For those of you who
don’t know of Darren Sharper, he was a NFL safety who played professionally
for 14 years with the Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings, and the New Orleans
Saints. His career included 5 Pro Bowls
and 2 trips to the Super Bowl- earning his first ring when the Saints beat the
Colts in Super Bowl XLIV in February 2010.
After retiring he worked as an analyst for WWL-TV in New Orleans before
leaving to work for the NFL network in the same capacity.
Sharper
has been in the news recently because he was arrested in Los Angeles on January
17th of this year and charged with two separate counts of sexual
assault. The alleged incidents occurred
in October of last year and January of this year. In the short time since his initial arrest,
it has come to light that Sharper has been implicated in a total of 8 assaults
in 5 states, including his California charges.
Details that have been released suggest that his modus operandi is to
meet women at bars/clubs, invite them to accompany him to another party venue,
and once they accept, he “stops” at his hotel room/ house, offers them a drink
spiked with Ambien, and once they are rendered unconscious, he assaults them.
At
his arraignment on February 20th, Sharper was formally charged with
two counts of rape by use of drugs, four counts of furnishing a controlled
substance and one count of possession of a controlled substance- all
felonies. The defendant pleaded not
guilty and the judge set bail at $1M dollars as well as banning Sharper from
nightclubs and forbade him from being alone with women.
For those of you who
have never seen Darren Sharper, he
is an exceptionally good looking man.
He’s 6”2, around 210 pounds, with a 1000 kilowatt smile, which he seemed
to perpetually flash from the sidelines and in front of the cameras. He always seems to be dressed to the nines,
dated beautiful and famous women, and I’ll bet he smells fabulous. The words “charming” and “likeable”
immediately spring to mind when you think of Darren Sharper. He helped rebuild houses ravaged by Katrina,
he was the star attendee at a football camp for women in Slidell, LA last year,
and in 2010 he wrote a short essay in a book called NFL Dads Dedicated to Daughters, which was a collaboration with a
violence prevention organization called “A Call to Men” whose mission is to
make the world safer for women.
Irony? I don’t think so.
I
am not a psychologist or an expert in sex crimes by any stretch of the
imagination, but I think that Darren Sharper is a psychopathic serial rapist
who boldly and arrogantly stood in front of the world, probably laughing at our
“stupidity”, while he fueled his rage against women. I believe that he intentionally aligned himself
with women’s issues to distance himself to possible scrutiny, but also to
create a cover in case he ever got
caught. He is not a stupid man. His whole M.O. is proof of that as it is a
sinister, methodical, well-devised plan:
Inviting the victims back to his hotel room or house, and having them
willingly agree to come is surely going to be the peanut butter in the
chocolate for his attorneys. I imagine that they are going to have a field day
with the victims by harping on the fact that these women “voluntarily went to the hotel room of this gorgeous, famous, wealthy
man after drinking with him at a bar? Really?”
Yes,
these victims might be guilty themselves of making the unfortunate choice of
leaving with him, but no one wants to be knocked unconscious and sexually
assaulted. One participant of the female
football camp said in an interview after hearing the charges against Sharper, "I saw the way the women were looking
at him, he could've had anyone of those girls. He's a triple threat -- pretty,
rich and talented." Rape and
sexual assault, we need to remember, aren’t crimes based upon sex and desire: They are attacks rooted in violence,
aggression, dominance, subjugation, and rage- forced sexual acts, and
fornication are the culmination of these assaults- and those are two very
different things.
But
in spite of what recent history has shown us, it is still very hard for many
people to want to associate heinous crimes to people who have entered our collective
and individual consciousness because of their talent, looks, wealth, or seeming
goodness- whether we know them casually or simply know of them. It’s very easy
for us to put people into compartments based on superficial or slight
knowledge- and in a sense, especially as we all routinely and often briefly encounter
so many people these days, we have to.
And when those people do something shocking or vile, it makes us
re-think and re-examine our whole system of judgment, which is very
difficult. So difficult that it is
easier to rationalize said person’s behavior, deny it, or attack the character
of the person making the accusation.
And
even though his defense team will probably say something like “he suffered
multiple concussions that affected his personality and behaviors”, or perhaps
they will say the problem is that of a pharmaceutical nature, I don’t believe
for a second that Darren Sharper just started these attacks at 37 years of
age. Psychopaths learn early how to mask
their darkness with brilliant lights of wit, charm, talent, and drive that draw
people to them, make people like them, and trust them. I shake my head when I
think about how many potential victims of his are out there that we will never
know about. I shudder to think of how easy and accessible victims could have
been for him given his NFL status and abundant travels. I almost cry when I think of the women out
there who were too afraid to come forward because they feared they wouldn’t be
believed, those who did come forward and weren’t believed, and particularly for
those who have no idea what this monster did because they didn’t regain
consciousness until after the fact.
I
know that in spite of what I have voiced, people are said to be innocent until
proven guilty. I also know that the
burden of proof rests with “the people” and sometimes that guilt can’t be
proven. That doesn’t mean that the
accused didn’t commit said crime. Even
if Darren Sharper somehow slithers through these charges in California, there
are still four other states looking at him. The mask that he has worn for so
long on the field, on television, and in our minds has been knocked askew and I
do not think it will ever be set right.
For those of you who
didn’t know of Darren Sharper, you do now. You probably also know people
like him and don’t even realize it. We
all do. We probably admire some athlete,
actor, singer, or poet and assume that because he can catch a ball or run fast,
bring tears to our eyes, hold a high note, or rhyme then he’s automatically a
moral or trustworthy person. We need to
remember that a person can be anyone he needs to be in the face of the
public. And usually, he will.
