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PASADENA -- The Oregon players who taunted Florida State and quarterback Jameis Winston after the Ducks' Rose Bowl win Thursday will be disciplined, Oregon head coach Mark Helfrich said in a statement.
Video shot by numerous media organizations, including the Oregonian, showed several Oregon players chanting "No means no" to the tune of the "Warchant" used by Florida State fans and mimicking the iconic Seminole Tomahawk chop. The gesture was an apparent mocking of Winston and the sexual assault accusations that have followed the former Heisman Trophy winner over the last two seasons.
"We are aware of the inappropriate behavior in the postgame," Helfrich said. "That is not what our program stands for, and the student-athletes will be disciplined internally."
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For background on the accusations against Winston, the Oregonian only says this:
Winston was accused by a woman of raping her in 2012, but has never been charged. After long court proceedings, Winston was recently cleared of violating Florida State's student code of conduct.
More informative detail, as to why there was insufficient evidence to prosecute Winston, can be found however, from
this NY Times report from April:
In fact, an examination by The New York Times has found that there was virtually no investigation at all, either by the police or the university.
The police did not follow the obvious leads that would have quickly identified the suspect as well as witnesses, one of whom videotaped part of the sexual encounter. After the accuser identified Mr. Winston as her assailant, the police did not even attempt to interview him for nearly two weeks and never obtained his DNA.
The detective handling the case waited two months to write his first report and then prematurely suspended his inquiry without informing the accuser. By the time the prosecutor got the case, important evidence had disappeared, including the video of the sexual act.
This kind of negligence is apparently almost routine for the Tallahassee Police:
The case came at a time of turmoil for the Tallahassee police. In March 2013, a grand jury investigating police misconduct in an unrelated matter called police supervision “careless, uncaring, cavalier and incompetent.” The grand jury said supervisory deficiencies were so deeply ingrained that the city police, which has more than 350 sworn officers, should merge with the sheriff’s department, with the sheriff assuming overall control.
And in another case (unrelated to Winston) handled recently by the Tallahassee Police:
Early last October, a 19-year-old Florida State student was studying on a Saturday night while her roommates went drinking. She said they returned drunk, and a roommate’s former boyfriend, also a student, raped her in her room.
Officer Pate’s blunt interviewing style did not help, the student said. “The first thing he asked me,” she recounted, “was if I was sure this was rape or if I just didn’t want a baby or wanted the morning after pill.” He also made comments, she said, “like, ‘Are you sure you want to file a report? It will be very awkward, especially for a female.’”
In his complaint to the police, the father wrote that Officer Pate had suggested that an investigation “would be futile, as ‘this kind of stuff happens all the time here.’” The family also said the police had focused more on the accuser than on the accused.
To be clear, Officer Pate was not involved in the Winston investigation. The officer who was in charge of that investigation was Scott Angulo.
Patricia A. Carroll, a lawyer for Mr. Winston’s accuser, said the police investigator who handled the case, Scott Angulo, told her that because Tallahassee was a big football town, her client would be “raked over the coals” if she pursued the case.
Perhaps this is why Agulo himself decided not to persue the case, decided not to seek the video footage from the bar which would have easily identified the suspect early on, decided not to seek a DNA sample once the suspect was identified, decided not to interview the suspect's roomate, who was present at the time of the assault, and decided not to seek phone records from Winston, or his teamates who were witnesses, despite investigating all electronic communications of his accuser. Perhaps this is why he decided to close the investigation without even informing the victim, despite calls from the victim seeking updates.
In any case, this is why there was insufficient evidence to charge Winston with any crime, and why he was also cleared two weeks ago of any violations of the student code of conduct.
And perhaps some background in regard to the "war chant" is also in order, as well. The Seminoles name itself has been challenged, but has survived due to support from the Seminole tribe:
The NCAA granted a waiver in the first challenge to a new policy, removing FSU from a list of colleges whose sports teams, it said, use "hostile or abusive" Native American names and imagery.
"The staff review committee noted the unique relationship between the university and the Seminole Tribe of Florida as a significant factor," NCAA senior vice president Bernard Franklin said in a statement released Tuesday.
This support was not without dissent from some Seminoles, particularly David Narcomeny, of Seminole Nation of Oklahoma:
Narcomey, saying he was voicing his opinion only, wrote in an e-mail to USA TODAY of the decision: "I am deeply appalled, incredulously disappointed ... I am nauseated that the NCAA is allowing this 'minstrel show' to carry on this form of racism in the 21st century."
Nonetheless, even if the Seminoles are not offended by the use of their name, one wonders what they might think about a "war chant" which seems to perpetuate a stereotype of native American savagery, and the accompanying gesture, which seems to reference scalping, a practice which history shows was actually engaged in
as much by colonialists as by native Americans. But the chant and the chop, which apparently date back to
the early 1980s, are now an established FSU tradition.
Most of this is not new news. But these are important details to remember, as we consider where things now stand:
- The accused rapist will not be disciplined, due to lack of evidence, and lack of any timely competent investigation. And maybe also because, well rape is something that "happens all the time", accoriding to one Tallahassee police officer.
- The school administrators, who failed to launch any investigation, in violation of Federal law, have also not been disciplined.
- The police officers who burried the investigation, because "Tallahassee is a big football town", also will not be disciplined. Heck, they could likely commit murder and still not be disciplined.
- The perpetuation of derogatory sterotypes of native Americans by football fans will continue, because they are an established tradition, like rape, something which we must now accept because it "happens all the time".
But students who mock the rapists and racists, they will be disciplined. That after all is unsportsmanlike. It might embarass "the game". Such is the state of college football, and justice, in America today.
Sat Jan 03, 2015 at 5:58 PM PT: I should add a note here, after seeing some of the comments, that there is no reason to assume Jameis Winston is guilty here, either. There simply isn't sufficient evidence to prove the allegation. Winston himself is not responsible for the systematic failures by the police, or the school. And it's certainly possible that a more timely and rigorous investigation would have more convincingly cleared him of the charges.