Sorry Pierce..only one new shiny image per lifetime...
Last year one of our top basketball athletes, Pierre Pierce, was charged with raping another female athlete. It took awhile for the female to step forward, and I have to applaud her courage because it isn't easy to bare to the world what was done to you. Pierce had the support of the basketball coach and the administrative structure that existed at that time for athletics behind him. I recall the female athlete being constantly questioned about her story. So how did that turn out? You probably guessed it. Pierce got off with a slap on the wrist and received a bright new shiny image to present to the world. I never once believed he was innocent.
Last week a new scandal hit the papers. Pierce again... This time he attacked his girlfriend, trashed her apartment, damaged her car, tried to choke her and stole electronics from her house after she was able to get away to run for help. He's being charged with two counts of first-degree burglary and one count of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse (he had thrown her to the floor and ripped off her clothes), all felonies, as well as a misdemeanor charge of fourth-degree criminal mischief. These new charges were as of Friday. Previous to that, he had been charged with five misdemeanors. Why the change in charges? Apparently they have a hell of a lot more evidence than they initially thought. This guy is creepy and he's now facing 56 years in prison. Good riddance! He won't get off easy this time. The County DA requested state assistance and now state prosecutors are involved. This boy is going down! He was, of course, immediately kicked off of the team once the police confirmed his involvement.
There was only one part of the story where I felt Pierce has a justified reason for anger...I say anger, NOT rage. Evidently his girlfriend of several years was receiving text messages from a new boyfriend. However wenchy that makes this chick, it doesn't excuse Pierce telling her, as he threatens her with a knife, that if she screams or says one word, "it will be her last". Psycho...
I probably sound a little too gleeful about this. Well, it's true. I believe that people who achieve a certain amount of fame have a social responsibility to be good role models. I know athletes don't ask for this fame, but it goes with the territory and they have to accept that it's there. Take Pierce...he presented himself as a good role model who was wronged by lies from a women he claimed he had consensual sex with. He managed to get off easily. Yet then he turns around and attacks his girlfriend, threatening bodily harm with a knife? Um...excuse me? There's something wrong with this picture!!
He deserves whatever is given to him. You made your bed, now you have to lie in it. Your coach can't save you this time. On a sidenote, the President of the University was so upset over the way the first accusation was handled, he reorganized the administration of athletics so that he oversees all of it. I know the President and he's a good man, even if I do disagree with some of his decisions (which will have to be devoted to another post at another time).
4 comments:
Pierce is still innocent until proven guilty but from what I have read, the evidence of guilt is overwelming. However, I'm betting that he gets less than ten years and only serves a year or two with good behavior. My confidence in our justice system as far as penalizing criminals is severely lacking.
I think any athlete, once they've been convicted of any sort of violent crime, should be bared from all college, and even pro, sports. It is such a priviledge to have access to the level of opportunity college athletics provides, and to squander that opportunity on losers like this is horrifying to me.
Innocent until proven guilty, yes, but let's have a speedy trial so we can put the guily SOB in prison. (that's a joke.... ;-) )
If God has a sense of humor, Pierce will get held down in prison, his clothes ripped off, beat on for awhile and then raped.
I always try to keep an open mind when I hear stories like this, but the first incident last year seemed to have a wrongness to it. It made me suspicious. There was a lot of outcry and etc in the begining, a lot of accusations thrown both ways, but then it all seemed to disappear, everything was tied up in a nice and pretty bow, Pierce got a slap on the wrist and had to serve 200 hours of community service (something like that) and that was it! I mean, is that justice? I just felt like it was hushed up so quickly that the investigation fell through leaving too lenient a result. Given recent events, it just reinforced by intuition that he was guilty.
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