19-Year-Old Woman Gang-Raped On Florida Beach As Hundreds Watch, Do Nothing

Two college students from Alabama have been arrested for a rape that occurred on Panama Beach, Florida, during Spring Break. The area is a popular spot for students on spring break, a traditional holiday for U.S. college students. The rape occurred sometime between March 10-12, and was filmed on a mobile phone, which was confiscated during an unrelated investigation regarding a shooting in Troy, Alabama. Nobody ever came forward to say a woman was raped — police just stumbled across the grotesque footage.

On the tape, a young woman, seemingly unconscious, was in a beach chair as several men surrounded her. Hundreds more were drinking beer and encircling the scene, watching in broad daylight as the men attempted to touch her genital area, and at one point she seemed to awaken a bit and tried to weakly push their hands away, but she was too incapacitated to offer any true resistance. On the tape, one of the men can be heard saying “She will never remember” and then, in the bright Florida sun surrounded by hundreds of people, the woman is raped by at least two men while people jeer, watch, and someone even filmed it.

Panama City, Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen said the attack was “the most disgusting, sickening thing” he had ever seen.

“… Like wild animals preying on a carcass laying in the woods…Within 10 feet from where this is happening there are hundreds, hundreds of people standing there watching, looking, seeing, hearing what is going on, and yet our culture and our society and our young people have got to the point where obviously this is acceptable somewhere, but I will tell you it is not acceptable in Bay County.”

Authorities arrested Delonte’ Martistee, 22, and Ryan Austin Calhoun, 23, on Friday, charging both with sexual battery by multiple perpetrators after viewing the tape, and more arrests are expected this week.

When police identified and interviewed the young woman, she knew something had happened to her, but could remember no details, so she did not come forward. She thinks she may have been drugged, police say.

Troy University, in Alabama, admitted in a statement that the two men attended their university. The university spokesperson says that they have been suspended pending the police investigation and possible convictions.

“The students have been placed on temporary suspension from school per the university’s standards of conduct and disciplinary procedures. Martistee, a member of the track and field team, has also been removed from the team.”

[Image via Supplied]