COLUMBIA, S.C. — The leader of an advocacy organization for sexual assault victims said an 18-year-old Chapin High School football player having sex with a 13-year-old wasn’t just “kids being kids.”
“Let’s call it was it is. It’s sexual assault,” Rebecca Lorick, executive director of Pathways to Healing, said.
Pathways to Healing, formerly Sexual Trauma Services of the Midlands, is a rape crisis center that provides counseling, support and other services to victims and survivors of sexual assault. It also provides educational programs.
Lorick was responding to a statement by the attorney for David Bennett Galloway III, a star running back at Chapin and a major college football prospect, after a deal with prosecutors allowed Galloway to plea guilty to misdemeanor assault.
Bennett’s attorney, Jim May, told WIS-TV that the plea deal — which reduced a charge of criminal sexual conduct with a minor to misdemeanor assault— was “probably the right answer to the situation because what you had was two kids being kids.”
That’s not what the law says when an 18-year-old has sex with a 13-year-old, Lorick said, and that reasoning is just one of the ways young sexual assault victims are wrongly blamed for the crimes against them. What’s more, victims often deal with harassment, especially when the offender is a prominent member of a community.
The public conversation around the case shows the need for education on consent and sexual assault, Lorick said.
At a court hearing last month, a prosecutor described the encounter between Galloway and the victim as consensual.
Specifically, Deputy Solicitor Dan Goldberg said the victim never told Galloway no and did not indicate she didn’t want to go forward with sex.
While that point may be important contextually, the law says that a 13-year-old is a child and is not legally old enough to consent to sex, according to Lorick.
Any sexual encounter between an 18-year-old and 13-year-old is always a crime, Lorick said.
May has said that Galloway did not know that the victim was 13.
Despite the law, comments related to the story posted online include assertions that the 13-year-old wasn’t a victim or that she was a victim only in a loose sense of the word.
“It happens,” one person commented about the case. “Both were young and immature.”
Saddling a child victim with the responsibility for her assault is victim blaming, Lorick said.
In sexual assault cases, victim blaming often includes people saying the victim shouldn’t have dressed a certain way or that the victim shouldn’t have been at a certain place or done certain things, all of which detract from the fact that the offender is the actual wrongdoer.
After Galloway was arrested in November, an online petition was started that presented Galloway as a victim at “the hands of a corrupt Justice System.”
Bennett is a “good, honest man” who would never do something wrong and helped his community, the petition says.
“Bennett is an incredible athlete with gifts most people dream of, and he is now being stripped of his dream, playing football,” it says.
“#JusticeforGalloway” the petition ends.
It was signed by 18 people.
Lorick said that often in assault cases, the accused is given more credibility than the victim.
One common refrain in social media comments on the Galloway case is that the victim could have looked older than 13.
“Some 13 year old girls look 21 and aren’t so innocent,” a commenter wrote.
It’s hard not to give an emotional response to a comment like that, Lorick said. Such comments are a prime example of victim blaming.
“We really need to place that blame back on the perpetrator and not the victim,” she said.
One of the most common misconceptions about child sexual abuse is that strangers are the abusers, said Thomas Knapp of the South Carolina Network of Children Advocacy Centers.
”That’s rarely the case,” Knapp said.
Knapp spoke with The State about children victims and sexual abuse prevention generally and not specifically about the Galloway case.
Most of the time, children are abused by someone they know such as relatives, close adults or people they’re in school with, Knapp said. Children can be scared to report abuse. Abusers often stop their victims from reporting by convincing the victim that reporting will have consequences for both of them.
Schools and teachers can help stop child abuse by providing prevention education and services.
A school played a part in the Galloway case.
When school officials heard about the sexual encounter between the 18-year-old and 13-year-old, they reported it to deputies, according to a police report.
“Teachers and schools are really in a real optimal position to prevent and assist victims,” Knapp said. “Schools play a critical role in helping to identify child abuse and putting in prevention measures to protect kids.”
The victim’s family has remained publicly quiet about this case.
