Girl Seeks Help On Facebook During Assault

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.

Comments

Why's this on Slashdot?

[Evro]

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.

Re:Why's this on Slashdot?

[eln]

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.

Re:Why's this on Slashdot?

[mcvos]

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!

Re:Why's this on Slashdot?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

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.

Re:Why's this on Slashdot?

[MBGMorden]

(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.

Mother...

[Dan East]

"Cesmat, who has a sizable criminal history,"

The girl's mother is an idiot.

Re:Mother...

[elrous0]

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).

Re:"911" it isn't that hard to do.

[Wyatt Earp]

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.

Why is this on Idle?

[djKing]

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

Something that everyone seems to be ignoring:

[Azuaron]

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.