JUSTICE: Step up, Idaho

In March 2016, Idaho’s Attorney General’s Office charged John R. K Howard of Dietrich, a white high school player who was accused of kicking a coat hanger into the rectum of a black high school football player with a disability with “forcible sexual penetration by use of a foreign object.” Last week, the Attorney General amended the charge to “felony injury to a child” and offered Howard an Alford plea, allowing the defendant to avoid personal accountability for his actions, and recommended three years of probation. The Deputy Attorney General stated in court that the act itself was “not a sex crime.”

Sex crimes are about power and control. Howard had engaged in a pattern of power and control over the survivor, including name calling and humping him. The Deputy Attorney General also stated that it “was not a racially motivated crime” even though there was a pattern of racial slurs and stated that it was a “vulnerable victim-motivated crime.” The Deputy Attorney General went on to say it could have happened to anyone who is developmentally delayed and this shifts the responsibility away from the offender and normalizes violence against people with disabilities.

This is not acceptable; accountability is part of love. We seek accountability from Idaho’s Attorney General Office. We seek accountability from the Dietrich School District to undo a culture of hate and violence. We look to Idaho’s community at large to change our culture of hate and ugliness. We choose acceptance. We choose inclusion.

MICHELLE POLMANTEER

Post Falls