Lawyer Jack Duncan represented the family when Galloway pleaded guilty to assault. During that plea hearing, Duncan read a short statement on the family’s behalf. Its sharpest points were that the Chapin community has shamefully bullied the victim and caused hurt that a 13-year-old shouldn’t deal with.
In a conversation last month with The State, Duncan gave more specifics. The victim has dealt with cyberbullying on Instagram. People flashed finger signs at her for the number 21, the number Galloway wore at Chapin, and yelled at her in the halls of her middle school. The victim had to drop out of classes and attend school virtually because of the bullying. Close relatives have been “greatly affected” by the fallout from the case as well, including one relative who lost a job.
Assault victims often deal with harassment, Lorick said. Frequently that harassment begins even before criminal charges are filed, which causes victims not to report their assaults.
Victims don’t want to be “revictimized,” Lorick said, which occurs when harassment increases because the victim reported the crime.
Having to meet with police and attend court hearings also makes victims relive the crime. And when a case plays out in the public’s eye, such as the Galloway case has, victims get a dreadful sense of the burden they’ll deal with if they report. It all amount to victims not reporting, which allows sexual assaults to go unchecked, according to Lorick.
“It’s an uphill battle that we need to continue to fight to give survivors a voice,” she said.
Victim blaming — along with people’s ignorance about consent, sexual assault and laws meant to protect children — point to the need for education on those topics, Lorick said.
Pathways to Healing offers education curriculum for all ages, from young children to adults. The adult program “dispels myths about sexual assault and consent,” Lorick said.
While education for the general public on child abuse and sexual abuse is important, Knapp said, “it’s critical to educate children as well.”
Part of that education is teaching children to report when they’ve been abused.
“A lot of child abuse goes unreported,” Knapp said. “Children are afraid to tell.”
Education is needed even for people the public might not expect. Lorick said experience has shown that judges, lawyers and prosecutors need to be educated on consent and sexual assault.
Lorick said her hope and the hope of Pathways to Healing “is that we can get people to see this is never the victim’s fault.”
Galloway did not know the girl’s age before they had sex, May, his attorney, has said.
Galloway passed a lie detector test when asked if he knew the girl’s age, May emphasized. His investigation found other evidence that Galloway didn’t know her age, May said.
Not knowing her age was never used as an excuse in court by Galloway. He addressed this specifically in a statement made during his plea hearing.
“Mistake of age is not a defense,” he said.
Prosecutors with the 5th Circuit Solicitor’s Office contended that Galloway did know the girl’s age before having sex with her. A sworn witness statement given to police investigators provided a specific moment that Galloway learned the victim’s age, according to a police document.
Galloway took full responsibility for his crime when he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault, specifically “unlawful touching,” and underage alcohol possession.
“I drank when I should not have and did something that I should not have,” he told the court. He apologized to the victim, her family, his family and the Chapin community.
The Galloway family tried to stop the harassment that the victim and her family faced in the Chapin community, May said.
Goldberg, the deputy solicitor, said the plea deal that reduced the charge of criminal sexual conduct with a minor was reached in consultation with the victim, her family and police. Goldberg said evidence existed to prosecute Galloway for the more serious charge, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Galloway was sentenced to 240 hours of community service and alcohol and drug counseling as well as other stipulations. He also was ordered to pay $15,000 restitution to the victim for counseling. If he doesn’t adhere to the stipulations, he could go to jail for 60 days.
Lorick said victims face several challenges during if a case goes to trial. The victims have to again relive their assault in a courtroom, an even higher profile setting. Victims may have to go through cross examination, which can repeat the blame and disbelief the victim has already faced. That can be even more traumatizing for a child.
Often, victims just want to recover and move on with their lives without having to relive their trauma, Lorick said.
Changing how victims face their abusers in court could help alleviate trauma and encourage reporting of abuse, Knapp said.
Two ideas that have been presented are not requiring children to directly face their abusers at trial and allowing children to give recorded testimony.
The growth in the use of child victim advocates by police and court officials has helped victims, Knapp said. Continuing to involve child victim advocates will improve court for victims in the future.
Just last year, state lawmakers passed a law that requires victim advocates to be part of any child abuse investigation.
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