Five members from Canada’s 2018 world junior team (Hart, McLeod, Dube, Foote and Formenton) told to surrender to police, facing sexual assault charges

[ERYX]

Fair.

I'm doing a poor job articulating it, but I guess my thoughts go beyond the trial application of this case and are more directed at what seems like a structural/conceptual issue with the law itself- to me those two concepts- regaining consent via "reasonable steps" and inducing via abuse of power seem to be almost directly opposed to each other.

But maybe that's projection on my part, if you have to "convince" some one to have sex, whether it's an abuse of power or not, you shouldn't be having that sex

Well, importantly, the "reasonable steps" are not to obtain consent, but rather to ascertain whether there was consent. So I do not think there is conflict here and if you are "convincing" someone, that is probably not consent ... pressure or coercion is certainly not consent. It might depend on what the "convincing" entails.

 

[TopC0rner]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but even if the "Before" video can/could be accepted as perfectly legitimate communicated consent, her later becoming upset crying/ wanting to stop would nullify the pre-existing communicated consent, and they would have a duty to stop.

The videos that were made, were made AFTER, not before. Also, those were the videos the accused shared, there may be other videos that aren't disclosed.

 

[Rich Nixon]

You're characterization of this is naive, if not uninformed. Court filings present one side of a story. To this point, the legal filings have been made only by the government - so we have ONLY one side of the story.

Newspaper articles - which despite your suggestion are not necessarily reliable or accurate - are based only on the evidence available to the reporters. At this point, the only evidence available is the government's allegations - the reporters are essentially repeating only one side of the story. We have little to no understanding of what allegations the defendants will make. Yet here you are putting credence in the "print newspapers" you find so reliable. I can cite you to hundreds of print newspaper reports that have proven false and/or misleading.

No. I understand how they work and I've done the job.

We're all grownups, we understand that when a sentence reads:

"According to a report/witness/source..."

That means:

"According to a report/witness/source."

An article about an allegation is an article about an allegation. This is remedial media literacy. Most of us have it and are operating from that standard. We get that.

So, you're saying that the very nature of reporting makes it unreliable and "propaganda." No, if that's your line then you just don't really understand what its function is. If you're saying that the allegations are unreliable, then say that. But also know that in the instance we are talking about, we're talking about allegations made under oath in a legal proceeding, so I fail to see why you'd opt for "unreliable" unless you were implying that 1. some reporters are illiterate and mischaracterized the contents of a legal document or 2. you're accusing a contributor to that legal document of perjury.

"Only one side of the story." Basically any f***ing article you read on this topic will contain mention that they reached out to lawyers/representatives of/persons in particular on the accused side of the equation and received no comment or a canned statement. When accused are identified, they are essentially always contacted for response, and they very rarely give one for legal reasons. We all know this as well.

Media literacy is understanding the veracity you should expect from something based on how it presents information. Go start getting me those examples.

 

[4thline]

Well, importantly, the "reasonable steps" are not to obtain consent, but rather to ascertain whether there was consent. So I do not think there is conflict here and if you are "convincing" someone, that is probably not consent ... pressure or coercion is certainly not consent. It might depend on what the "convincing" entails.

Tough distinction to teach to a horny teenager, and for a jury to make.

 

[Three On Zero]

It's sort of like how everyone says that they'd love being an ice cream taste tester as their full-time job.

What if it was every day, eight hours per day? What if it was not just rocky road and mint chip, but experimental stuff like dill pickle crunch or cinnamon egg?

I'm not saying that this is the dill pickle crunch of the HFBoards world.



I might be a little biased because long ago I worked IT for a county courthouse (nowhere near where I live now) and being in that environment on a daily basis, you learn a lot about why it's important to serve.

Mmmm ice cream, sorry what did you say after that?

 

[RooBicks]

How do we know she was crying? Have you seen the video?

I have no doubts that the Old boys club that is Hockey Canada was trying hard to protect these boys - but that doesn't mean the boys committed a gang rape. Thats why we have a legal process.

