When a 13-year-old girl suffered an unimaginably brutal sexual assault at the hands of six men, she never thought she’d be humiliated by the judge. However, that’s exactly what happened when she heard the paltry sentence two of them were handed. Her family is furious. Is this justice? You decide.
An unnamed 13-year-old girl was inside the Stonebrook Terrace apartment complex in Colorado Springs, Colorado, when she was tragically gang-raped by a group of six men, who were all related to one another as cousins and brothers. The girl knew one of the suspects, and the six were all later identified as Tommy Williams, Clarence Williams, Jacolby Williams, Tyron Williams, James Williams, and an unnamed juvenile.
After one of the men invited the teen to the apartment to play video games, she went to the home with some female friends. However, while she was in the bathroom, her friends left, and her nightmare soon unfolded. Two of the men pulled the teen from the bathroom and forced her into a bedroom where the other four suspects were waiting. The victim’s grandmother said that her granddaughter was passed around the group of men “like a hand on a clock” during the attack, adding that the 13-year-old may never be able to have children, Fox News reported.
Sadly, it doesn’t seem she’ll see any justice either after Tommy Williams, 20, and Clarence Williams, 19, were each only sentenced to serve an “intensive supervised probation,” meaning no jail time, although they could have faced life in prison, according to The Gazette. Instead, at least 10 years of sex offender intensive supervised probation with a maximum of life on probation is all these monsters will face, KKTV reported, but it gets worse.
Two of the other four defendants who came before the court prior to Clarence and Tommy Williams got the similar sentences when they too were given probation rather than being thrown behind bars. While it is unclear what sentence the unidentified juvenile or Jacolby Williams received, James Williams was only given a five-year probation sentence.
According to a previous report by KKTV, Tyron Williams was sentenced to 10 years to life of sex offender intense supervised probation like Tommy and Clarence Williams. He apologized to the victim and her family and reportedly said, “If I knew she was underage, it wouldn’t have happened in the first place.”
But, his words offer little comfort for the victim and her family, who are rightfully outraged that at least four of the men escaped jail time after being convicted of the heinous crime. “There was six of them, and they gang-raped my granddaughter,” the young girl’s grandfather, shocked by the verdict, said. And, who can blame him for his disbelief?
Rape is a vicious and violent crime. The rape of a child is even more disturbing. Gang rape is even worse yet. At least four gang rapists walked free in this case, and probation will do little to stop them from striking again. We depend on our justice system to keep the public safe. But, it failed miserably in this case.
Giving gang rapists a slap on the wrist hardly discourages other monsters from doing the same nor will it stop these predators from creating more victims. This is a travesty, and the world needs to know about it. We need to demand more from our courts. This was someone’s daughter, who these beasts treated like a sex doll, leaving her injured to the point she may never bear children. We must stand up and let authorities know that this is not okay. We expect more. It’s time the justice system stops coddling criminals and gives them the punishments they deserve. Probation for gang rape is hardly adequate.
