In the middle of the molten trash heap that thePatrick Kane sexual a sault case has become,Frank Sedita, the district attorney for Erie County, N.Y., gave a warning that many people willignore. than call bull on the accuser's mother and flail at explaining the thought proce s behind her lawyer's backfired bombshell of compromised evidence. He was infull-on exasperated, angry-dad mode at the idea that his team had bungled the investigation. MORE: | His greater points,cautioningagainst blaming Kane's accuser for any of the me s a statement released by the family on Thursday said she had no knowledge of the rape kithoax that blew things up onWednesdayand cla sifingthe last two days as a sub-investigation that wouldn't affect the validity of the accuser's original claim, will most certainly be lost. The effort aimed at having a productive discu sion about sexual a sault as it relates to star athletes and, specifically, hockey players,is probably cooked. It's near-impo sible to imagine anything productive coming out of a case that washijacked by goons before questions of paper bags, DNA placement, surprise pre s conferences and lawyer resignations werepart of it. This week, too many were too busy foaming at the mouth over "hoax" and "accuser'slawyer resigning" to hear"don't blame the accuser." When Kane showed up at Blackhawks training camp last week and headlined a farcical media conference, . A significant amount of people read what, I thought, was a generally mild piece focusing largely on a perceived PRmi step. I didn't make any conclusions about Kane's guilt or innocence; the closest I came was saying and I still feel this way, even with this week's circus that Kane shouldn't be at training camp at all. He shouldn't be suspended without pay. The direct deposit on that $13.8 million salary can still show up twice a month.He shouldn't be presumed guilty. The legal system will dictate that Bo Walker Jersey .He should, for the good of most,have to stay home until the investigation concludes. That criticism of the Blackhawks and the NHL wasn't based on Kane being guilty, or presumed guilty. Sending him home wouldn't bea presumption of anything; it'd bean acknowledgement of the situation's seriousne sand, if you like your motivations a little more cynical, a CBA-allowed act of self-protectionbythe league. Naturally, I got some pushback. A few Blackhawks superfans called me a moron or some variation.I'll get more because of this, because that's how people occupying the athlete sycophant/Men's Rights Activist overlap operate. Not a big deal. What I didn't have to deal with, though, was anything worsethan that. There was no constant stream of ugline s in my Twitter replies.There were certainly no "specific"threats of physical harm, which is what stopped Julie DiCaro, a reporter for 670 The Score, from covering Friday's gong show from her office. I'm so angry. I love my job & my co-workers. I hate being kept from it. And I hate not being able to fight back. Julie DiCaro (@JulieDiCaro) That sort of thing isn't an i sue for me because I am a man. Threats against people trying to discu s rape allegationsin some way other than rallying around the accused and screaming about "hearing all the facts," by and large, are made against women. It's an ugly reality that should be understood, if not accepted. Ugly dummies are going to cape for their favorite athletes at all cost; it's inevitable. When they take the next step, though when stupid becomes ugly, and then ugly becomes scary it's usually women like DiCaro that bear the brunt. That's not a bug of the people behind the ugline s, either; it's a feature. And again: This is about a very rich, very famous man who, should he not go to trial, will likelywalk away from this largely unscathed. That's how it works. Ben Roethlisberger actually got suspended for whatever happened at a Milledgeville, Ga., bar in2010, andhe's fine. What it comes down to: For those subgroups "Kaner" fans, MRA goobers and everyone in between ashow of fact-based support for past and future victimsof sexual a sault in general or, god forbid, Kane's accuser specfically, is either deriliction of duty, apersonal affront or, maybe worse, an affront against Kane. And if it's a woman who's showing the support ... hoo, boy, look out.Deranged sports fans are weird that way, and probably run a little deeper than anyone wants to acknowledge. Check the first Google autofill for "Patrick Kane" if you doubt that. Patrick Kane is not your friend, . That's why what hashappened over the last 48 hours is such a problem. The accuser's mother, according to Sedita,tried to pa s off a hospital bag, given to her by a nurse to temporarily hold a shirt worn by the accuser,as a compromised rape kit. Why she did that, right now, is unknowable, though you'll find plenty of theories. All but oneof them are wrong, and some of them are insane. Thomas Eoannou, the accuser's now-former attorney,believed the mother's story and, inexplicably, called a Thursday nightpre s conference after verifyingit was a hospital bag but before verifying that it was a rape kit. He resigned over it I lack confidence in the story that was told to me," Eoannou said and he should've. "Rape kits are stored in boxes," said a stern, almost mortified,Sedita the next morning."Theyre not stored in bags. So when youre saying This is the bag from the rape kit, that was a total disconnect. What are you talking about?" The next step, barring a settlement, is either a grand jury investigation into whether charges should be brought, or a closed book. When that happens is anyone's gue s, including Sedita's. The question in my mind is not (when)this will go to the grand jury," he said. "The question is if." What's not a question, though, is thatthe same ugly babies screaming last week and a couple days agoand this morning will call for more retractions and proclamations of Kane's innocence, even though there have been no developments made public not the paper bag hoax, not the resignation of the accuser's legal adviser,not the absence of Kane'sDNA in the accuser's genitals to conclusivelysuggest his innocence or guilt. Kane's supporters willdemand fealty. Hopefully, they won't threaten violence, though, let's get serious, that'll probably happen, too. They'll do this mainly because other people in the discu sion have the audacity to include in their thought proce ses collections of words like "an estimated 19.3 percentof women ...have been raped during their lifetimes," , and "estimates for the percentage of false (sexual a sault)reports begin to converge around 2-8 percent," from .Those statistics would force them to come to terms with an ugly reality if it weren't so much easier to conclude that women lie. All those stats were real before, and they're real still. Taking them seriously, using them,believing them, and believingin the people behind themshould still be part of the dialogue. The dumb part the really stupid, ugly, crappy part is that the sort of people who stopped Julie DiCaro from going to work on Friday will be part of it, too, unable to acceptthe situation facing a hockey player they like a lot, unwilling to accept the nece sarycomplexitysurrounding it, and ironically proving the point of anyone bothering to say "the way we deal with sexual violence in this country is stupid and destructive and bad for women." It'd be nice for the adultsto have a discu sion for once. We all can dream. Bo Hughley Jersey