An alternative reading of how this went down would be - London Police review evidence and determine there is no grounds to move forward. A report publicizes these allegations and the public at large calls for heads to roll. Under immense public pressure the police re-open the case and decide to give the public the blood it so badly desires.

If it went down as she describes - bury them under the prison. If it didn't - let those boys get on with their lives.

It seems as if there may have been information out there that you weren't familiar with before commenting on the thread. Not a big deal, and no harm in taking a step back. You should read the article posted a ways back and come to your own conclusions. It includes the details I've mentioned.

 

[Slats432]

No. I understand how they work and I've done the job.

We're all grownups, we understand that when a sentence reads:

"According to a report/witness/source..."

That means:

"According to a report/witness/source."

An article about an allegation is an article about an allegation. This is remedial media literacy. Most of us have it and are operating from that standard. We get that.

So, you're saying that the very nature of reportage works makes it unreliable and "propaganda." No. It says what it says. If you're saying that the allegations are unreliable, then say that. But also know that in the instance we are talking about, we're talking about allegations made under oath in a legal proceeding.

So you're either accusing some reporters of being illiterate and mischaracterizing the contents of a legal document or you're accusing a contributor to that legal document of perjury. More or less.

"Only one side of the story." Basically any f***ing article you read on this topic will contain mention that they reached out to lawyers/representatives of/persons in particular on the accused side of the equation and received no comment or a canned statement. When accused are identified, they are essentially always contacted for response, and they very rarely give one for legal reasons.

Go start getting me those examples.

I totally understand your point of view, but I get the other posters point that if you read a court complaint, and the reporting of that complaint, you are getting only the information from the side of the complainant. No rebuttal information is or, as you said for legal reasons will be available.

 

[M88K]

Which they seemingly can control (the monster) when they aren't drinking since they haven't gotten charged with it before.

I would disagree.
A rapist relies on opportunity, your idea of "controlling" it when sober, has more to do with not having been presented with the "opportunity" than being able to control themselves. The reason it's so prevalent in these situations (parties) is because it creates extra vulnerable targets and ample opportunities for predators.

 

[Moon Man]

My dude, I appreciate your comment, but I don't see the world with rose-colored glasses -- I'm fully aware of the need for personal safety precautions and as a pretty big dude myself take them all the time if I'm out at night, for instance. I get it.

But the platitudes such as 'parents, tell your daughters to [not get drunk / dress appropriately / stick with friends / etc]' every time women get sexually assaulted just needs to die. You see this sort of crap in all sorts of online comment sections, ranging from here to twitter. Women know all of this. They've heard this messaging for decades, generation after generation. They've heard it at school; they've heard it at university; they've heard it online. I assure you, the vast majority of women have far keener 'alert' senses than most men. The vast majority of women start experiencing sexual harassment as young girls. Anecdotally, some of the women in my family recall getting cat called for the first time around 11-12. You can also read up on studies (linked in the articles such as here and here) that indicate that it's a sobering reality for most girls. Point being, most girls have already started experiencing harassment and begun developing accordant safety and survival mechanisms well before most fathers probably start thinking about having "the talk" with their daughters, as the poster I responded to indicated. And really, most women are going to have heard about and caught on to such necessary realities from their mother / older women in their lives, who've spoken from personal experience, well before their fathers think about it too.

In other words, while I think such advice is often well meaning ("fathers, tell your daughters to...") it's simply exhausted at this point and needs to die out. Women know all of this shit. Women still get sexually assaulted. In this case, if the allegations are true, it's not a case of the woman "consenting" but whoops, actually couldn't consent because she was too drunk. Rather, she agreed to go to the room with "player 1" for a fully consensual hook up that she was fine with and then "player 1," after getting her there, ambushed her by letting a bunch of his male friends into the room. If that's true, this woman could have been the poster woman for sobriety and then there is nothing she could have done. The only thing that could have prevented it from her end would apparently be to never, ever, be alone in a room with a man?

