Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Girl Seeks Help On Facebook During Assault

Posted by samzenpus on from the emergency-status-update dept.

A 12-year-old girl who was being assaulted by her mother's ex-boyfriend used some quick thinking by sending a message on her iPod to a friend's Facebook account for help. The friend was able to contact the girl's mother who then contacted the police. 42-year-old Raymond Ernest Cesmat was arrested and charged with two counts of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree. He is being held at the Dakota County Jail on $175,000 bail.

33 of 417 comments (clear)

  1. Why's this on Slashdot? by Evro · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The girl was raped and the guy left the room. It's not like Facebook saved the girl from being raped. She contacted her friend and requested she contact her mother, then she escaped and called her mother herself from a payphone, then the guy was arrested. There's not much of a Facebook tie-in.

    --
    rooooar
    1. Re:Why's this on Slashdot? by eln · · Score: 5, Informative

      Slashdot is just taking from the standard journalist's playbook: If you can tie a story to something that's currently very popular, especially Facebook or Twitter, you can get 10 times the page hits you would have normally gotten. If you can tie those things into a story that will generate lots of hits all on its own anyway, such as one dealing with sexual violence against children, your story might even go viral and you can just sit back and watch the ad revenue roll in.

    2. Re:Why's this on Slashdot? by Martin+Blank · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Children are not allowed to possess a firearm unless in the presence of an adult, and 12-year-old kids in general do not have the judgment necessary to carry one on their own.

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    3. Re:Why's this on Slashdot? by thijsh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Because with an ordinary case the vulture-like journalists can't easily find out the address, pictures and favorite color of the little girl in question, not to do anything to remotely help or support but to get as much views as possible... The facebook part is just used to enlist crowds of geeks to track every little bit of information down... I guess they didn't know they could just scour facebook to find her profile by searching for a comment like: PLZ water my farm 4me, being raped IRL!!! BRB? :'-(

    4. Re:Why's this on Slashdot? by TheLink · · Score: 3, Funny

      Another popular trick is to troll Apple fans.

      There's mention of an iPod. But I don't see anything for the Apple fans to bite...

      --
    5. Re:Why's this on Slashdot? by obarthelemy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      and how many extra gun deaths do you think letting 12 yo have guns would cause ?

      hint: http://www.gun-control-network.org/International.gif

      (and that chart is only for INTENTIONAL deaths, you can add accidents to that, not that there are ver any accidents with guns...)

      --
      The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
    6. Re:Why's this on Slashdot? by gwayne · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nonsense! I learned firearm safety around age 6 and have been using/carrying firearms on my own for over 30 years. Children who learn to hunt know very well the consequences using a firearm. I am not advocating that 12-year olds should carry weapons, but had she known how to use one, she certainly would have been justified in defending herself.

    7. Re:Why's this on Slashdot? by AdamTrace · · Score: 4, Funny

      "PLZ water my farm 4me, being raped IRL!!! BRB? :'-("

      I'm so ashamed that I find this as funny as I do...

      *shame*

    8. Re:Why's this on Slashdot? by mcvos · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Children are not allowed to possess a firearm unless in the presence of an adult,

      Haven't you read the story? There was an adult right there!

    9. Re:Why's this on Slashdot? by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 5, Informative

      The great bulk of underage gun deaths are either suicide or gangbangers. 12 year old girls are almost completely absent from that count, save as random victims. In addition, the number of accidental shootings (the stereotypical 'hey look, it's dad's gun' scenario) runs about 100/year. In the grand scheme of things, it's a nonfactor.

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
    10. Re:Why's this on Slashdot? by Beyond_GoodandEvil · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The girl was raped and the guy left the room.
      A shame the guy isn't an award winning director living in France, the he could have Whoopi Goldberg explain why this wasn't, "Rape, rape."

      --
      I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
    11. Re:Why's this on Slashdot? by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And yet liberals plug their ears and scream "I CANT HEAR YOU" when you present the solid and provenfact that gun laws DO NOT STOP gun violence as criminals, suprisingly, do not care what gun laws say... Criminals have no problems getting guns even in places like the UK.

