NOPD protects sexual perpetrator, blames victim

Recently, in New Orleans, a man was charged with sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl, and the newspaper quoted the NOPD as saying the girl had "consensual sex" with the perpetrator. An editorial employer of the newspaper called the NOPD to get some clarification. She probably expected to hear "oh, you know what we meant" or "so, what's the problem?" or all of the other offensive responses you get when you point out offensive things that people say about girls and women. What she got was even worse: The NOPD spokeswoman told the Times-Picayune employee that the police department had worded the news release that way because they "didn't want people to think he [the perpetrator] was preying on children in the community."

When the people entrusted with protecting the community don't understand that a grown man's sexual encounter with a 12-year-old girl is the man's fault, you really have to stop and ask what century it is. I remember several years ago writing a letter to the editor because a reporter had written that a 12-year-old girl had "admitted" to having sex with an adult man. Blaming the female victim is what we do in our culture.

The Times-Picayune was right to let the NOPD's comments go unedited. Whether there will be community outrage is unknown, but we can hope.