elizabeth: If a gang was raping your mother or sister…would you want to watch? Even I know this is a most absurd and offensive question. But not everybody does. In fact some would like to pull up a chair and watch.

My sense of civility has been tested to the breaking point when CNN reported that 20 people watched or took part as a 15-year-old California girl was allegedly gang raped and beaten outside a high school homecoming dance for over two hours. Outside of a homecoming dance? WTH? And some took pictures. And some laughed. At a 15-year-old girl being gang raped. And it only gets worse.

Not one of these people reported this to the police.

Laurie: I hear your anger, girlfriend. Interesting that your well-earned venom is directed at the observers. Pretty smarmy behavior, no doubt. But I’m a little peeved at the folks who think gang rape is extra-special curriculum for a homecoming dance.

elizabeth: These monsters are always on the phone, texting, talking, using an apps or two and they couldn’t take a minute out of their valuable time and call 911? If I was their mother, I would not let them back into my house. They would be dead to me forever. And there are 20 mothers out there that have a lot of explaining to do. You left out compassion and common decency when you were raising these…these…what do I call them? Pure evil works for me.

Laurie: Ah, I think you may have hit on the problem. I fear these lovely children actually weren’t raised. They were spawned and left to fend on their own, learning manners, ethics, and decency from the Internet, television and music videos. For some reason, people who have no time and short attention spans are dying to have children they can ignore and pawn off on others. The kids are definitely wrong, but the parents are the ones I would like to see suffer the repercussions of their neglect.

elizabeth: Some authorities have sited that this sort of “spectator sport” happens due to a social phenomenon called “the bystander effect.” This sort of despicable behavior used to happen at lynchings. So what does this tell us? That younger people are adapting this “if it doesn’t mess with my plans for the day, then screw ‘em” attitude? Stop putting labels on bad behavior and pretend you can explain it away. You can’t.

Laurie: And no fair blaming it on your alcohol problems, your drug addictions, your attention deficit disability or your crappy childhood.

elizabeth: As per the CNN article, Salvatore Didato, an organizational psychologist in New York reports that this detached mentality can be especially pervasive because kids are too young to comprehend what victimization means. Oh, so you are saying that standing by idly and watching a young girl being gang raped and tossed aside as garbage does not send up a signal that something just might be terribly wrong? Why are we making excuses for this type of aberrant behavior?

Laurie: Let me just put in a word for the guys. This is one sport that is gender-blind. Two weeks ago a 15-year-old boy in Florida was beaten by bullies and set on fire. He is in the hospital with burns over 80% of his body. More after school tomfoolery.

elizabeth: California has a law making it illegal to witness a crime against a child and not report it. Why is it only for children up to the age of 14? This victim was 15 so no crime was committed by these onlookers? We women(and men) have to raise our voices and let the world know that raping, beating and humiliating people of any age shall be punishable by such a long jail term that death would seem like a better way to go.

Laurie: Stephen King said something like (you know me and quotes – I almost get them right) “Monsters and ghosts are real. They exist inside us, and sometimes they get the best of us.”

elizabeth: “This just gets worse and worse the more you dig into it,” Lt. Mark Gagan of the Richmond Police Department. “It was like a horror movie. I can’t believe not one person felt compelled to help her.”

The victim was found under a bench, semi-conscious.