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The arrest warrants for two 18-year-olds accused of raping two 13-year-old girls were unsealed late Friday afternoon in Torrington, Connecticut, two months after the alleged attack, and they paint a very different picture of what happened than the story we've been hearing from the Torrington police — which is the same story the accused rapists' many student defenders on social media have been using to blame the alleged victims.
According to the Hartford Courant, Torrington police spokesman Lt. Mike Emanuel told reporters last month:
"It's very complex, but [the case is] under control," Emanuel said. "I'm not minimizing this," he said, but he stressed that the 13-year-olds knew the older teenagers. The reason the incidents are being investigated as sexual assaults is because the girls are so young and the age difference is more than three years.
"It was consensual in the sense that it was not an attack but not consensual in the eyes of the law," Emanuel said.
The social media campaign from within and around Torrington High framed the February incident similarly, as many users on Twitter and Instragram identified as classmates of the accused (one of whom was the school's football MPV) called the alleged attack rape in statutory name only and a "victimless crime."