A former Texas high school student has come forward with accusations that school officials suspended her for “public lewdness” after she reported that she had been raped in a band room.
In her first extensive interview, Rachel Bradshaw-Bean told NBC News that a boy had asked her to go into the band room at Henderson High School in East Texas on Dec. 6, 2010 while they were waiting for a Key Club meeting to begin after school. That’s when things turned violent and the boy raped her.
After crying and cleaning herself up in the bathroom, she went to an assistant band director to report the crime.
“He told me to work it out with the boy,” she recalled. “There’s no way I would do that. But I didn’t know what to think. I was 17.”
The next day, the news reached an assistant vice principal after Bradshaw-Bean and a friend told another assistant band director. The school sent Bradshaw-Bean to a health clinic, which found lacerations to the hymen and bleeding “consistent with information given per victim,” according to a medical report obtained by NBC News.
A day after forensic specialist Michael Jimerson interviewed Bradshaw-Bean, police called her parents to say that no criminal charges would be filed against the boy.
why does it take people outside of the school to give a damn, this is the crap that Texas and other redneck states do in their war against women all this does is embolden other potential rapist who seem to have more rights or should i say privilege than the victim.
denying abortion then forcing the victim to allow their rapist to have visitation rights if she gets pregnant. IMO they support rape and other abuses to women, took awhile for those on the right wing to renew the violence against women act, why they needed more time to get away with their abuses?
“They said the sex was consensual. I was so shocked,” Bradshaw-Bean’s mother pointed out to NBC News. “I thought, they are pushing this under the rug. She’s being treated this way because she’s a female. I looked at my husband and said, ‘Do they know women have the right to vote?’”
Jimerson, however, insisted that the case had a lack of evidence.
“We broke it down with her version of events and his,” he said. “Her claims could not be substantiated. At the end of the day, I just know that objectively, there was almost no chance of a conviction. As a prosecutor, I have to be vigilant about the cases I pursue.”
Jimerson added that Bradshaw-Bean had used language that “implied consensual sex instead of forcible rape,” although he could not produce an exact transcript of the remarks.
“I was reporting a rape,” Bradshaw-Bean argued. “It sounds like my words are getting twisted. If you have to twist someone’s words to make your case, then something’s not right.”
yes something isn't right and it all lies with the one's her parents entrusted to look out for their daughter, seems when it comes to protecting they look the other way especially if it's a boy. wow can you imagine this guy in adulthood carrying the attitude into the next generation and the next victims. places like Texas do believe in evidence they haven't signed off on.
In the end, both Bradshaw-Bean and her suspected rapist were punished for “public lewdness” by being sent to a disciplinary school for 45 days. The school also declined to fulfill its legal obligation to launch its own internal investigation.
they have to have some really screwed up kids there.
