Staff
Writer Challenges Critics to Think Further
by Zach Pretzer
I
write in response to two letters from last week: Michelle Sharkeys
Assault Article Misleading and Melissa Threadgills
Ruling a Travesty to Survivors.
Let me first state to Ms. Starkey that the reasons for me writing
Sexual Assault Charges Dismissed in the Nov. 2 issue
were quite simple I attended the preliminary hearing and
had more than enough information to accurately describe the events
that occurred inside the Oberlin Municipal Court. The news editors
needed someone to write the facts of the preliminary hearing
which I did in an unbiased and thorough manner. I will, however,
indulge Ms. Sharkeys petty inquiries of my qualifications
by stating that I am not only a sports editor for the Review, I
am also a journalist who has roughly two years of experience in
my current job and three years of previous experience as an editor-in-chief
of a newspaper other than the Review. Whereas in the aforementioned
article I was reciting facts and statements that are on public record,
I now include my own interjections.
Amazing at it may seem to you Ms. Sharkey, I was slightly aware
when I wrote this article that it had no connection to sports, and
thank you so much for clarifying that Oberlins sexual offense
procedure is completely separate from that of the city of Oberlin.
The article wasnt about the Colleges bureaucratic procedures
it was about the events of the hearing.
As is certainly the case with Ms. Sharkey, I find it hard to believe
that Ms. Threadgill attended the preliminary hearing. If she had,
she would have heard the evidence. I implore you to check out the
public record of the case, which is available at the Oberlin courthouse.
Falsely accusing a person or persons of acts of rape is a fourth-degree
felony punishable by up to over a year in prison.
So yes, Ms. Threadgill, in your case, all of those circumstances
which you provided for rape are certainly true; however, they are
only true if a rape occurred which in this case, it did not.
Like you, Ms. Threadgill, I am scared of the world in which I live
not because our campus is full of what you would call ravaging
rapists, but because I have developed a newfound knowledge of how
much impact the dishonesty and deceit of one person can dramatically
affect the lives of two innocent men.
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