Having grown up very close to where this story happened, I can’t say I’m terribly surprised. There is a reason I moved far, far away.

Several dozen North Country Community College students protested Monday against what they consider wrongful imprisonment of a student basketball player.

Carrying signs that said “Free London” and “We love you London,” the students — many of them NCCC men’s and women’s basketball players — assembled outside Saranac Lake Village Court.

The gathering amassed as Michael Odumosu, 19, an international student from London, was brought from Essex County Jail to the court for a status hearing.

He was arrested Dec. 17 on a charge of third-degree rape, stemming from a Sept. 14 incident at the off-campus “basketball house,” which is owned by basketball Coach Chad LaDue and had been rented to students.

The charge alleges the woman was drunk and therefore unable to have consensual sex.

In her police statement, the woman says she “said no at least 50 times” and admitted being drunk.

As much as I’d like to attribute the rather horrific judgment of these protesters (and the fact that this reporter notes one of the factors that classifies this event as sexual assault as something the survivor “admitted” to) to the ass-backward culture that is my hometown, the truth is, it could have happened anywhere, and I’ve heard plenty of similar stories from other places. I can’t wrap my mind around it, but on a fairly regular basis, people actually get together and protest the fact that someone has been accused of sexual assault, without knowing a thing about the case.

The irresponsibility of this just blows my mind.

What if these protesters are right, and the sexual assault didn’t happen? Well, that is a truly awful situation. This poor guy is really going through hell, and this will be a tough year for him. But you know what? He’ll eventually be vindicated in court, and he’s obviously got lots of friends who support him. He’s going to be able to put his life back together. Of course, the media reports about the protest that will forever be google-able will make that a bit harder, but I think he’ll move on.

The protest, by the way, won’t have any impact on what happens to him with regard to imprisonment or deportation. I’ll leave the discussion of my utter frustration with protests that have no clear objective or possibility of success for another post, but suffice it to say, even if this guy is innocent, the protesters are wasting their time. The only person they could possibly have a meaningful effect on is… drumroll…

The accuser.

If the assault didn’t happen and this woman made a false report, she’s probably pretty mentally ill, and it’s hard to predict what the effect of such a protest would be on her. Someone who is delusional, for example, would have a different response than someone with borderline personality disorder. Whatever the case, I don’t see the protest as being terribly helpful.

And what if the assault did happen?

Well, I imagine that after being raped by someone, it might be somewhat traumatic to have a bunch of people protesting on his behalf. In fact, I’d venture to say that seeing such a protest—a protest to benefit someone who caused you one of the worst traumas of your life—would be the sort of soul-crushing event that would give you some permanently troubling questions about the human race.

The rate of false reports of rape is in the single digits, percentage wise. Those aren’t the kind of odds to be playing when the stakes are this high.