize and kill people. When trump just said he’d be ok with Iran nuking two CA cities, his crowd CHEERED.
Our country is infected with sadistic psychopaths and they are in charge now. They took the DOJ, FBI, Military, and the whole government. This is the law of the land now since everyone was ok with it. There is no going back, only making something new if 75% of us could ever get our shit together
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, I appreciated reading this. Acceptance of how the world looks to different people is a journey and we all are on different parts of that journey. It’s enough to keep an open mind about how your experience isn’t universal and extending empathy to those on a rougher path.
It’s a hard lesson to learn that not everyone is reasonable and non-violent. I’ve had to learn that one a few times over to be perfectly honest. Most people want to give others grace.
I gave your comment an upvote for the record :)
The comments on the site being 90% people saying the whole story is fake really takes the cake… Fuck this society oh my god
Rape is the new Comet PingPong or Covid masks or Gaza. It’s what is being algorithmically delivered to social media addicted goons to rile them up before an election. Bad actors and tech companies just latch onto whatever the algorithm shows drives psychotic engagement then amplify it until it’s all anyone can talk about. I’m not even sure who came up with not all men and whether it was in response to a genuine movement or if some straw man was created by the same people who are getting outraged by it for the sole purpose of driving outrage. Unfortunately this “fake” online movement has real consequences as you can see here. It’s stochastic terrorism.
Edit: Look at OP’s post history. It’s almost exclusively stuff about the Cornell rape case and their comments are so extremely “left” that they are trying to blame all men for rape. I think OP is a disingenuous actor here and is trying to sow discord and foment outrage on Lemmy.
they are trying to blame all men for rape.
I do not blame all men for rape.
I’m a woman who gets really passionate about fighting the patriarchy. I also post about music and spiders and parenting and all sorts of other shit.
This Cornell case has enraged me and I seem to be the only one posting about it here in the Fediverse.
It’s not my fault that rape still happens. I’m not going to be fucking quiet about it.
Some things I noticed:
Your account is 5 months old and has 614 posts and 5.67k comments. That’s 37 comments and 4 posts per day. Many of your posts involve some kind of left leaning political issue or they appear to be reposts of popular articles from reddit. Your photo is AI generated.
All of these things lead me to believe that this is basically your job or that your account is shared by multiple people or that it was created specifically to engage with Lemmy users around the time of the election and that it acted as a repost bot for the first few months of existence to mimic engagement. This is how the disinformation bots work, they create accounts a few months before elections and build up karma or some kind of legitimacy, then when an election is a few months out they crank out a ton of engagement/outrage bait. It’s also possible that you are so passionate about lemmy that you treat it like your job, I wouldn’t rule that out. But one thing you are most certainly not is a casual user. You have an agenda that you are trying to push one way or the other and you work very hard to promote it. I’m glad that unlike reddit, lemmy post history cannot be hidden.
For Christ’s sake, Velma is well-known around here. She does literally none of the things you’re talking about except for bringing a woman’s voice and experience to this male dominated space.
Even if she was some sort of organization only posting to “rile up” the voter base (she’s not, let me be clear about that), rape happens and is always horrific. It should always rile you up. If it doesn’t, I have serious concerns. Maybe you need to look inwards and determine why you’re having this reaction to someone posting that rape exists and is happening now.
Thank you, my fellow PNWer <3
Always love to see your posts and comments <3
To expand on your comment-
I purposefully set out to make Lemmy more welcoming for women and minorities after I first started browsing here and stumbled on several comment threads that were absolutely horrifying - men talking about how “consensual and willing” 14 year olds are around rock stars was a specific one. Comments from minorkeys and TubularTittyFrog were highly upvoted despite being really sexist.
Because I’m stubborn and enjoy forums like these, I made it my business to post the articles that I read. So I do. I post every article that I read that I think is interesting.
It’s not my fault that you think a woman with diverse interests and a strong sense of justice for crimes against women is someone with an agenda outside of wanting to make this place more diverse.
Your photo is AI generated.
It is not AI generated unless the artist used AI without me realizing it. Here’s the source
I work a really slow office job.
Holy shit guys, according to this account we shouldn’t even acknowledge that rape is happening because it’s just to rile up engagement. Remember, being anti-rape is some sort of “fake” online movement.
castration should be put into laws. Or whatever the injection stuff is, medical neutering? i dont know.
Leave them alives but at a fate worse than death
That doesn’t work. Some studies say it actually makes them more aggressive.
