Racially Charged Sexual Violence

After a week of mental, physical, and sexual toture, Megan Williams was finally rescued from the home of Frankie Brewster earlier this month. She had been kidnapped by six people who beat and sexually assaulted her, including a mother-and-son and a mother-and-daughter couple. Not only was this a horrible incident of inhuman torture, the incident was also racially charged. The six offenders were white and the victim was a young, black women.

The victim was regularly racially degraded throughout her torture. She was forced to eat animal feces and drink from a toilet along with multiple beatings and pervasive sexual violence. According to an officer "The things that were done to this woman are just indescribable." The survivor is stil unable to describe everything she endured. Her mother reported she often wakes up screaming from nightmares and is constantly crying. To read more details of the story visit:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1660701,00.html?xid=feed-cnn-topics

Although officers responded quickly to a tip and rescued the women, they are still investigating "whether the woman knew her assailants." The only reason for such an inquiry is that knowing your assailants lessens the penalty in virtually every state. Apparently torturing and degrading a victim physically and sexually is less henious if you knew them before you violated their person and safety, at least according to the law. It is disgusting that under any condition of sexual violence, let alone one this repulsive, that such considerations are taken to lessen the penalty against such rapists and torturers. When will the law be reformed to consider all forms of rape as devestating to victims and society?!

Further news coerage includes:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/11/woman.tortured/index.html#cnnSTCText