Last week, at Mifflin High School, in Columbus, Ohio, a mildly mentally handicapped 16 year-old girl was sexually assaulted, forced to perform sexual acts on at least two boys in a high school auditorium as dozens of students watched, according to student witnesses. When school officials arrived on the scene, the girl lay on the stage bleeding from her face, yet no one called the police. To make matters worse the assistant principal also urged the girl’s father not to call 911 because "the media might get involved." The father disregarded the assistant principal’s caution and immediately called the police.

Students were said to have left their classes upon hearing about what was going on in the auditorium, but none of them stopped the assault. One kid videotaped part of the assault with a camera he had brought in for a school project.

Statements were later released, with students’ names blacked out. In the statements, one student said the boys told the victim, "If you scream, I'll have all my boys punch you."

According to the reports I heard on the news, the girl was in so much shock from the incident that she was not able to report what had been done to her. An hour after the assault took place; the assistant principal, named Watson, watched the video that the student had filmed. When the victim’s father was called in, demanding that the police be called, Watson was reported to have said, "No we don't want to do that, we don't want the police."

Watson said that he told the father to "go ahead and call," but not to call 911 because the "news channel might tape his daughter and cause her further mental trauma."

Watson and two other assistant principles have been suspended without pay for 10 days and will not be coming back to Mifflin High School. The assault case is in court at the moment.

It’s hard to even begin to describe my anger after reading about this event. You have to wonder why no one stepped in and why a student was able to videotape these gruesome scenes unaffected by anyone. Has our society become so accustomed to such terrible acts of violence that it actually finds some kind of entertainment in it? Or was everyone lost as to what to do, helpless and scared to stop these students? It’s scary to think the assistant principal wanted to keep this event "hush-hush." Since the event has already occurred there is not a whole lot we can do. The best thing we can do is make sure people hear about this story so it is not forgotten. Just like in Margaret Lipman’s commentary that discusses the tragedy at Minnesota's Red Lake Indian Reservation and how the public ignored that issue, this is just another example of the society turning a blind eye to a tragic event. It seems like the public would rather hear about the sex of Brittney Spear’s upcoming baby than to contemplate a father’s child being assaulted on a stage. For the sake of society I hope this isn’t true.

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