I suppose my broader point is that the messaging around this stuff really needs to change from telling women what to do to fathers understanding that they are role models of their sons and laying the law down about some really basic facts of life. No more "boys will be boys" crap when it comes to this sort of thing. If these allegations are all true, then a bunch of entitled 18-19 year old young men were apparently raised by their fathers to see zero problem with walking in on an unsuspecting young woman, putting her in the exceptionally disadvantaged (impossible) position of being one young woman vs. 5-8 dudes, and then....yeah. The failures of parenting here aren't on the young woman or her father for failing to give her "the talk" about alcohol but rather on the Mom and Dad of every single one of these kids -- and all I'm saying is that it would be nice to see a shift in comments about this sort of thing in line with that.

I can't speak to how many comments are saying one thing or another, but I am all for people being gently/appropriately reminded to be aware of their surroundings.

I've seen one to many videos on YouTube of people being in dangerous settings, looking down at their phone as they walk, and then not seeing the car pull up and the people quickly jumping out to kidnap her, until it's too late.

Far too many.

Or the ones in a bar setting, where people are having drinks, when one aggressively postured person walks in and towards a group of people, only to pull out his gun and kill one. Had a few people not been as drunk, or payed slightly more attention to their surroundings, both of these settings, with videos you can look up on YouTube, would have an increased probability of not occurring.

Gentle reminders to pay more attention to our surroundings are not in high enough quantity in my view. There are far too many videos of people ending up in harms way, when they may have been able to escape it.

In regards to the girl, and what allegedly happened, perhaps she may have perceived the boy texting others in a suspicious manner, picked up on behavioral queus that he was giving off, ominous snickering coming from the room, or even had been more consciously aware to start yelling and screaming for help in a seriously aggressive way.

We just don't know.

What I know for absolute certain, is that she would have stood a higher probability of success, much higher, if she was not exceedingly drunk, as some here have alluded to. I don't know how true that is, we won't know how true any of this is until hearing the evidence.

It is of course entirely the boys fault, if she was truly assualted, and at a more macro level, the environment that they were raised in, their fathers, etc. Those are good points that you made. Those environments have a great impact on how people can be made evil.

Your post is the first I've seen mention that.

 

[Korpse]

I totally understand your point of view, but I get the other posters point that if you read a court complaint, and the reporting of that complaint, you are getting only the information from the side of the complainant. No rebuttal information is or, as you said for legal reasons will be available.

To be fair, what's been reported on is more than a complaint.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

I appreciate the chance to get to serve as a juror - I've heard some interesting cases and my company handles it generously. The only downside is that I can't passively read threads on...

...and there's no downside.

Agreed. I understand if it puts someone in a tough spot at work but anyone who dodges jury duty should never get to complain about any verdict ever.

 

[Slats432]

To be fair, what's been reported on is more than a complaint.

What has been reported and what is in the complaint is from the side of the accuser. That is the point of our discussion.

 

[duckpuck]

No. I understand how they work and I've done the job.

We're all grownups, we understand that when a sentence reads:

"According to a report/witness/source..."

That means:

"According to a report/witness/source."

An article about an allegation is an article about an allegation. This is remedial media literacy. Most of us have it and are operating from that standard. We get that.

So, you're saying that the very nature of reporting makes it unreliable and "propaganda." No, you just don't really understand what its function is. If you're saying that the allegations are unreliable, then say that. But also know that in the instance we are talking about, we're talking about allegations made under oath in a legal proceeding.

So you're either accusing some reporters of being illiterate and mischaracterizing the contents of a legal document or you're accusing a contributor to that legal document of perjury. More or less.

"Only one side of the story." Basically any f***ing article you read on this topic will contain mention that they reached out to lawyers/representatives of/persons in particular on the accused side of the equation and received no comment or a canned statement. When accused are identified, they are essentially always contacted for response, and they very rarely give one for legal reasons.

Go start getting me those examples.

I'm saying people like you should not give special credence to allegations simply because they appear in a court filings and are repeated by a "print" newspaper. You have repeatedly done that in this thread and seem to have no problem with it.

And it should be noted that court filings are typically based on a reasonable suspicion standard - the only statement under "penalty of perjury" is that the the prosecutor has " reasonable grounds to believe" an offence occurred. So the perjury argument is a strawman.

