https://www.facebook.com/donald.v.watkins/posts/10214581510353631
The Megan Rondini Movement: Ending The Rape Culture In Alabama And Across America
By Donald V. Watkins
©Copyrighted and Published on November 6, 2017
©Copyrighted and Published on November 6, 2017
The Megan Rondini movement has transcended the fight for criminal justice in one woman's rape case. Megan was the young and gifted University of Alabama honors student who accused 36-year-old Terry Jackson "Sweet T Bunn, Jr., of raping her at his home during the early morning hours of July 2, 2015. With help from Tuscaloosa County Sheriff Ron Abernathy and former DA Lyn Head, Sweet T was able to escape criminal justice in Megan's rape case. Once Megan realized that Sweet T would not be prosecuted for her rape, she committed suicide.
Megan's rape case exploded onto the national scene when BuzzFeed News published a news article in June that exposed what really happened to Megan on July 2nd. From that moment forward, the Bunn family, The University of Alabama, Sheriff Abernathy, former DA Lyn Head (who now serves as a member of the Alabama Pardons and Parole Board), current DA Hays Webb, and the Tuscaloosa News banded together to form a protective shield around Sweet T, who is a member of the powerful Bunn family.
The Bunns are one of Tuscaloosa's blue-blood families. They are also major donors to the University's athletic programs. Furthermore, they control Tuscaloosa's political scene with an ironclad grip.
Protecting the rape culture in Megan Rondini's case required a perfect alignment of power players and influence factors because 20-year-old Megan insisted on filing an official rape report with Sheriff Department investigators even after they tried to prevent this action by bullying her at police headquarters.
First, the rape "suspect" had to be well known to the investigators because of his family's strong ties to the local law enforcement community. Second, key members of the local law enforcement community had to be willing to "fix" the rape case for the suspect. Third, the local DA had to go along with the "fix". Fourth, local media organizations had to completely ignore the rape case. Fifth, The University of Alabama had to go silent on the rape of one of its brightest students. Sixth, local public officials, who usually brag at election time about how tough they are on crime, had to follow the University's vow of silence.
All of these things happened in Megan Rondini's rape case. Not one Alabama public official in a position of authority stood up for Megan Rondini. They all watched Megan and her family suffer in agony without lifting a finger to help them. They simply invented convenient ways to overlook or excuse Sweet T's behavior in Megan's rape case.
After I began reporting on Megan Rondini's rape case in June, the forces in Alabama that pride themselves on protecting the rape culture for privileged males found it necessary to threaten and attack me. They could not present any credible facts to support Sweet T's version of the acknowledged sexual encounter between Sweet T and Megan on July 2nd because the totality of facts and circumstances indictated that these sexual acts were NOT consensual.
Instead of accepting this reality, Sweet T's allies hacked my Facebook page in order to deactivate the growing number of "Followers" who connected with me to follow my news accounts in Megan's case. Nearly 1,200 "Followers" have been unlawfully deactivated since September 8, 2017.
Last week, Sweet T's allies launched a smear campaign against me consisting of a derogatory billboard in Tuscaloosa and a website filled with false and misleading PR information. This smear campaign has failed miserably.
After the hacking of my Facebook page and the smear campaign failed to stop my news reporting in Megan Rondini rape case, Sweet T's allies persuaded Facebook to temporarily block me from posting future articles. The block, which lasted 24-hours, was removed yesterday.
In what has to be a first in the history of journalism, Facebook removed an article I posted on November 3, 2017, that was critical of the Alabama Political Reporter ("APR") because Facebook believed that this article constituted a form of "bullying" of APR. The article speaks for itself and can be reviewed at: www.themeckreport.com.
I never thought a media organization like APR could be "bullied" by an online Facebook journalist who simply shined a bright spotlight on the backgrounds of APR's two owners. One of APR's owners has privately characterized my Facebook news reporting as a "joke" even though it directly contributed to the forced resignations of a sitting federal judge, a sitting governor, and a host of state and local officials during the past four years.
My article on the APR was posted in response to an article APR published last Monday that quoted Bunn family PR spokesperson Joe Perkins calling me a "financially broken, desperate man" who is "suffering from psychological and behavioral problems that have brought him to the brink of ruin." Perkins, who has a long history of conducting "dirty tricks" operations for the Alabama Education Association and Alabama Power Company, is one of the architects of the "Deadbeat Donald" smear campaign.
Ironically, the same APR article that bashed me reappeared yesterday as a "sponsored ad" on the news feeds of many Alabama-based Facebook subscribers.
The enemies of "free speech" are working hard to stop the flow of truth telling in the Megan Rondini rape case. They have already achieved this result with Alabama's mainstream press.
Now, these pro-Sweet T forces are trying to silence my media voice -- by any means necessary. They are welcomed to take a number and get in line.
What these desperate adversaries of free speech fail to realize is this: Megan Rondini's rape case has evolved into a full-blown movement to end the rape culture in Alabama. It cannot be stopped. Rape victims are sick and tired of suffering in silence. They now have many voices of committed support. Social media has empowered these voices. Rape victims are no longer waiting for our scared, "whored out" public officials to lead this movement. Ordinary women and men of goodwill are leading the way toward a rape free culture in Alabama.
I proudly support the Megan Rondini movement to end the rape culture in Alabama and across the nation. Women deserve to live their lives without having to worry about being raped or sexually abused by rich and powerful male members of our society. I will do my part to reach this goal.
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