Holy goddamned fuck. That’s awful and also terrifying that someone would be so bold as to do this to someone running for congress. I sincerely hope the cops actually give a shit about sexual violence for once in this case.
ETA: I want to add in that while I hate calling every crime terrorism, this sure feels like an act of terrorism intended to scare women away from running for office as democrats.
This is a terrible thing to have happened, but it’s far too early to bring any political aspect to it when all she said was “which her mind filled in as “Democratic bitch,” she recalled. She wasn’t sure that was exactly what he said.” We need more information before we come to these conclusions.
The US is chock full of rapist and sexual assaulters. Every women in my life has been SA and raped including my grandmother, mother, wife, and daughters.
Same. Every woman I know in my life has been assaulted or raped.
Fellow men:
Believe women. Do not allow mysogyny in your circles. Don’t even laugh at the jokes. Speak out. When you hear people talk about having harmed a woman or planning to, report it. Don’t just go on the internet and say you’re a feminist or support women - actually do it, every day.
100%. All the women I’ve been close to have been attacked, stalked, or harassed by men. I’m not letting these fucking assholes get away with it.
wow, I don’t think people like this can be repaired. They should be locked away for life (with minimal comforts, basically a monk like life) and that energy should be spent on their kids and younger generation. Except ofcourse we are talking about the Trump administration, Trump probably thinks she got what she deserved. So yeah, quite hopeless.
I believe in rehabilitative and restorative justice. But a necessary prerequisite for them to work is that the guilty understand what they did was wrong and want to change. Rapists, much like domestic abusers, in our society very rarely feel that desire.
Someone who would do something like this has something seriously wrong with him, but it seems to me like it may be more likely to be an illness of society that he’s symptomatic of rather than an individual mental illness. He needs to be kept under control for the safety of others until we can find a way to make people like him eligible for restorative justice, which I doubt he will live to see.
This is the kind of rape which coldly reminds you that there are levels even within this kind of monstrosity. And as you yourself alluded in other posts, this particular person seems to be on the worst level of it, or close to. I do agree that it might have a perfectly reasonable and even sympathizable explanation, for instance perhaps he was regularly sexually abused by a parent when he was a kid and thinks that rape is some sort of punishment (which also counts as a societial source too). But unfortunately I find it hard to believe that there is a turning point from this sort of mental ilness/character once you are elbow deep in it. The only reasonable way forward for me is to change the society by conditioning younger generations and saving them from abuse, not spending time and energy on individuals that are too deep in such a pit.
I want to be clear about what I meant by social illness. It is an illness of the society which manifests in the behaviors and values of people, fascism being the prime example. I think these men (read the article and it’s actually two men) have been radicalized to the point where they are acting in a complete incongruity with near universal understanding of right and wrong. And in that vein the systems to rehabilitate them are ones that we need to build for the people less radicalized than them. The same applies for dealing with rape culture in general. The difference between these men and your everyday rapist or everyday far right chud engaging in stochastic terrorism seem to me to be ones of magnitude, not kind.
I agree with your perspective, my problem has always been that people can be very deceptive. How would this system potentially deal with that? Asking because I like your idea and just haven’t been able to head-solve that part.
I don’t know. Even communities committed to restorative justice have broken stairs. But just because there are still issues doesn’t mean we should give up the pursuit of a better and more just system. Issues like this are part of why it’d be stupid for a large government to just adopt what some communes and anarchists are trying, but taking elements, working towards similar aims, and encouraging such radical and voluntary groups to keep trying to innovate and find solutions are things we can do now
Agreed, even a half step is better than none in the right direction. It’s a worthwhile pursuit to spend time figuring it out. I don’t see any benefit in inflicting pain and suffering on someone as retribution or “teaching”. The system is deeply flawed as it stands now, there’s an endless number of things to be fixed. I have no idea what an ultimate solution might look like (not as a monolith but a process over time) but I have faith it can exist. I’ll take being proven wrong over giving up.
You have hope and it’s a bit infectious. Kinda need as much of that as I can get these days. Thank you for responding, I appreciate it
I have no idea what an ultimate solution might look like (not as a monolith but a process over time) but I have faith it can exist. I’ll take being proven wrong over giving up.
I strongly believe it lies in education. Sex education, reading from different perspectives, understanding what consent is and is not, understanding empathy. We need to be teaching our youth the value of respect and consent. They need to read books written by women from the perspective of women. We need to teach them that women deserve a place in our government, our universities, everywhere.
There’s proof there that we can create a better society for everyone this way.
