Four boys sexually assaulted 8-year-old girl

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/07/22/arizona.juvenile.sexual.assault/index.html
By Monica Trevino
CNN





(CNN) -- Four boys ages 9 to 14 have been charged with sexually assaulting an 8-year old girl, police in Phoenix, Arizona, said Wednesday.

The girl was lured into a vacant storage shed by the suspects, who offered her chewing gum, police said at a news conference.

The girl was restrained while the boys -- ages 9, 10, 13 and 14 -- sexually assaulted her, police said of the July 16 incident.

All the suspects except for the 14-year-old live in the same apartment complex, according to Phoenix police Sgt. Andy Hill. The 14-year-old has been charged as an adult, Hill said.

Detectives said the girl was placed in the custody of Phoenix child protective services after the attack because of her parents' attitude toward her.

The girl and the boys charged are all from families that have come to the United States from the West African nation of Liberia, police said.

The parents should be prosecuted for their "attitude" towards the girl!

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/crime/2009/07/23/dnt.az.girl.gang.raped.ktvk

Aye mehnn. Wha kinna thing? This is the type of thing that the LIberian community should attempt to help with. The family obviously needs counseling if they ae blaming the child for making them shame.

CNN has the story on air now.They have interviewed the family and it doesn't too good. They (the family)are blaming the girl and defending the boys. Understanding the cultural differences in the way Americans and Liberians view rape is going to be difficult to do.

Somebody really needs to talk to the family before they loose their daughter for good. People are already inquiring as to what her fate will be and whether she will be forced to return to their home.

They need to stop talking bout how the girl na bring shame on the family and she should never do that again. Lord help them.

Personally, I think THOSE parents should be deported back to Liberia. I'm as liberal as they come and I was one of the original organizers of the Liberian immigration relief movement. But in this situation where these adults are showing such callous disregard for a little girl, their azzes need to be deported this afternoon!

This kids seem like they were rebels or exposed to some things bfore they got here

aye mehn....

This just breaks my heart, poor baby!

"I came to her and said it's not good for you to be following guys because you are still little," the sister told KTVK. She also said that she wanted the suspects to be released from jail because "we are the same people."

"When she comes back I'm going to tell her don't ever do that again because all of us, we are the same family, we are from the same place. Now she is just bringing confusion among us. Now the other people, they don't want to see her,"



http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/07/23/phoenix.juvenile.assault/index.html

My pepo when you ain know, you ain know.
The family is the reacting the way they know. They know the way the Liberian culture (at least some portions of it) looks at rape. What they don't know is the way it is seen here.

Educating the Liberian populus to adopting a different attitude towards it is still a work in progress. Those billboards still stand in Monrovia. Culture is not an outfit you put on or take off at will. It is deep and intrinsic. No matter how unenlightened they are, they are still still Liberian people and as the little said, " We are all one family".

The family needs help and counsel much more than judgement. They need that counsel from the people that can best understand who they are, from whence they come and what makes them think and react they way they do.

The little girl needs help now. The American community (system) will embrace her and seek to champion her cause and rightly so. But shouldn't the Libeian community do the same. Helping the famly to understand the dynamics of this thing will ultimately help the little girl as she wil eventually return to them.

I love this statement by YesLiberia. It is so appropos:
"It takes YOUR village to raise a child...Not someone elses' village."

rape is almost always compromised in liberia. the victim is responsible for breaking families and 'putting breadwinners in jail'. in our work in the southeast, we have realised that communities have 'taken oaths' not to disclose any info on rape. a girl wa driven out of a community in river gee, jakaken, because she reported that she had been raped.

in one of our last meetings in river gee, the men made so much fun when we talked about rape, i almost went insane. they do not want people to come in and soil their culture-a girl who has breasts or i 14 years old can have sex and it is no crime.

to make matters worse, on your side..the US has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child...complicated for the girl considering that people may be 'sensitive' to the Liberian culture and the BS they talking on tv.

I talked about this last weekend while serving as guest speaker at the 26th program for the Liberian association in Michigan. I think parents and other adults in Lib are themselves so traumatized (and some are just damn socially irresponsible) that we are going to have to invest heavily in character and values education in our public schools and through radio, TV, and print media if we are going to have even a chance of reversing this madness.