Here is your first example of when the media narrative - print and other formats - was completely wrong: Nicolas Sandmann

https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/opinion-covington-indigenous-peoples-march-1.4993851

https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/covington-stand-off-1.4987065

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/24/media/washington-post-sandmann-settlement-lawsuit/index.html

The confrontation between the Covington students and Nathan Phillips is America, laid bare

The most remarkable thing about the video of a high school teen face-to-face with an Indigenous elder is how unremarkable it is

www.theglobeandmail.com

I could give you many more. But it would derail the thread and verge into topics that I think are not permitted.

 

[Melrose Munch]

Pick a random example....Ruggs

This isn't even close to as bad as that was. I honestly don't even know what you're talking about. You decided to pick a fight and throw lemons at apples and limes and oranges.

Ruggs was bad, but as bad as rape? That was a car crash and a horrific one.

This is more comparable to the Vikings boat incident in the 2000s.

I'm saying people were calling NBA players thugs for years. Now the shoe is on the other foot, excuses.

 

[Strangle]

The initial complaint was filed (and made known to Hockey Canada) the day after the alleged incident, and the civil case has already been settled. This is a police investigation that relaunched in 2022. There is no prospect of monetary outcome from the current criminal proceedings.

What kind of new information surfaced between then and now for the police to relaunch the investigation?

 

[ERYX]

Tough distinction to teach to a horny teenager, and for a jury to make.

I wouldn't attempt to teach such a person the nuances of criminal law.

Trying to get them to understand the tea video is probably where they should start. In real life consent isn't that complex, or shouldn't be. If you follow the principles of consent from that video you'll be highly highly unlikely to run afoul of the law.

 

[Strangle]

There's better ways for "money chasing" that don't subject yourself to humiliating details being aired in public. Do you think it's possible the victim could have had ways to earn a living on their own without going through any of this? Not suggesting anything. I just think that's interesting to think about.

I’m sure everyone can make money in any numbers of ways, I’m not suggesting anything, but I am trying to wrap my head around the whole thing.

Another poster said a civil case was already settled? I imagine a police investigation happened back then too.

I’m unclear on what’s changed between then and now

 

[Yukon Joe]

Probably about 10 years ago, it was a high profile case as well.

The government got rid of pre-emptory challenges more recently then that. It used to be each side (Crown and defence) has X number of challenges (depending on the seriousness of the offence).

 

[Rich Nixon]

I'm saying people like you should not give special credence to allegations simply because they appear in a court filings and are repeated by a "print" newspaper. You have repeatedly done that in this thread and seem to have no problem with it.

And it should be noted that court filings are typically based on a reasonable suspicion standard - the only statement under "penalty of perjury" is that the the prosecutor has " reasonable grounds to believe" an offence occurred. So the perjury argument is a strawman.

Here is your first example of when the media narrative - print and other formats - was completely wrong: Nicolas Sandmann

https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/opinion-covington-indigenous-peoples-march-1.4993851

https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/covington-stand-off-1.4987065

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/24/media/washington-post-sandmann-settlement-lawsuit/index.html

The confrontation between the Covington students and Nathan Phillips is America, laid bare

The most remarkable thing about the video of a high school teen face-to-face with an Indigenous elder is how unremarkable it is

www.theglobeandmail.com

I could give you many more. But it would derail the thread and verge into topics that I think are not permitted.

The Sandmann case, what an embarrassing mess. Good choice though, it's like a 9 for 1. Very political case, culture war bullshit, big lawyers, lawsuits thrown out and then narrowed dramatically in scope, ended up being a suit about one or two specific details. I wish we had seen a trial or the contents of the settlement in one of those examples. But keep going, you can just throw a list and we can all Google. Can't derail this worse than it is.

Up to the "special credence" thing, I don't think I'm doing that or anyone else is. I'm saying the newspaper is going to represent the contents of those court filings more accurately than a cable news presenter or a social media rando, because that's the entire function of them, and then it's on the reader to contextualize that—overarching narratives, parts unsaid, etc.

What kind of new information surfaced between then and now for the police to relaunch the investigation?

