Lacrosse ugliness at U.Va.

I get the sense that the hounds of generalization are about to be released.
The overeager critics of the Duke lax players were humbled to learn their zeal was premature. Now they sense another chance to take swipes at people on the basis of race and parents' bank accounts.
Why stop at the perp? Attack everybody remotely like him. It's safe and cathartic.

 

It is Southern in many ways. I was an upper-middle-class kid from Boston and it was a little different. There is some old money and Southern aristocracy. But generally, that's not automatically an inhospitable thing; the class system is nothing you wouldn't see in a nice suburb of any U.S. city. Little different, I think, than any top-50 American university.

 

Absent more indications that he specifically planned to go to her house and kill her, I'm inclined to view this as a tragedy all-around.

Nothing will ever bring Yeardley back, and her killer deserves to be punished severely, spending a long time in jail for causing her death. I don't believe in the state putting anyone to death. It's especially wrong here if she died accidentally -- i.e., if he didn't mean to kill her.

But then, this comes down to your concept of justice. I always hesitate to impart punishment that skirts the boundary of pure vengeance. This mistake -- if it was a mistake -- must have significant, life-altering consequences for her killer. He goes away for decades. I don't think you put anyone to death for an accidental killing.

We're all just speculating right now. Probably I should just wait to opine until all the facts are out. But I guess I won't.

 

I was simply saying the kid's wealth will help his defense. Getting it dropped from murder 1 (or whatever) to murder 2 (or something less) might be seen as a victory for the defense.

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I admit to being one of the ones leaning toward believing the accuser in the Duke Lax case. Boy was I ever wrong. And that poor kid who got accused who was truly guilty of nothing (not the one who had previously beat the shit out of a gay guy in a separate case)-- the kid who called a cab and left early then wound up in a perp walk.

But you know what? As bad a hand as those guys got dealt, they *did* put themselves in a position to be the recipients of bad luck. It's kind of like getting into a car with a drunk driver. Life is about playing the percentages, yes? Some would argue that they couldn't help it that they hired a psychopathic stripper... Well, nobody said hiring a stripper at all was the world's best idea, especially when you've been warned about your drunken behavior previously.

Now, there are truly people who have lead an exemplary life and ended up behind bars or dead for no good reason other than straight up unmitigated bad luck.

And yet, I don't sense the outrage over the miscarriage of justice in those cases that I do for the kids in the Duke case.

But ultimately, those Duke boys have had their share of bad shit happen to them probably for the rest of their lives. And I really hope that accuser and that D.A. get what's coming to them.

 

No clue why the lacrosse angle is such a big part of this story. What if they were just chemistry majors? What difference if they played a sport??

This story should be about violence against college women, which is wildly under-reported by young women, not about whether the victim and her attacker were lacrosse players.

 

Seconded.

As an aside, Hoo, when were you at UVa? I always wondered when I saw your posts if our paths crossed. I knew a couple of Massholes at the CD and I wonder if you were one of them.

 

It wouldn't be a national story if it weren't for the Duke stuff. If it were a male and female soccer player, it wouldn't have blown up like this. But to the basic point: yes, sports is of out-of-proportion importance.

 

Eh, it's like any story. This is man bites dog. It's a compelling hook to frame a larger issue. Look at it this way. If you were a true crime paperback writer, and you pitched a book about a boyfriend who killed his girlfriend in a rage, you wouldn't get past the synopsis. But add in a hook like this, and people want to read about it.

Think about Jon Krakauer's book about the Mormon fundamentalist murders. Just a run-of-the-mill deific decree murder? No, because you had a religion hook that went beyond the run-of-the-mill "God told me to do it" defense.

 

I disagree with that. Look at Baylor basketball. The juxtaposition of sports and mayhem is always a big story.

 

All the stories seems to describe them as LAX stars. The poor girl started 3 games - not sure that made her a "star".

Funny whenever you here "Lacrosse" it does conjure up an image of privilege.

 

I would say the Baylor thing didn't have near the carry that the Duke lacrosse thing did, Waylon. I didn't say Love wouldn't have been a big story; I'm saying it's going to become a behemoth only because of its antecedent.

 

Waylon, I get your point, but sometimes I think we get so caught up in 'storylines' that we don't tell the actual story.