Three boys ages 8 and 9 were being held Monday in a detention center on charges of kidnapping and raping an 11-year-old girl in the woods near a suburban apartment complex, officials said.Those are the only facts about the case that I've been able to find, and, quite honestly, the only reason I'm posting about it at all is to say that I don't know anything else about it, and I suspect it will be a very complicated and incendiary case based on the ages of the allleged rapists and their accuser.
The alleged attack happened Thursday and the girl's mother reported it to authorities Sunday, Acworth police Capt. Wayne Dennard said.
"The juvenile victim stated that an 8-year-old boy and two 9-year-old boys that she had been playing with earlier pulled her into a wooded area, where one of the boys raped her," Dennard said.
The three boys were charged with rape, kidnapping, false imprisonment and sexual assault, Dennard told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Their names were being withheld because of their age.
Child victims in sexual assault cases are notoriously bad witnesses, even when there is no doubt of the crime. (I have no idea what the evidence in this case is.) That should not be construed as a negative assessment of child victims; it is, in fact, profoundly sympathetic. If it goes to trial, this case, with a child accusing other children of rape, will be even more difficult to prosecute than a case involving adults.
Anyway, like I said, I pretty much just wanted to post something to say I really don't know enough to say anything at all, just because I was being asked about it.
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