An 11-year-old reported being raped twice, wound up with a conviction

Washington Post ^ | 3/14/2015 | Joanna Walters

[HomerBohn]

Almost seven years ago, a troubled 11-year-old girl reported that she had been raped — twice — in her Northwest Washington neighborhood. Despite medical evidence of sexual assault, records show that no suspects were arrested and the cases were given only sporadic attention by the police . Instead, in the second case, the police had the girl, Danielle Hicks-Best, charged with filing a false report.

After Danielle’s family agreed to what her parents say was a poorly understood plea, she was convicted and made a ward of the court. She spent the next few years in and out of detention and secure treatment centers between episodes of running away. She never finished high school, had a baby at 15 and is struggling to move forward with her life.

“After 11, she lost the rest of her childhood,” said Danielle’s mother, Veronica Best, who campaigned for years with her husband, Mayo, to get the police to focus on the assaults, contacting officers all the way up the chain to D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier and her deputy, Peter Newsham.

Last fall, after inquiries from The Washington Post, the department launched new investigations into the cases and the way they were handled, according to the Bests and a law enforcement officer familiar with the matter.

-snip-

At 11, Danielle had severe behavioral, academic and mental-health issues rooted in the drug exposure and physical abuse she suffered from her birth mother, a crack addict. The Bests, her adoptive parents, struggled to handle those issues, turning to but not always following the recommendations of the school and psychiatric communities. The couple and other supporters say the cases are complicated by Danielle’s instability.

[X-spurt]

Seems HB gets a bit carried away with poetic license with anything LBJ, which is totally unnecessary as Lyndon was bad enough in reality.

[Shimmer1]

Too subtle!!!

[Maigrey]

So you've arbitrarily decided that an 11yr old girl is a ho, and exempt from protection of the law, because of her ethnicity? or is the fact that she was raped, twice, as a child, so that makes her a ho?

Sure you wouldn't fit in better in a further eastern location, where girls as young as 6 are married off and kept as second class citizens?

Maybe you mistake the law for only being for tax paying men who own land. Or am I reading that you actually support the law, especially those who are most vulnerable, but are looking down upon her instead of protecting a child?

Please, enlighten the populace. I'm curious to know how you justify such loathsome actions.

[Gargantua]

"I'm not certain that, technically speaking now, it's even possible to "rape" a 'ho."

You completely mistook my intent. I no more hold to the "truth" of that italicsized sentence than am I a "male land owner." It seems that those people who do think that way aren't alone in their deplorable prejudices.

Ahem.

I was confident that the phenomenal ridiculousness of the statement was enough to make it clear that I was parodying, ridiculing and lambasting people who actually think like that.

Unless, of course, one's deeply personal bigotry gets in the way of a more reasonable interpretation. Whatever. I suggest you trade in your histrionic soap-boxes for a smidgen of rational thinking, and leave your yet-to-grind axes at the door.

Just a thought...

[Gargantua]

"Careful with the word “figure”..."

Nice to see some here still have a sense of humor. LOL!

[Larry Lucido]

Old LB should have been locked up with Robert Stroud, the “Birdman” of Alcatraz fame.

Be interesting how the election of 1964 might have gone.

Could have had Goldwater. Or Sam Yorty.

[BykrBayb]

Are you accusing me of accusing you? If so, you may benefit from reading my comment again. Or maybe not.

[Amity]

"I was confident that the phenomenal ridiculousness of the statement was enough to make it clear that I was parodying, ridiculing and lambasting people who actually think like that."

I think your satire failed because it's clear that a number of the people in this article bought into this precise argument, and it sounded like you were agreeing with them.

While it may be a ridiculous idea to you, even before reading this article I could have told you that the idea that a "ho" of any age "can't be raped" is broadly believed by both liberals and conservatives (although my money is it's one more liberals buy into). Therefore your confidence was misplaced.

A world where supposedly reasonable people consider that idea phenomenally ridiculous is not the world a lot of us are living in.

[stellaluna]

What????

[Celtic Conservative]

I try to keep my humor intact as a reminder that liberals are a bunch of humorless pricks. And the best thing to do with some of them is laugh at them until they’ve become irrelevant.