Update:
Boys charged in child rape case appear in court


By AMANDA LEE MYERS (AP) – 10 hours ago
PHOENIX — The two youngest boys charged in the rape last month of an 8-year-old Liberian girl were ordered Wednesday to remain in juvenile detention with restricted visitors, as Liberia's deputy ambassador to the U.S. arrived in town hoping to speak to them.
At separate hearings during which one of the young defendants openly wept, judges ordered that no one be allowed to interview the 9-year-old boys without the permission of their lawyers, court-appointed advocates and Child Protective Services.
Both lawyers indicated they would advise the boys not to speak to the deputy ambassador, Edwin Sele, who arrived in Phoenix on Wednesday afternoon for a weeklong fact-finding mission and to help dispel notions that rape is condoned in the West African country.
He said during a news conference that he still hopes to interview the four boys despite the hurdles ahead of him.
"I'm sure we can speak to CPS and find ways to do this legally," said Sele, who was asked to visit Phoenix by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Sele said he wants the boys to know that being innocent until proven guilty is a hallmark of the U.S. justice system and that he also wants to meet with the 8-year-old girl to tell her that all Liberians extend their love to her.
The rape case drew international attention last month after police reported the alleged victim's parents said they were ashamed of the girl and didn't want her back — a contention later disputed by the family's pastor. The girl remains in custody of Child Protective Services.
During the alleged July 16 attack, police say the 9-year-old boys and two teenagers lured the girl to an empty storage shed with the promise of chewing gum, restrained her and took turns raping her. A 14-year-old has been charged as an adult, and prosecutors are seeking to charge a 13-year-old as an adult, as well.
One of the 9-year-old boys, whose ankles and wrists were shackled during Wednesday's hearing, slouched in his oversized chair and was expressionless until Judge Aimee Anderson spoke directly to him.
"I will tell you I'm very proud of you for being back there and working so hard," she said as she held up a certificate that his juvenile facility had given him for good behavior. "I know it's not easy and pretty hard to make friends in there ... Hang in there, OK?"
As she spoke, tears poured down his face and his sniffles could be heard over a courtroom microphone.
Anderson granted prosecutors' request to change two of the boy's charges from sexual assault to sexual conduct. He also is charged with kidnapping.
Minutes later at a separate hearing, the 9-year-old charged in the case sat quietly and looked around curiously from time to time. Judge Dawn Bergin ordered that his sexual assault charge be changed to sexual conduct, also at prosecutors' request.
The 9-year-old boys' uncle, whom The Associated Press is not identifying because he shares a last name with one of the boys, told the AP outside court that he was skeptical about whether his nephews had committed rape. "It's hard to believe a 9-year-old could commit rape," he said.
He said the boys are cousins, came to the U.S. about six years ago and had been living in Phoenix with their grandmother. He said neither remembers their life in Liberia, speak very limited English and don't understand what's going on in court.
During the hearings, a court-appointed advocate for the boys said the parents of one of them still live in Africa, while the other's mother is dead and his father is in Africa.
Neither have legal guardians, she said, which is why she said she will file dependency petitions on each of their behalf in hopes of getting them out of juvenile detention and placing them with an uncle or in Child Protective Services.
Meanwhile, Phoenix police released a lengthy report about the rape late Wednesday.
All four boys admitted to participating in the assault, and two referred to it as rape, according to the report.
"(The boy) told me that he saw them 'raping' her," wrote investigator Patricia Fimbresa about one of the 9-year-olds. "I asked (him) to tell me what he meant by 'raping her.' (He) told me that it was when you see a girl and take them somewhere that nobody sees, and you do things to them and run away."
The report also details interactions between police and the girl's parents.
Investigator Samantha Pimentel wrote that when she talked to the girl's father on July 23, he appeared disgusted and frustrated and said in front of his daughter that all she does is cause problems and ruin the family's chances of becoming U.S. citizens.
Pimentel wrote the girl's mother then came out and pulled her daughter by the ear to take her inside, causing the girl to scream in pain, according to the report.
Another investigator, Jacquelyn MacConnell, wrote that the father told investigators that "it is her fault."
After instructing the other officers to take the girl away, MacConnell wrote that she confronted the parents.
"I walked up to both of them ... and advised them that they both needed to be educated," she wrote. "They questioned the comment and I told both of them in plain, exact and slow English, 'Your daughter was raped, it is not her fault.'"
Pastor James Nyemah, who is acting as the family's spokesman, said the father's statements were the result of a misunderstanding stemming from a language barrier and that he desperately wants his daughter back.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iuEVz2wzCQhOuO9806ZEyMzCdu2QD99T3CDG0

aye God!!!! even the pulling ear was 'as a result of a language barrier'.

"Pimentel wrote the girl's mother then came out and pulled her daughter by the ear to take her inside, causing the girl to scream in pain, according to the report."

Aye goodness! Dah real Liberian ol ma for true!

dey small geh want stop dey people from getting their citizenship. phew!!!!

President Sirleaf talks to CNN about the Rape case.

CNN Video