      Gun laws simply disarm honest people. That is it. there is no other use.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    12. Re:Why's this on Slashdot? by MBGMorden · · Score: 5, Insightful

      (the stereotypical 'hey look, it's dad's gun' scenario)

      If that can be reduced to a near zero factor through education. When you get the gun, don't hide it in a drawer. The kids WILL find it. Kids love to plunder and find stuff. Instead, let the kids know when you get the gun (if it's an "event" like that - in many gun-friendly households the kids are just born into it). Afterwards, take them out to the range shooting. Show them how to use it effectively, and safely. Tell them WHERE it's at in case they need it. Then, they're not going to run across it on accident, and they're not going to find the "magical" gun lying around there. They're going to know the location of a tool that's as interesting to them as a socket wrench or a drill.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    13. Re:Why's this on Slashdot? by Tetsujin · · Score: 4, Funny

      I am not advocating that 12-year olds should carry weapons, but had she known how to use one, she certainly would have been justified in defending herself.

      I knew a kid growing up that picked up a target rifle when someone broke into his house and attempted to rape his mother.

      You know, I can't condone rape under any circumstance, but raping your mother while someone's breaking into the house just seems particularly unwise.

      --
      Bow-ties are cool.
    14. Re:Why's this on Slashdot? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Funny

      different from a random bugler or rapist

      I, for one, live in fear of random buglers.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    15. Re:Why's this on Slashdot? by Shakrai · · Score: 4, Informative

      There are about 75,000 gun deaths a year

      Your number is nearly three times higher than reality but then the gun-grabbers never have let the facts get in the way of a bad argument. If you are wondering, they show 12,632 firearm homicides in 2007 along with 17,352 suicides. I'll let you perform the addition operation -- you'll note it's substantially less than 75,000.

      That outnumbers the cases of self-defense by about 10 to 1

      Where you'd pull the 7,500 cases of self-defense from? The same void that you pulled the number of deaths from?

      Notice the Supreme Court didn't give you a right to carry a gun in their courtroom.

      Of course they didn't. All they said was that outright gun bans aren't compatible with the 2nd amendment. Sorry if that notion bothers you.

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
  2. Mother... by Dan+East · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Cesmat, who has a sizable criminal history,"

    The girl's mother is an idiot.

    --
    Better known as 318230.
    1. Re:Mother... by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Some women have the worst taste in men. I had an aunt who would climb a tree to find the worst possible guy when she could have stood on the ground and dated a nice guy. She dated a string of guys literally coming right out of prison. Needless to say, she took a string of beatings, was stabbed a couple of times, her kids were beaten. The family finally just cut her off and told her that they weren't going to help her anymore until she started making smarter decisions. AFAIK, she never did (her kids cut off contact with her long ago too).

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    2. Re:Mother... by Kleiba · · Score: 4, Informative

      It gets better:

      "The mom was no longer dating Cesmat but he continued to live with them."

    3. Re:Mother... by srealm · · Score: 4, Informative

      While I agree, none of the criminal's prior offenses included either violent crimes or crimes of a sexual nature.

      His priors were for fraud and such. I'm not saying the mother was not an idiot, but it's not like she left her with a known pedophile or rapist.

    4. Re:Mother... by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 3, Funny

      there's the pedosmile - once you recognize it, you can't not see it.

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
    5. Re:Mother... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You said,

      No shit..not to mention the guy totally looks like a pedophile/rapist. Way to ignore all red flags...

      And then you said,

      It's called intuition. Some people have it more than others apparently...

      Nope. You're just too stupid to realize how stupid you are. You are the type of person who votes in bad politicians because of the suits they wear and the confidence in their voice, and who convicts innocent people of murder (if on a jury) because you see "evil in their eyes". People like you also let guilty people go free because they don't look evil.

      You also remind me of some people who said that Heinrich Himmler (the Nazi in charge of the Final Solution) has a pleasant, school teachers face. And of the victims who don't put up their guard when dealing with handsome and polite serial killers and wife beaters.

      You can judge people with your intuition, but I prefer to judge people based on my intelligence and logic skills. I don't need to know what you look like in order to judge you, I can tell merely by the type of arguments and reasoning you use.

