Twelve Year Old Mistaken for Hooker Mistrialed

The trial against Dymond Milburn, the 12-year-old mistaken for a hooker, has been declared a mistrial. When Dymond was twelve years old, a circuit breaker flipped in her house, she went outside to fix it. Three men jumped out of a van and tackled her, she called for her father and fought them. They hurt her so badly, she had to go to the hospital. When she was released, she was arrested for assaulting police officers.

According to the Milburn family, the policemen did not announce themselves as such and jumped out of an unmarked vehicle. According to the police, they naturally did announce themselves. Either way, she was treated for head injuries at the hospital, then arrested three weeks later for not allowing three strange men to take her into a van. At the age of twelve.

I think this case falls into the crevice Jezebel has discussed before (there are better articles discussing it, but my cursory Google didn't return them): there is a specific demographic that you must fall into to garner national attention when you go missing (or in this case, get beaten for no real reason, then brought to trial for not peacefully getting taken from your home). If you aren't white, a lady, and a well thought of group (rich, middle class, or military), you probably aren't going to get a lot of national media attention-help. In this case, the girl is white (the complaint about hookers was about white hookers) but lives in a low-income area. Add to that, her case really got going in August of an election year and you have a recipe for total media dismissal. And that is dismal.

This girl's story should have been blasted across the nation so that parents everywhere could be outraged. Instead it was quietly reported a few places and then basically ignored.