What is wrong with human beings that makes them capable of such depravity? These filthy raping bastards are so low that I’d want to take a Taser to their “boys.” They wouldn’t want me on a jury. (CNN):

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s investigators made a public appeal Thursday in seeking at least four men who were videotaped sexually assaulting at least 10 women who appear to be severely disabled, including women in a care home.

The video came from 11 DVDs that an anonymous tipster dropped off last March at the Sheriff’s Department headquarters in Monterey Park, California, said Sgt. Dan Scott. The video was shot by a security camera and a handheld camera, Scott told reporters at a news conference.

One segment shows a woman victim wearing a diaper while in a wheelchair, Scott said.

“This is extremely serious. These women are developmentally disabled. It’s awful to take advantage of anyone, but especially someone who could not defend themselves,” [Sgt. Diane] Hecht said.

I suppose that if these men are arrested, you’ll see the “it’s not me on the tape” kind of defense, because I can’t think of anything else plausible to run with. From the LA Times:

The attacks appeared to have taken place at residential care centers, authorities said, and most of the attackers are believed to be employees. One suspect appears to be a paraplegic patient, hoisting himself off his wheelchair, before removing his diaper and that of his victim’s, and beginning his assault.

Detectives are also hoping the tipster who dropped off the package will come forward. The footage left at sheriff’s headquarters in Monterey Park came with a note explaining how he discovered the video. He had been commissioned by a man to scrub a computer hard drive, but before he did, he burned 100 hours of video files onto DVDs.

Detectives said the women in the videos appear to be between 20 and 40 years old, some appearing almost entirely unresponsive. The men appear to also be between 20 and 40.

The sad truth is that I suspect that this sort of heinous behavior is probably not as rare as we wish it to be (though videotaping it probably is). In facilities where lax security, poorly paid staff and victims who will not speak out exist it creates a perfect storm environment for sociopaths like these men to do what they did.

We have to ask a lot of questions about how these men were able to do this without any fear of being caught. What are families with disabled relatives in nursing homes or care facilities feeling right about now? Are your relatives safe from sexual predators like these men?

Look at this CBS report from 2004 about a case in Florida and horrifying stats:

[Sandra Banning] thought her mother, Virginia Thurston, would be safe at Southwood Nursing Center, until the night she was sexually assaulted by another resident: 83-year-old Ivy Edwards, as CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports.

“He had taken his wheelchair and lodged it up underneath the door so no one would interrupt him,” says Banning.

…Edwards was sent to the nursing home after he was found wandering the streets. A Florida court declared him a “vulnerable adult … in need of protective services.” Edwards’ criminal file is 13 pages long and includes 59 arrests, including child molestation and sexual assault.

…[Nursing home watchdog Wes] Bledsoe searched records in 37 states and found 380 registered sex offenders living in nursing homes. That doesn’t include other felons and older sex offenders, like Edwards, who are not required to register.

“We don’t know how big a problem this is, but if there’s no locked door between your loved one and that offender down the hall, then it’s your problem,” says Bledsoe.

Minnesota’s Atttorney General Mike Hatch just shut down one nursing home after sex offenders transferred from prisons were caught fondling, beating and sexually assaulting other residents.

Or this horror reported by the Chicago Tribune just last January when it was uncovered: Nursing home sexual violence: 86 Chicago cases since July 2007 – but only 1 arrest.

Allegations of criminal sexual assault, or rape, were reported in a quarter of Chicago’s 119 nursing homes during those 2 1/2 years, government records show.

…Almost all of the 86 cases the Tribune examined involved residents attacking other residents. Only a handful of the alleged attackers were employees or visitors; the lone successful prosecution was of an orderly.

The frightening atmosphere is another consequence of Illinois’ unusual reliance on nursing homes to house younger psychiatric patients with sometimes violent criminal records. Many understaffed facilities are ill-equipped to treat these residents or monitor their behavior.

Government records show that the 30 Chicago facilities where rapes were reported were roughly twice as likely to house convicted felons and mentally ill patients as the 89 city nursing homes without a sexual assault allegation.

This present-day case in L.A. needs to be a wake-up call about the way nursing homes and care facilities operate, not just about putting these sociopaths on videotape in the slammer.

Blender David Phillips also Tweeted me this link to an article in today’s WaPo:

There are over 200K ppl under 65 in US nursing homes, increasing # of young adults: http://t.co/tEvpLN7

and

LGBTQ need to wake up cuz we’re more likely to live in those places, in absence of children, other family ties

About 15 percent of nursing home residents are under 65.