Fight Club Atrocity Update

In May, the fight club story broke--support staff forced adults with mental disabilities to beat each other up and filmed it on their cell phones. The atrocity only came to light because one of the staff people lost their cell phone.

Now it seems that one of the staff people, a woman named Stephanie Garza, is being offered immunity in return for testimony--not an overly popular offer. But even more disturbing is this statement from the article:

The challenge in this case is that most of the victims suffer from some sort of mental disability and a jury is much more likely to doubt their testimony than the testimony of someone like Garza, who is perfectly competent.

Reference back to the connection between abuse and power.

How do we protect ourselves, how do we report violence in a way that assures the violence will end, when we are so often automatically dismissed just because we have a diagnosis of something "mental?"

It is all too easy to continue to abuse when there are no, or very light, consequences to the action.

The trial begins today.