The arrest of three Montclair High School boys for allegedly sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl sent shockwaves through the community yesterday as the news spread following a press conference in Montclair. “This is a horrible act and certainly a sad day for Montclair,” Police Chief David Sabagh said. The victim, a special ed student at the high school, is being evaluated – it’s unclear at this time if she has diminished mental capacity. It’s also possible there were many more witnesses to the alleged crimes which took place at 21 Hartley Street. Still uncertain is exactly which adults live in that home. From The Star Ledger:
Police said a group of unsupervised students gathered at Romal Roberts’ Hartley Street house between 11:30 a.m and 4:30 p.m. Thursday, on a day when students were on an irregular school schedule because of state testing.
Roberts, 18, and two 16-year-old friends allegedly compelled the girl, a classmate at Montclair High School, to perform a sex act. Then, they used force to sexually assault her with the broomstick, according to the criminal complaint.
The three students were each charged with 18 counts of aggravated sexual assault.
Law enforcement officials identified the girl as a special education student and the three students were charged under state laws aimed specifically at assaults against victims with mental disabilities. Investigators subpoenaed the girl’s school records and are analyzing them to determine the extent of her mental disability, said Paul Loriquet, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office.
Investigators are continuing to speak to at least two other teenagers who were in the house the afternoon of the alleged assault and the possibility that witnesses may have had camera cell phones, police said.
Meanwhile, students at Montclair High School say rumors about the alleged rape have been buzzing since Friday.
Sophomore L’Teisha Murray said the alleged victim’s sister got into a fight at school with another girl who apparently had witnessed the alleged assault.
“She said, ‘How come you let my sister get raped?'” said Murray, 16. “That’s when I knew it was for real.”
Classmates described the al leged victim as quiet, but friendly. “She was always saying hello to people,” said Ariel Mockabee, 16, also a sophomore.
They also knew some of the boys involved, and said they all appeared to be friends with the girl and a few of her female friends. They would often hang out together, they said, sometimes at the library.
Students also said the alleged victim may have dated at least one of the accused boys. Police said they are still investigating the girl’s relationship with the arrested stu dents.
“We know they knew each other. Whether friends or romant cally involved, we don’t know that,” said Sabagh, the police chief.
Young teenaged boys are capable of the most henious acts. I’ve often wondered why this is so.
My experience is that a mischievious, dark impulse can be hard to resist. I wonder where these impulses come from – from some dark inner recess of the human psyche or perhaps from the evil one.
We’ll never know. If these boys are responsible for this act, I pray that they can be rehabilitated and repay the victim and society for this misdeed.
If guilty how about castration and a lobotomy-which should be standard procedure for ALL rapists!
Why stop there? Let’s be proactive and castrate and lobotomize all potential rapists.
Where is Hartley Street? I’ve never seen nor heard of it. Must be a teeny street tucked away somewhere.
This is awfully reminiscent of the Glen Ridge “Town of Shame” incident of ’89.
This is a trivial matter compared to the outrage itself, but I dread the coming stories of Montclair having to do some soul searching as if everyone who lives in geographic proximity to the scene bears some responsibility.
I, for one, am not having to confront my previous assumptions that these kinds of things can’t happen here. They can.
I knew that before.
I don’t feel any personal shame that I live where these things can happen. (And I don’t feel much pride that I live in the same town where David Tyree played high school football.)
The whole concepts of individual responsibility, failings of achievement scare some people, so they seek to assign blame, guilt or praise based upon easier collective classifications. I stand athwart it yelling “Stop!”
Now I’ll copy the above and drop it in the thread on Spitzer.
Hartley Street intersects with Bloomfield Avenue. It’s not tucked away in a cul de sac unless you deliberately avoid the area of Montclair between Grove and Pine. That’s a mighty big detour.
Huh – No, that’s where I park for the DLV Lounge.
This is horrendous. But i think it will play out very differently from the Glen Ridge case. Their rapists were football players, and therefore central to the town’s self-regard. In the new case, the offenders come from the bottom of Montclair’s socio-economic scale. It will be very easy for the affluent Montclair majority NOT to see them as “our kids.” So rather than “how could our kids do this,” the attitude will be “let’s protect our kids from the savages who did this.” It’s starting to sound like that here already.
