March 24, 2015

Police Reduce Rolling Stone’s Rape Story to Rubble

Investigation found “no evidence” to support “Jackie’s” story.

New details from the alleged University of Virginia rape case emerged Monday, and the results weren’t exactly what many mainstream journalistic outlets were hoping for.

Last November, Rolling Stone magazine featured an article on the supposed UVA rape case concerning a college student named “Jackie,” the alleged victim, and members of campus fraternity Phi Kappa Psi, the alleged gang of rapists. Shortly after Rolling Stone published the article, it retracted several of the claims reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely put forth.

We noted at the time that Rolling Stone, in an attempt to support the narrative of a widespread “rape culture” on campuses around the county, was guilty of shoddy and reckless journalism. We hold fast to this assertion, and the Charlottesville Police Department agrees.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Police Chief Timothy Longo told reporters the Charlottesville Police Department was “not able to conclude, to any substantive degree, that an incident which is consistent with the facts contained [in] that article occurred at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house, or any other house for that matter.”

Chief Longo noted that a time-stamped photo of the frat house where the alleged assault occurred revealed the house was practically empty at the time Jackie said the rape occurred. There was no party that night. Furthermore, Longo said his investigators had spoken with nine of the 11 members of the fraternity who were living at the house during the time of the incident, and none of them had any knowledge of the alleged assault or even who Jackie was.

To make things even sketchier, when Jackie came to police in the spring of 2014 to report a non-sexual assault, she provided details of the supposed 2012 rape. However, the details she provided to police were much different from those depicted by the Rolling Stone article. When the article was published, Jackie agreed to meet with police investigators, but, according to Reason’s Robby Soave, she “declined to give a statement or provide documents and was generally uncooperative.”

Chief Longo emphasized to reporters that despite lack of evidence from Jackie’s rape claim “the case is not closed by any stretch of the imagination.” He and his department are hoping someone will come forward soon with information related to the case. At this point there are no charges against Jackie for false statements. But the message is clearly that her story has little or no basis in fact.

Perhaps the most profound statement Chief Longo made is this: “Having police involvement in the early stages of an investigation is extremely, extremely important.” Ouch. Actually, that’s a nice way for the police chief to tell mainstream reporters (i.e. Rolling Stone) to stop reporting facts that aren’t facts.

Investigative journalism in this case and many others is dead. Why? Because it was more important for Erdely and Rolling Stone to perpetuate a (false) narrative about sexual assault on college campuses than it was to get the facts straight. While Rolling Stone magazine did apologize for making a wrong judgment in publishing the story, young men, a fraternity and an entire university were besmirched as a result.

In both police work and good reporting, it takes time to gather evidence, receive statements and get the facts right. Erdely spent time telling a good story, but the basics fell by the wayside. Yet Leftmedia outlets purposefully glamorized a story to draw attention to a particular phenomenon with the hopes of capturing a mesmerized audience. The cliché that “sex sells” is sad but true. Even in cases of alleged rape the facts are distorted in order to make a profit off of the individual(s) involved.

In a world full of false information, people want and deserve the truth. Truth never fears a challenge; yet too often mainstream news sources aren’t willing to be honest. It’s time they start, because anything less is a disservice to the American people.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.