Anonymous begins crusade on Steubenville High School athletes

The football town of Steubenville, which is a normally quiet community, has faced huge media scrutiny in recent weeks. The attention drew to the town as news spread that members of a local high school team gang-raped an underage girl as bystanders just let the atrocity take place and took photos on their phones.

Reports state that on the night of Saturday, Aug. 11, the 16-year-old victim passed out after getting drunk at an “end-of-summer” party. Steubenville High athletes have been identified in court papers as Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond. The Steubenville students are accused of sexual assault on the victim repeatedly over a period of several hours. The Steubenville duo is scheduled to make an appearance before a judge in juvenile court on Feb. 13. Mays and Richmond have since made no public comment on the case. The victim in the Steubenville case has yet remained unidentified, but is known to have made a full physical recovery from the events of last summer. According to a report in The New York Times, the victim who was unconscious may have been forcefully taken to multiple parties during the night and may have been urinated on.

What is even more shocking is the fact that several of the Steubenville athletes allegedly stood by idly as the assault went on. Some even documented the events of that night on social media sites like Twitter and Instagram. Most of these images have been removed from the websites, but some screen captures of the posts still remain. Steubenville Police Chief William McCafferty was visibly upset by the events and wanted to know why no body from Steubenville or any other bystanders stepped up to stop the madness.

Online vigilante group Anonymous, a self-named "hacktivist" group, has launched an online crusade on Steubenville. This has led the case to be the focus of widespread national attention. On Wednesday, Anonymous released a 12-minute video that shows an apparently drunk Steubenville football player mocking the victim and taking pride in it. The speaker in the video goes on to make some increasingly vulgar and cruel remarks while providing a recap of the victim’s horrible ordeal.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine stated to a local news station that that his office is still trying to piece together the events of that night before moving on with potential charges for the suspects.