SomeONE called the police but many did/said nothing. Many should have been calling the police while the act was taking place and there was a time when many would've done just that and even tried to intervene. As for the "we," I see all human beings as interconnected and therefore we are all responsible for the societies/communities that we create (or allow to be created); whether we have directly or indirectly contributed to what goes on. Like the saying goes, if you're not a part of the solution, then you are a part of the problem. But that's just how I view things.

Okay but can we be empathetic for a second and not spew the legalities all the time? You know darn well and so does everyone else, that if it were your mother, sister, aunt, daughter, etc. being abused, you would hope to God that someone would certainly not exercise their "rights" and stand there and do absolutely nothing.

He actually did say he was shocked at what happened, but legally certain things applied.

Okay, well then maybe we should change these "rights" and maybe in fact we should have an obligation to do something, at least to call the police. Maybe then at least people wouldn't stand there and watch if they knew they could get arrested for doing so. We can create laws for everything else. Why not create them to protect our children? Isn't this our society? Don't we decide how it will be or won't be? Doesn't what happens in our society impact all of us, either directly or indirectly? Couldn't this have been anyone's child? We need to get with the village mentality or things will only get worse. Some of us had it once upon a time ago and we were better for it.

Depending on the state, usually this refers to things like traffic accidents.

Seriously, you do NOT want Joe Sixpack required to act like Captain America - we could have had 2 stabbings in addition to a gang rape. Somebody should have called the cops. Nobody should have stood around and watched. Nobody should be required to intervene, though, unless trained to do so (such as campus police or administrators).

from the article:

A 1999 California law makes it illegal not to report a witnessed crime against a child, but the law applies only to children 14 and under.

"We do not have the ability to arrest people who witnessed the crime and did nothing," Gagan said. "The law can be very rigid. We don't have the authority to make an arrest."

Anyone seen "The Accused" with Jodie Foster?

If some people literally stood there and watched the act for two hours, and the rapists knew it, I would be surprised if a prosecutor did not try to assert that by standing there and watching, they were participants/conspirators. They may not have been required to stop it, but watching it for two hours amounts to acting as an excited audience to the rapists' performance. Their presence was enough to egg on the rapists. By hanging out, they probably drew out the awful attack and attracted more rapists to join in.

And I saw today that one of the guys arrested is 32? What the hell were these older men doing on the grounds of a high school homecoming dance? I also think it's sad that this girl was supposedly walking somewhere to get picked up by her dad...where was she walking to? I just thought it was kinda weird that her dad wasn't picking her up in front of the school or something.

Ahh gotcha, I thought it would go beyond traffic accidents. Which btw sounds kinda lame, you have to stop and render aid for a traffic accident, but not if you witness something like this.

I think these boys were too busy trying to get theirs off to worry about stabbing someone, but I get what you are saying. Although, if there were that many people watching, had someone stepped into help, I bet there would have been at least 1 or 2 others that would join in. It's that mentality that you won't do something unless someone else goes first.

Not that I'm a lawyer, but it seems like anyone who witnessed and did nothing could be charged as an "accessory" to the rape. Which if that is the case, and they find the witnesses, they should all be charged as accessories.

I'm pretty sure that wouldn't fly. To get a conspiracy charge, you have to have a 'true agreement' between the defendants to do the crime. There's accessory after the fact, but obviously, that doesn't work.

I just can't think of anything to charge these folks which don't have elemental holes you could drive a Mack truck through. That said, I don't know diddly about the California penal code, so I very well could be missing something.

I know it's a stretch, but couldn't they also be charged with something close to child pornography? Cause I mean the girl was 15, and even though you aren't watching it through a TV/computer screen, it is pretty much the same thing. Especially if there was that big an age difference (like someone mentioned one man was 32).

I think if they filmed it and it was distributable, yes.

Not sure if watching a live sex act (no matter how heinous) is 'porn'.

Most, if not of those laws require that the act be stored on some sort of recording medium. Also, some states have wonky definitions of who is a child and who is not.

lol @ "wonky"

It's interesting that sex acts aren't considered porn unless they're recorded somehow. I guess I never really thought much about the definition of porn.

The rapists need to suffer for the acts they committed. The other 15 people who watched should be persecuted. They may not be able to put them on trial, but there is always the trial of public opnion. They should suffer at the very least extreme public embarassment for watching this happen.

I do not agree that the students should not be allowed to have social functions. The kids who were inside the dance behaving shouldn't have to pay for the actions of these arseholes. They should also put much more money in to security.