Prom Night is supposed to be one of those events that are a rite of passage as you making those last transitions from childhood into adulthood. Sadly, it’s one of the nights too many people fall victim to sex crimes that go unreported.
A past superintendent of a nearby school that I never did agree much with made a suggestion that they switch the purpose of Grad Night to Prom Night. Grad Night is supposed to be a alcohol and drug free environment that is chaperoned so students don’t drive drunk or get in trouble.
But the superintendent made a valid point in changing things up stating that relatives are coming from out of town and it’s not right to have a commencement ceremony at night immediately followed by shoving kids into a school bus sending them to some amusement center as they don’t get to spend time with families.
But I also think it just delays a problem rather than solving it. The graduates may not party hard on Grad Night but they do it the next day.
Back in 2014 on this day, my high school alma mater became international news when reports indicated three former student athletes (Fields Benjamin Chapman, Andrew Isaac Haynes, and Damon Avery Johnson, all 18 at the time) had been accused of drugging and sexually assaulting a young woman. This happened at an after-prom party at a private residence about 40 miles away in Gilmer County, Ga. And even though it wss in a different county under a different judicial circuit, I and others knew nothing would happen.
Almost immediately they were tryjng to blame the woman, who was reportedly 18 at the time, of underage drinking. I heard there was even attempts by the accused to deny they were even at the party, but the GPS on the vehicles said otherwise.
A grand jury indicted all three but nothing much happened for years. And today, 12 years to the day (probably very intentional), the courts dismissed the indictments. A civil case found they were liable I heard but it just goes to show the main problem we have in this country where certain people get away with crimes other wouldn’t.
At the same time, the Calhoun, Ga. Police Department has a chief of police, Tony Pyle, on administrative leave following an incident in nearby Floyd County where it’s alleged he had a sexual encounter in public. This happened back in September 2021.
It’s just par for the course. The area is totally corrupt. And it wouldn’t surprise anyone that this used to be the district that was represented by Marjorie Taylor Greene. Oh, and the carpet mills and factories have been under scrutiny for dumping toxic PFAS chemicals that have gotten into the ground soil and waterways. And it’s suspected that the local government leaders knew all about it for decades. Well, the carpet mills create jobs as people say. Yet they may have also contributed to the deaths of many in northwestern Georgia and nearby northeastern Alabama.
But whenever someone gets arrested for DUI or violent crimes, as long as they belong to a certain clique, people say we should “pray for them.”
And those that grew up there (and worse those who never left) know it’s bullshit. We all have our horror stories about school officials who hated us and let others squeak by. I had a teacher who refused to ever learn my name. Another tried to kick me out of the reserved seating even though I had tickets because she said my parents weren’t important. She was having an affair with another teacher. My mom said a lot of people knew it. Women were sexually assaulted and blamed for it.
In eighth grade P.E., we went to the community pool for a week in May. Girls who wore bikinis had to wear a non-white T-shirt over their top. I was play splashing with some people and a girl I knew since preschool was wearing a bikini and her top came off. No one saw anything as she was wearing a shirt.
However it didn’t take long for people to accuse me of taking her top off. Nothing happened because she told the coach she must’ve not tied it properly. But it just goes to show you how some people are willing to make things worse for others just because they can. And that person who tried to say I couldn’t sit in a reserved seating even though I had tickets, she was a P.E. coach who would routinely walk in on the boys in the middle school locker room if she thought we were being rambunctious. We weren’t.
Yes, the indictments may have been dropped but the court of public opinion isn’t so lenient. I’ve heard friendships and business deals ended over this as people took sides. One of the “acccused” lost an athletic scholarship. I wonder if they were even able to go college with this case pending. All it takes is a quick Google search nowadays. Maybe when I graduated high school back in 1997, it might have taken more legwork to find background information on a person. But now it takes a few clicks on our smartphones.
And that’s another thing. The Internet is more permanent even if court records are expunged. As a former newspaper journalist, archived news stories will exist longer as well.
Attorneys for the accused might have wrote that their clients have endured long-term stress awaiting trial, but sexual assault victims don’t get the trauma expunged. It stays.
And hopefully for the three men, this will be a permanent stain.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 