The Reality Blog

This is how the anti-male hysteria all started, by lying cows just like this, and it has not stopped since..

 

Twenty Years Ago Today: The Imaginary Rape That Prompted Calls for a Curfew for Men and Boys

by Archivist

Today is the twentieth anniversary of something that didn't happen, an imaginary rape that turned the teenage boys of the bucolic college town of Davis, California into creatures more loathsome than pariahs.

On August 2, 1991, Janet Berger, 44, who was then a circulation manager for a local Davis newspaper, falsely claimed she had been raped on July 29, 1991 at 10 p.m. by five skateboarding boys in one of the city's park-like greenbelts.

Berger said the supposed rape was in retaliation for her act of accidentally brushing up against one of the youths on her bicycle earlier in the evening. On her return trip along the same path, she claimed that a wilding gang of skateboarding teen males in tank tops, ages 13-17, wrestled her from her bike and proceeded to rape her.

Two weeks later, Berger told a rape counselor and police that it was a lie: she had merely fallen from her bicycle and had made up the rape story. She furnished neither an explanation nor a motive.

But it's what happened during those two weeks to one particular class of citizens -- the teen male skateboarding community -- that makes this story so instructive.  Immediately following the spurious allegation, the news media took the woman at her word. One headline solemnly announced: "Rape shatters illusions in Davis."

Anonymous flyers were circulated calling for a curfew for all men and boys.

Threatening, anti-male graffiti was scrawled on an overpass favored by skateboarders. It read: "Dead Boys Don't Rape."

Other graffiti repeated the "Curfew for All Men" sentiment; still other graffiti demanded: "Get the Skateboard Rapists."

Apoplectic women's groups ran out of synonyms for the word "shock."

The newspaper where Berger worked reported that a rally was planned in "support of the rape victim and other rape victims." But then the rally was canceled at Berger's request.

A local chapter of the National Organization for Women held a news conference to denounce the alleged crime. And townsfolk demanded arrests, even though the only evidence of the putative assault was the word of one then-unidentified woman whom the townsfolk knew nothing about.

Police questioned 75 completely innocent boys in connection with the rape that never happened.

Skateboarders kept a low profile once the woman's story became public. "After it happened, there wasn't a skateboarder in town," said Bill Gray, a Yolo County youth counselor at Davis High School.

One of the innocent boys taken in for questioning was then-16-year-old Josh Fernandez, who is now a mid-30s married man and a writer. Josh, then an avid skateboarder, knew as soon as he heard the allegation that he and his friends would be targeted.

"Once, when we were taking a break from skateboarding in the parking lot of Carl’s Jr.," Josh recalled, "a car pulled up. In the car was a man, about 40, who had a ratlike face with a patchy mustache. 'Hey, you fucking rapists,' he said, with his window rolled halfway down. He tried to spit on me, but the saliva didn’t quite make it out of his car."

Josh told the man, "Fuck you," but was glad that the man sped off, "because, frankly, he would have pummeled me to death with his white-trash methamphetamine arms."

This was typical, according to Josh: "For a couple of weeks, wherever we went, something of that nature would happen: A truck full of UC Davis jocks threw a dozen soda cans at us and screamed, 'Rapists!'; Butchy Davis women in hemp dresses glared us down with their murderous eyes as we rolled past on the sidewalk—and so on."

"I don’t know about my friends," Josh wrote last year, "but there were moments that summer when—even in my gangly, 5-foot frame—I felt like a big, lumbering, greasy rapist."

Finally, police decided Berger's story was filled with holes, so they confronted her with inconsistencies. One key failing in her story was her refusal to reveal the name of a doctor she claimed examined her.

"The reason I can't give you a doctor," Berger finally told police, "is because there is none."

Police officers and a rape counselor spoke to her for 3 1/2-hours, and she finally acknowledged the fabrication.

Davis Police Chief Phil Coleman called a news conference to announce the jig was up. Flanked by politicians, two detectives, and two rape counselors, the Chief said the rape never occurred.

Mayor Maynard Skinner offered an olive branch to the skateboarders, calling them "an important group in our community." He announced that the city planned to open a skateboard park.

The mayor also called on the woman, Jan Berger, 44, to publicly apologize. (I can find no indication whether she did.)

Councilwoman Lois Wolk said: "It's a tragedy for this community, We were very ready to point fingers and make accusations and stereotype groups--men (and) skateboarders."   But then Wolk proceeded to call Berger a "victim," and said she hoped Berger would receive therapy.

Some local women identified as feminists would not accept the fact that a rape did not occur, and they worried that rape victims might not come forward because people did not believe a rape occurred. "I don't think any one of us (is) convinced that it didn't happen," said feminist Sherilyn Adams. "It's not uncommon for women to recant out of fear of retaliation . . . or denial--make this thing go away."

Police confirmed a report that Berger ran a small day-care center that was shuttered after children were molested there in 1986. She was never prosecuted for the crimes, but felt responsible. Before she recanted her rape lie, she told a detective "what happened now [the supposed rape] was punishment for what had happened" at the day-care center.

A rape counselor, who told reporters that she only uses her first name (Cheryl), said that Berger did not "act out of malice." Rather, she had experienced unspecified traumas in her life. "She does deserve a great deal of compassion."

There is no indication that the newspapers were at all interested in Josh Fernandez's back-story, or that of the other 74 boys picked up for questioning by police.

For Berger's lie, for pitting an entire community against a group of some of its most vulnerable citizens--children--Berger was charged with a misdemeanor of filing a false police report, carrying a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $500 fine. (The newspapers aren't clear if she was convicted.)

The boys questioned by the police seemed to have bounced back and put it behind them, but they didn't forget. Josh Fernandez, the writer, and his skateboarding friends who were also questioned by police, have done pretty well for themselves. One is an ophthalmologist; another writes jokes for Jay Leno; another is a chemist.