What came to light? The fact that an incident of some type had occurred, and the resulting firestorm after.

 

[Yukon Joe]

I don't think that's true. I know a lot of people who had to go in to interview for jury duty. I don't know a single one who actually had to sit on a jury.

Here's the cliff notes on what happens if you're called for jury duty.

There'll be a couple hundred of you, probably. You all sit in a big room. Putting aside issues like a challenge for cause (where defence wants top argue the entire jury pool is tainted) the court clerk will pull several numbers at random. Those people come forward. The judge will ask if there's any reason why they can't serve on the jury. Often times people will say yes - they don't think they can be impartial, they have work (not technically a good enough excuse, but sometimes works), childcare issues, against their religion - whatever. The judge will then decide if the reason is good enough.

But if the person says "no" - then bam - they're on the jury. Process continues until 12 are selected.

Because of the size of the jury pool most people called for jury duty don't wind up being selected however.

(Depending on what town you're in they can also be filling multiple juries at one time)

 

[TopC0rner]

The duke lacrosse episode is a cautionary tale against jumping to conclusions based on the prosecutor's initial filings and newspaper's reports. It is necessary to wait for the full evidence. It is an apt comparison for that reason and your pointing us to prosecution filings and newspaper reports doesn't really change that.

Except Hockey Canada (which is not the prosecution or the crown) did a complete investigation involving all parties and concluded that it was "likely" a sexual assault happened on that night. Since they would have to make a payout, it would have been in their best interest to get to the conclusion that a sexual assault was "unlikely" or that the victim lacked credibility.

 

[roon]

It seems as if there may have been information out there that you weren't familiar with before commenting on the thread. Not a big deal, and no harm in taking a step back. You should read the article posted a ways back and come to your own conclusions. It includes the details I've mentioned.

I read the article - it included statements where the victim said she thought she was crying....not that the video depicted her crying, just wiping her eyes with no mention of any other distress associated with crying. She might have been crying - might have been something else...I don't honestly know and without seeing the video really don't think we should say one way or the other.

The video has been reported on.

Has any reporter actually seen the video though? Or are they simply putting into print what they have been told it contains?

 

[Chainshot]

^Well the public is not the courtroom. People are going to have their opinions. The best way to avoid that is to...not do things like this. Or be there at all.

Yeah, the simple answer is "don't rape people".

Court filing reveals new details about alleged Hockey Canada group sexual assault

Some sections of the document have been redacted, but it provides the fullest picture to date of what allegedly transpired in the early morning hours of June 19, 2018

www.theglobeandmail.com

"Her mother told police that around 5 a.m. she found E.M. in the shower with the water running, “seated clasping her knees and rocking back and forth,” the filing says, paraphrasing her mother. It was E.M.’s mother who reported the events to the London police. Her husband also contacted someone at Hockey Canada. He passed along a photo of Player 1 taken at Jack’s on the night of the alleged attack."

Also, someone from HC then passed the info to a player who then went after the victim through social media, attempting to pressure her into dropping this. That's disturbing and certainly something that doesn't smack of innocence.

HC is still going to be put through some things for this as they should since this isn't the only instance of these sort of things being settled with their slush fund hush money being funded via all levels of youth hockey. That's still needing to be dragged out into the sun and bleached. Their handling of the internal investigation, the other pending cases, the number of other civil suites they've paid off. They appear to have a systemic issue and the people who participated in repeated coverups should face the music.

And then there is the level of London Police to cow to HC pressures to look into. That's likely to be later, but it's certainly not a great look for them, especially for anyone in the region who is wanting thorough policing to be done.

 

[Strangle]

What came to light? The fact that an incident of some type had occurred, and the resulting firestorm after.

Wait, I’m not understanding.

There was an incident and a civil case around 2018? Why was the criminal case on hold, or closed and reopened now?

 

[Frank Drebin]

Not trying to ask this question in poor taste, genuinely curious.

Hockey Canada paid 3m or something crazy for this to go away. But it didn't go away. I thought there were NDA's generally attached to these payouts where the victim is not allowed to press charges/sue/speak of the incident again?