photo: Denise Tejada - Youth Radio/ BY-NC-SA

Students at  Richmond High, where a 15-year-old girl was gang raped, are condemning their peers' comments that "it’s her fault.”

At a vigil for the victim of the October 24th rape and beating, some students, including young women, hinted that they fault the victim because of rumors about her sexual history. Some students, like 17-year-old Luis Gastelum said if a girl, “...goes to a dark alley, you’re basically, not asking for it, but something was gonna happen." Sixteen-year-old Briseida Rodriguez also questioned the circumstances leading up to the rape. “Why would she be over there with all them guys? Knowing that the homecoming is in the gym, not over there, so that’s why I think it’s her fault.”

And they're not only faulting the victim for her own troubles, but they're pointing to the entire incident as one that will put a damper on their high school experience. Rodriguez said her parents have become more strict after the incident, and she feels it's unfair. Fourteen-year-old Perla Posadas' parents are also restricting her freedom because of the incident. "It doesn’t feel good because these are my school dances and to not be able to attend them, that wouldn’t be cool with me.”

Other students, like sophomore Andre Taylor, challenged these views.  "Someone was talking about it in my second period class. A girl was saying she deserved it and I actually started arguing with her—and this was not the girl to argue with. It was surprising to me that people think it was her (the victim's) fault. Maybe she had her own faults in it, but she didn’t ask to be raped.”

Senior Abel Pineda said the student community used last week's vigil as a way to stand up against all the negative perceptions about Richmond High and its students.“We’re here as a community to start the healing process. The situation did happen on our campus, in our community. It affects us on a national, global scale.”

The rape happened in a darkened area of the campus where there were no security lights and security cameras were broken. Students say those problems have now been fixed, and that school officials are looking into building a fence encircling the campus.

Richmond is a culturally diverse city of more than 100,000 people in Northern California. According to Area Connect, Richmond’s crime level is worse than the national average. The site reports that in 2006 Richmond’s murder toll was 42 while the national average was 7, rapes in Richmond reached 41 while the national average was 33, and aggravated assaults totaled 637 while the national average was 336.

These numbers may be shocking, but as a person who grew up in Richmond, I can say, crime is like having breakfast -- it’s an everyday thing.