When Josh got married last year, he got the old gang together to be his groomsmen, and they skipped the traditional bachelor party. Josh rented out an indoor skate park, and these guys now in their mid-30s--who, 20 years ago, were taken to the police station to be questioned for a rape that never happened just because they were skateboarders--skated like they were 16 again.

Sources:
http://articles.latimes.com/1991-08-20/news/mn-1241_1_davis-enterprise

http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/skateboard-bachelor-party/content?oid=1810692

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=lpszAAAAIBAJ&sjid=sjIHAAAAIBAJ&pg=5152,4943016&dq=skateboard+and+rape&hl=en

http://articles.latimes.com/1991-08-30/news/mn-1507_1_false-police-report

Just some more information on the blatant lies that feminists and their supporters indulge in which not only muddies up the actual situation but also destroys any effort for the truth to surface. Continually lying about rape does not in any way enhance the way it's treated but only attracts scorn and derision as the truth of the situation is ALWAYS overstated by feminists whose sole consideration is purely motivated towards more funding. They have already demonstrated that they are not really interested in stopping or helping rape victims but only interested in spreading their hate message to anyone requiring that assistance, even encouraging false claims to ensure those vacancies are filled to inflate the numbers. Only feminists and their misfits occupy those places where real victims of rape can go but fails to be assisted in any meaningful way..

Those centres are not staffed with professionals but only paid workers with one precondition and that is that they have to be pro-feminist. We have already read many articles by Carey Roberts, a professor, who has repeatedly demonstrated that those centres are run by incompetent, irrational, biased females whose sole purpose has been stated above. So it is about time that professional people were installed into those centres rather than letting real victims suffer even more..

The entire "Rape Industry" is designed to further the feminist cause and as they are not even slightly interested in getting to the bottom of this harrowing crime, be it either male or female victims, it would appear that help from those "centres" are only ever superficial and at best, only slightly helpful if being helpful is indoctrination..

While the lies continue, no positive outcome will ever be realised and it's only ever the victims who suffer the most..

Lies, Damned Lies, and Dr. Phil 

False Rape Society.

by Archivist 

I read a startlingly inaccurate assertion that is repeated, in one form or other, in many places:
"There is no empirical data to prove that there are more false charges of rape than of any other violent crime. Estimates indicate that only 2 percent of all rape reports prove to be false, a rate comparable to the false report rate for other crimes." M. Torrey, "When Will We Be Believed? Rape Myths and the Idea of a Fair Trail in Rape Prosecutions" (forthcoming 24 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1013 (1991)); Parrot and Bechholder, eds., "Acquaintance Rape" at 28 (1991) ("(A)ccording to police records, false reports are no more likely for rape than they are for other serious crimes.")
Sound familiar? Of course it does. Anyone who advocates for persons falsely accused of rape and similar offenses encounters it routinely.  It is as offensive as it is dishonest, and even though it was debunked long ago, it is repeatedly trotted as fact. See, e.g., E. Greer, The Truth Behind Legal Dominance Feminism's 'Two Percent False Rape Claim' Figure, 33 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 947 (2000), a scholarly law review article that painstakingly traced the two percent canard to its baseless origin.
No, I didn't copy the above quote from the literature of a college's women's center.
It's from the Congressional Record.
Specifically, it was in a Report by the Committee on the Judiciary in connection with the Violence Against Women Act. Senate Report 102-197 (102 S. Rpt. 197), Pub. L. 102-197 n. 48 (Oct. 29, 1991). Even though it was as wrong as can be, it was accepted as evidence to justify passage of VAWA.
Why is this important today? Because we are in danger of having history repeat itself.
Dr. Phillip McGraw, a/k/a Dr. Phil, made claims at a recent Senate committee hearing that some are calling "reckless and false."  http://www.sacbee.com/2011/07/25/3792668/dr-phils-testimony-was-reckless.html
"During his testimony, Dr. McGraw made repeated statements about violence against women, but glossed over the widespread problem of abuse against men. McGraw made a number of claims that were flatly wrong, SAVE alleges."
"Dr. McGraw asserted that 'Domestic violence is now the most common cause of injury to women ages 15 to 44.' But the actual leading causes of injury to women are falls, overexertion, and car accidents. McGraw told the senators that 'In too many situations violence against women, young and old, is almost treated as an 'acceptable crime.'"' But that statement ignores research showing over 90% of Americans abhor domestic violence."
Id.
If this is correct, then we're about to see more lies about men and women find their way into the Congressional Record.
Will things be different this time?
Incidentally, I found something else in that same Senate report. A tidbit dripping with irony:
Testimony before the committee reported that "(m)ost of the NCS (National Crime Survey) crime screening questions are very concrete." For example, victims are asked, "Were you knifed, shot at, or attacked with some other weapon * * *?" For rape, the person is asked, "Did someone try to attack you in some other way?" As the National Crime Survey itself puts it, "No one in the survey is ever asked directly if she has been raped." "Women and Violence," hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, 101st Cong., 2d sess. 29 (Aug. 29, 1990) (testimony of Dr. Mary Koss) (quoting National Crime Survey).
Why is this ironic? Because in the infamous Ms. Magazine/Koss study, where Mary Koss that found 25% of women are raped, "[r]ather than asking female students about rape per se, Koss asked them if they had experienced actions that she then classified as rape." See here. It turns out that only 27 percent of the women Koss said had been rape actually believed they had been raped. See here. As Heather MacDonald put it: "In short, believing in the campus rape epidemic depends on ignoring women’s own interpretations of their experiences—supposedly the most grievous sin in the feminist political code."
That did not find its way into the Congressional Record