      Martin Luther King once said,

      I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

      It's too bad that based on your "intuition" (what the rest of us call prejudice), so many people will be continue to be demonized, bullied, ostracized, under-employed, glass-ceiling-ed at work, and generally marginalized.

      In reality, it should be how people are on the inside that counts, not on the outside.

      Mr. Rogers said that looks don't matter:,

      It's not the things you wear,
      It's not the way you do your hair--
      But it's you I like.
      The way you are right now,
      The way down deep inside you--
      Not the things that hide you,
      Not your toys--
      They're just beside you.

      So you can live inside of your fantasy world where pedophiles and rapists are ugly, white, unemployed men who generally have goatees; and good people are handsome, suit wearing businessmen who are successful at sales. I'd rather live in reality.

    6. Re:Mother... by amohat · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's called making the rent.

      aka: i dont want to be homeless

  3. Good for something by maclizard · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This easily the best application that Facebook has ever been used for.

  4. Re:wait, this is slashdot by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Rape by force is real.

    --
    Support my political activism on Patreon.
  5. Re:"911" it isn't that hard to do. by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 5, Informative

    While that's a great thing to teach and learn, in this case the girl had no cell phone, but was able to ask for help on an iPod Touch.

  6. Why is this on Idle? by djKing · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A 12-year-old girl, victim of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree. Hilarious.

    --
    Free as in "the Truth shall set you..."
  7. Something that everyone seems to be ignoring: by Azuaron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The girl grabbed her iPod. Not her iPhone. Not her cellphone, the home phone, the anything-phone, her iPod. Her cellphone was taken away. So everyone who's going, "Why didn't she call 911?" or "This could have easily been a text message," it couldn't. iPod. Had that been me, I'd probably have searched frantically for a phone, even venturing outside my room, and ultimately running to the payphone. It shows incredible presence of mind for her to realize she could get a message out from her iPod (via Facebook, but it could easily have been email or pretty much any other internet communication).

    I think that puts it firmly in the realm of Slashdot, and the debate should be something more along the lines of, "Should police departments have Facebook/other social networking accounts for the purpose of getting crime reports similar to 911." Probably not (too much spam), but it's something to consider. Sometimes it's easier to get on the internet than to a phone.

    --
    I'm a psychologist (amongst other things).
    1. Re:Something that everyone seems to be ignoring: by Azuaron · · Score: 3, Informative

      iPOD. Not a phone. NOT A PHONE. Pay attention.

      --
      I'm a psychologist (amongst other things).
  8. Re:Screw 911 - Update Status! by natehoy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Please, please, please read TFA. Especially before you accuse a girl of being stupid because she was raped and had no way of calling for help. It really makes you look stupid when you make up facts to support a viewpoint that accuses the victim of stupidity.

    First, she made the communication BEFORE being assaulted.

      - Cesmat had confiscated her cell phone earlier in the evening. She had no telephone. Hence no ability to make calls.

      - Cesmat had briefly left her room after attempting to remove her pants and her fighting him off. She had no way of knowing she was ABOUT to be raped (get the timeline right), so she used her only communications media to get a friend to have her mom come home and get her away from Cesmat ASAP. Little did she know he was about to re-enter the room and rape her.

      - After the rape, Cesmat left. She then blocked the room off and escaped through the window, found a payphone, and called her mother (who was enroute already).

    Could leaving the room immediately have prevented the rape? Maybe. Or maybe he was just outside the room at the time and her attempt at escape could have turned this deadly.

    --
    "This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
  9. "Assault"? by Tetsujin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's called "Rape"...

    --
    Bow-ties are cool.
  10. Suicide numbers are irrelevant and dishonest by Quila · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, but almost no guns. The US has less than half their suicide rate, with guns freely available.

    People who want to commit suicide will use whatever means handy. The availability of one method, guns, has no impact on that.

  11. Re:Dumb mom by otopico · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I hate to feed AC trolls, but please prove proof of your "Every crime ever committed against children comes from the current or ex boyfriend of some mother." claim.

    I know you can't but I'm sick of the crap some people are willing to spit out. I would encourage you to also "use your freakin' brain" you moron.