Betty Owens was kidnapped on her way to a school function, raped repeatedly by four white males, and it could have been worse if her friends had received help from a young white police officer ( Lesson 4/13). Officer Joe D. Cooke Jr. was on duty when Betty Owens' friends came to her aid, and instead of doing what many white police officers had done before, he ran to her aid (McGuire, p. 163). What is astonishing about this case is the fact that not only were these men arrested and jailed by a white man, but that they were threatened with being shot for their crimes against Miss. Owens (McGuire, p. 163). The fact that the white boys were arrested on the spot and spent the days leading up to the trial in jail was also something this case had never happened before in the southern states. That said, Miss Betty Owens was extremely fortunate that Officer Cooke was on duty and not the Chief of Police as it was well known that the only reason he remained in power was by sparking racial tensions (McGuire, p. 161). In Florida this case was the first of its kind as it was the first all-white jury to convict a white man, let alone four, of raping a black woman, this was another important step in the movement for civil rights but, more importantly, a step in the right direction for feminist movements. The rape of white women has always been a grave outrage and has meant death for the perpetrator, but with each of these very public cases the outrage against any man who committed violence against women, of any race, has grown , culminating in the Joan Little case that failed. the last remnant of the Jim Crow law (Lecture