Wow, I was bummed after the last episode of the “wire”. Lucky for me , my town is picking up where Mr. Simon and Mr. Burns left off.
I would hope that “Montclair” won’t beat itself up too much about this matter merely as a form of introspection. Bad, very bad and outrageous and heinous things of this nature happen daily in both small towns and big cities all over America, let alone the world over.
Thus should not become occasions for self-damnation of the schools, the prevailing community ethos, etc. Los Angeles, in this vein, is still standing, has not, Gomorrah-like, disappeared under rain of fire and brimstone despite the daily moral outrages perpetrated there by Bloods, Crips and Hollywood actors.
This was the secondary outrage of the Glen Ridge matter, that some (perhaps for their own financial advantage, even, certainly by way of claiming the moral high ground) seized upon the idea of football players as symbolizing a sense of high school jock entitlement within the town. Whereas no one “knew” or could really and readily prove any such thing.
The important thing, wherever such crimes occur, is that the perpetrators should be prosecuted and punished appropriately if found guilty. And to that we have to display some degree of trust in the legal system in Essex County.
It is bizarre to see a kid like Ramal, who was always a nice kid , partake in such a horrible act. No town is perfect though and there will always be things like this that happen. It, in some ways puts a shock into kids and because they can relate to it on such a personal level, it is embedded in them and they become repulsed and never think to do such a thing. Sadly, the poor girl is in the hospital with ruptured organs.
I saw this in today’s Times and immediately came to Barista to see the commentary on it. I too thought of the Glen Ridge case – but as one of the commenters said, it’s true this is different because the perpetrators will not be seen in the same way as the Glen Ridge boys were viewed. I don’t know if that’s good or bad – I agree that we are not all responsible for everyone else’s actions but on the other hand we do need to still think of them as “our boys” and try to figure out how to prevent future acts of this kind.
It was a terrible thing and I’m so sorry to hear the girl is in the hospital. I hope she recovers and is able to go on with her life.
All my thoughts and prayers are with this girl and her family. What would make kids do something like this?
Also, can any MHS parents tell if they were aware the school was having an irregular schedule day?
It’s different only in the that the perpetrators of this recent crime are not privileged jocks. But it’s similar in that it shows the wanton depravity of today’s youth and reinforces that evil cuts across all racial, economic and social ties.
“It’s different only in the that the perpetrators of this recent crime are not privileged jocks. But it’s similar in that it shows the wanton depravity of today’s youth and reinforces that evil cuts across all racial, economic and social ties.”
Well put, MM.
…..”But it’s similar in that it shows the wanton depravity of *** today’s …..
***Better to insert the words “A SMALL SEGMENT of today’s youth…..
A SMALL SEGMENT sounds familiar. Very similar to the board’s statements when I’ve questioned them on the open campus policy. I’d like to know if this is why I received a voicemail from MHS when a large group of students skipped class after the testing. I’d also like to invite concerned neighbors to come and see what goes on in the neighborhood during school hours. It’s a free for all. Discipline and respect needs to be addressed first in our homes and then at our schools. MHS is not dealing with these issues openly. We need to open up to change in our schools. New methods for achieving desired results. Our children and neighborhoods need to be protected. Spend a couple of days on the streets surrounding the hs, you’ll be surpised by what you see. It can be scary.
neighbor, what do you propose that the high school administration do to alleviate the problems in the neighborhood, to which you refer?
croiagusanam
for starters consider the possibility of keeping the kids on campus for the entire day. i believe most schools in this country do not allow hs students to leave campus. why are mhs students allowed to come and go as they please?
A great many high schools — perhaps even most — allow students to leave for lunch or during free periods or after the last class of the day. Sometimes these privleges are extended only to seniors, but very often not. Even if this were not the case, students could always be “absent”. And of course there are test days (as this day was) and half sessions.
I think that if you did a little research into policies at high schools around the country you’d find a lot of “coming and going”.