Yeardley Love is dead.

She is dead because, late on Saturday night or early on Sunday morning, her former college boyfriend, one George Huguely V, kicked in her bedroom door and slammed her head into the wall, repeatedly, and left her in a pool of blood, facedown, in her bed; and then stole her computer and ran away.

These are facts. We know these are facts because George Huguely V has said as much. There is also, apparently, physical evidence that confirms them.

And there is little reason to doubt these facts; this is not a case where the defendant lacked resources or did not have access to the best legal assistance available. The defendant is the scion of a rich Washington, D.C. family that owns a vacation home in Palm Beach.

This, of course, does not render him guilty.

But when his experienced attorney claimed that the killing was "accidental," it did make me sick.

"We are confident that Ms. Love's death was not intended but an accident with a tragic outcome," said Charlottesville lawyer Francis McQ. Lawrence, who represented Huguely on Tuesday at a scheduled bond hearing, which was delayed. Lawrence said Tuesday, on what would have been Huguely's last day of classes, that he would withdraw from school.

Source ~ Washington Post

Right. Because kicking a door in and slamming your former girlfriend’s head into a wall repeatedly was "accidental."

The news reports I have read suggest that Ms. Love had decided to break up with Mr. Huguely some time before the attack. They suggest that Mr. Huguely had sent menacing emails to Ms. Love; perhaps that is why the bedroom door in her off-campus apartment was locked and Mr. Huguely, who reportedly had been drinking, decided to kick it open with his foot. Authorities say that hairs were found on the door.

Whatever else the brutal beating of Yeardley Love was -- and that is for the Virginia courts to figure out -- it was NOT "accidental."

I am so sick and tired -- after more than half-a-century in this earthly plain -- of hearing entitled men characterize their violent attacks on women as anything other than what they are: rage-infused brutality brought about by a woman saying "no."

With regard to this particular defendant, the identity of the woman saying "no" has not seemed to matter for some time:

There's no direct line from arrogance to violence, or from macho jock culture to brutality. But Huguely's trajectory includes more disturbing data points. In Florida, where his family has a $2 million vacation home, he was charged in 2007 with underage possession of alcohol. The next year, police were summoned after Huguely got into a "very heated" argument with his father aboard their 40-foot fishing boat, dove into the ocean and tried to swim the quarter-mile to shore. Most troubling, Huguely was arrested near a fraternity house at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Va., in 2008 for public swearing, intoxication and resisting arrest. After being detained, Huguely "used colorful statements such as: 'I'll kill all you... I am not doing a damn thing you say... I want to talk to your supervisor now,'" according to a statement by the Lexington Police Department. The arresting officer, R.L. Moss, said she had to use her Taser to subdue Huguely -- although he did not remember that afterward. "He was by far the most rude, most hateful and most combative college kid I ever dealt with," Moss told The New York Times.

Source ~ Washington Post (My emphasis on her gender.)

What screws of empathy come loose before these attacks by young entitled men like George Huguely V I do not know. What factors lead to the unscrewing -- exhaustion, too many expectations, alcohol -- I do not know either. These, too, will need to be sorted out by our justice system -- in which I (almost always) have faith.

George Huguely V graduated from the Landon School in Maryland. Yesterday, the Headmaster posted this notice on the school’s website:

All of us in the Landon community are deeply saddened by the news of the tragedy at the University of Virginia. Our hearts go out to all of the families involved in this terrible incident. We ask that you remember them in your thoughts and prayers.

This was the same school from which one of the accused Duke Lacrosse players graduated. So of course the TM are jumping all over it. And jumping on Lacrosse players. And that’s not fair.

The Duke Lacrosse Case was so amazingly badly handled. The reputations of the young men charged were damaged -- possibly beyond repair -- by the false accusations of the young woman who had been hired as a stripper for their party. And what now disbarred District Attorney Mike Nifong did in that case was disgraceful.

Nevertheless, why were these college students spending money to hire strippers in the first place? What were they thinking? And why did they think that this was acceptable behavior? Need I ask what this says about how they value women?

At some point, at some time, in some place, we need to bring an end to the idea that women are just here to satisfy the needs of men. And we need to bring an end to the idea that if we somehow fail in this supposed duty we are "fair game" for violence.

That violence isn’t "accidental."

And we will not be quiet victims.