The Black Republican

If you haven't been following this story, you should be. A developmentally handicapped 16-year-old girl was beaten and raped at Mifflin High School in Columbus, Ohio. The entire incident was witnessed by several students - and even videotaped.

The girl's father was not told of the alleged incident until more than an hour after administrators were alerted, the station said. Teacher Lisa Upshaw finally called the father, but said once he arrived Assistant Principal Richard Watson would not call the police, even when the father asked him to.

Yes, you read that right. The assistant principal Richard Watson would not call the police even when asked to do so by the girls father, for fear of media scrutiny. Glenn Beck has been championing this issue and has recently attracted a lot of attention for criticizing Michael Coleman, the mayor of Columbus, for not doing more. In an interview on his nationally syndicated radio show, Glenn Beck could not even get the mayor to express any outrage at all over the fact that the assistant principals involved in the incident were only suspended for 10 days and then transferred to different schools (ala Bernard Cardinal Law). As has been pointed out by Mr. Beck and others, under Ohio law, school employees who hear of a sexual assault on a child are required to immediately report that knowledge or suspicion to police or a county child-welfare agency. Actually, the inaction of the school administration could legally be construed as obstruction of justice and tampering with a crime scene. These are the people hired to teach and protect children?

I was born in Columbus. It is my hometown and a place I dearly love. But this incident, and the cold indifference of the school and political officials involved, is an ugly stain on the image of a great city. I make this post and these statements not to tar all of the people involved - some are actually trying to do the right thing - but just to shine a light on the vermin who are trying to hide, cover up, and obfuscate the truth in this case.

Some of you may not know this, but Columbus is often used as a test market city because it's location and demographic makeup are so close to the national medians. That means that Columbus is an average city with fairly average citizens when compared to the whole country. Let's hope that the behavior of the Columbus city school and government officials is not representative of the national average.

Update: Michelle Malkin has additional info and links.