Even if our pursuit is doomed I believe we still owe it to ourselves and each other to work for a better world. It’s both a matter of practicality and a matter of character. Surely things can be done better, but also we must every day choose who we will be, we choose the contents of our souls continually, and since we choose we can choose better, and when we don’t know what choice is better we can do our best and try to learn where we can.
I choose hope because we are people, even when things are bleak, and people can change. We can innovate. We can reorganize. We can learn and choose better. Perfect is impossible, but better always is possible.
Two books I recommend for hope are The Dawn of Everything by Davids Graeber and Wengrow, which show that society has been organized wildly differently in the past in ways most people don’t know because it’s relatively recent archeological and anthropological knowledge, but also it goes against the two competing “common knowledge” accounts of how civilization got to be this way. And The Dispossessed by Ursula K LeGuinn (cw the protagonist does rape someone), which imagines an anarchic society, struggles and all, which feels very real and like it may someday be possible, especially to those who’ve had plenty of experience in anarchy adjacent communities, spaces, and projects.
I don’t think they should be in prison; wood chipper.
while I would agree for this particular crime, in general death sentence is very problematic. I have read somewhere that during certain periods as high as 1/20 death sentences can be wrongfully given. So I am ok if they live like monks in some tiny cell for the rest of their lives while wrongfully accused people at least get some chance for getting out and compensation (which is not ideal but way better than death I would assume).
I’m not a fan of giving the government the power to execute people either, but man I understand why people want it when stuff like this happens. I still think it’s the wrong decision but I can’t get mad at people who support the death penalty.
The solution to that is death penalty for the people who decide on it but are wrong, but this needs to come along with a robust all encompassing government whistleblower program as well as stricter rules on government officials and more forced transparency.
So who? The jury? The judge? The prosecutor? You would simply have no one attempt to give the death penalty in the case they could be wrong, which is almost always technically a possibility. Which is mostly just the same as not having it.
In the day an age of being able to deep fake convincing evidence on a whim, I dont think the government should have the power to kill anyone. Period.
Plus, death is too easy. Watching the world move without you in it though…
Reread the second half of my comment, those parts are necessary for the first part to even be imagined as remotely functional. Full forced transparency, no classified information, absolutely nothing can be hidden from the civilians (a necessary yet ALWAYS ignored part of democracy btw) on top of extreme protections for whistleblowers and a massive payout system for anybody who catches any wrongdoings by the government.
And you missed mine.
That its impossible to hold anyone to the standard you propose, because to allow it all, means it can be manipulated for others purpose.
Why give the execution power to someone else?
That’s such a wildly disingenuous question. You know the answer but just in case you are being serious then consider “Why give the incarceration power to someone else”. Surely you aren’t arguing for absolute anarchism and rampant vigilantism, right?
Anyway, back to the original point…it’s not impossible if all government correspondence and data is fully public and never hidden along with a robust whistleblower system. We have to do something with the Epsteins,Trumps, Netanyahus, and Putins of the world…why continue allowing them to take more from us all by incarcerating them where they also have the chance to return to their old heinous lives or even to just move the entire operation into their “prison cell”.
Yeah, as a concept I’m fine with the death penalty. There are people who absolutely aren’t worth the trouble and should be deleted but we need to do a lot of work on how our justice system functions before it can be trusted to determine guilt well enough for that.
Easy out, labour camps.
Forced labor is slavery, and that’s not ok even for prisoners. Besides being a human rights violation, it incentivizes governments to convict more people of crimes and to impose longer sentences (I agree that sexual assault crimes are under-prosecuted, but that is one of the only categories of crime for which that is true, at least in the US). It also does nothing to promote rehabilitation.
Very good points. My comment was thoughtless.
This is the way.
May I offer a compromise? Send their genitals to the wood chipper and put the rest of their body in prison.
in the name of efficicacy, we should use the woodchipper to remove the aforementioned genitalia.
While I’ve seen my fair share of rapist who got rehabilitated, I do not think this one will be able to, especially as those who do it as a form of punishment (which it was from the limited details) are really hard to cooperate with.
Fundamentally rehabilitation is a two way street. Society has to provide the tools and resources to help change, but the criminal has to want to change and choose to do so. I highly doubt this man will ever want to change.
I hate calling everything terrorism, but raping a political candidate over her party sure fits my understanding of terrorism, same as last year’s political assassination.
Terrorist states love using rape as terror. There’s at least two at this moment, Israel and Russia.
