Teacher Found Not Guilty of Sexual Child Molestation--And Loses
"
Paranoia strikes deep / Into your life it will creep / It starts when you're always afraid / You step out of line, the man come and take you away."
-- Neil Young and Stephen Stills of Buffalo Springfield, 'For What It's Worth,' 1966.
In certain times and certain places, being pinned with a certain label can destroy you. The label pinned on you could be Communist, or Jew, or Nazi, or Gypsy, or Witch, or Homosexual, or Pedophile, or Christian. The label doesn't matter, as long as fear and ignorance and their offspring hate go along with it. When fear and ignorance are in control, "presumed innocent until proven guilty" doesn't matter. If you're accused, you're guilty.
Former Georgia kindergarten teacher Tonya Craft, who lived with two years of accusations, hate and death threats, was cleared of all 22 counts of molestation and sexual abuse. It began--and ended--with three young girls. But her real-life trial is far from over. There are still threats against her. And her case cost Craft her job, her reputation and her home.
The charges came from when she was a kindergarten teacher at the American Chickamauga Elementary School, and one of her accusers was her own daughter. The girl claimed her mother had put medicine on her. But in a country obsessed with tracking down and destroying child molesters/pedophiles, that, and the testimony of two girls, was enough.
Two young girls were found touching each other. According to history and psychology, that is normal human behavior. But not in this time of paranoia. A monstrous, depraved, perverted adult must have done something awful and against the girls' will, so that person must be found and punished.
Fortunately for Craft, the girls were not very skilled at being consistent in telling their stories. After five weeks of trial, the court and the jury discovered the youngsters were telling the tales they had been taught by their parents. In cases like this, that sort of coaching by parents and prosecutors is commonplace. And so are the angry mobs.
Some of us recently saw an article on the Internet where a man had been arrested on suspicion of similar allegations. People posted that they wanted him raped in prison, tortured and killed. He hadn't been found guilty, hadn't been tried, hadn't even been formally charged. It didn't matter. Paranoia says attack and destroy first, ask questions later.
One of us personally knows of a case where two very young boys engaged in oral sex with each other. When questioned, one of them tied the act in with his grandfather. The child was removed, and the family went through hell. The authorities finally learned that the boy who "accused" his grandfather was not the one who initiated the act. The grandfather had nothing to do with it. Fortunately, the supposed perpetrator did not work in a school, and did not get his name blasted for public degradation on TV, radio and newspapers.
Craft was not so lucky. She is the victim of paranoid people who do not or will not understand how a child's mind works. Young children will try to get out of trouble by saying an adult told them to do something or showed them how to do it. And children will follow the promptings of adults on what is real and what is not. Even a misworded question--or something a child saw on TV--can make fantasy real in a child's mind.
As a simple example, children believe Santa Claus is real and brings presents with flying reindeer on Christmas Eve because people tell them that's real. Without the coaching of adults and older children, Santa would be no more than some white-haired man in a red suit.
Craft may never teach again, and is thinking of entering the legal profession to help others. She said, “I want to make people aware that this can happen anytime, anywhere, to anyone...(and) children that are a part of false allegations are just as devastated as children that truly are molested.”
Craft was able to get together $500,000 for a defense, but she lost her job and her home. And she lost two years when she could not even see her daughter, and rarely got to see her son. No court of law can give those lost years back--and the court will not return her money or her home.
Think for yourself. If you were accused, how much money could you raise? And if you couldn't raise it and as a result got falsely convicted, how would you handle years, maybe the rest of your life, in prison? And if you did finally "serve your time" for being innocently accused and convicted, how would you handle being proclaimed on your driver's licence and to the world on the Internet that you are a Registered Sex Offender?
We live in a time when more and more evidence shows that intimate, affectionate, skin-to-skin contact between a young child and parents, teachers and family is critical to that child's well being. And we live in a time when people are becoming increasingly paranoid about giving children the affection they desperately need for fear of being called abusers and arrested.
If we really care about children--and themselves--we will do what it suggests in the song quoted above: "We better stop, children, what's that sound? / Everybody look what's going down."
Read more at: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/37103788/ns/today-today_people/?GT1=43001#ixzz0nm5lA49t
The problem with paranoically "protecting children" is not unique to the United States. In another case this month, Sherry Sherret-Robinson who had been falsely convicted of infanicide was finally cleared in Canada. But even though innocent, her name remains on the Child Abuse Registry. Learn more at http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2010/05/sherry-sherret-so-little-resolved-still_10.html and learn about this and many more cases at http://www.fixcas.com/news/now/news.htm.
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The photo of Edith, Lorina and Alice Liddell is by Charles Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll (1832-1898).
The photo of the girl with Santa Claus is by John Boyd (1865-1941) as found at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Little_girl_with_Santa_Claus%2C_1909.jpg
The photo of the handcuffs is by Klaus with K and is described at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Handcuffs01_2008-07-27.jpg
Comments
These cases are very, very sad. When we will learn we're "protecting" the children from love? And we're punishing people for loving children. It's just wrong.
Posted by: Marie Gilbert | May 13, 2010 05:52 AM
This is sad. A person had her life destroyed for nothing. I'm disgusted.
Posted by: Vernon Avaritt | May 13, 2010 01:35 PM
I'm part of the family of course but I'm posting a comment anyway. I'm studying to be an elementary school teacher and this is so scary! It's like you have to be totally paranoid. And you don't even have to do anything! And it really could happen to anybody. The laws have to be changed!
Posted by: Lorien Loveshade | May 13, 2010 06:53 PM
Meanwhile, 16-year-old Discordian American Princess Miley Ray Cyrus did a lap dance with a judge who's her father's age http://www.tmz.com/2010/05/11/miley-cyrus-dirty-dancing-adam-shankman-movie-wrap-party-grind-so-you-think-you-can-dance
Posted by: Paranoid Paul | May 13, 2010 09:54 PM
How many people's lives have been destroyed because of paranoia? The Buffalo Springfield song is about war, but it can be about this too. Any time people let themselves be controlled by fear and lose themselves in ignorance, things like this happen.
Children need love and physical affection. They need to be held and cuddled and kissed and stroked. When people are afraid to do these things, and when children's parents are stolen from them, the poor children suffer terribly. I feel for the little ones and their parents and teachers hurt so badly by paranoia.
Posted by: TawTew the Naturally Perfumed | May 14, 2010 06:31 PM
This woman got taken
This woman was had
If you work with children
Then you must be bad.
Posted by: MJ Lover | May 15, 2010 06:04 AM
Now that she was found innocent, she shouldn't have any more problems. If everyone were filled with the love of God, cases like this wouldn't happen because nobody would be harming children.
Posted by: Christian Andy | May 16, 2010 01:32 PM
"If you're accused, you're guilty."
Why not?
Posted by: Why not? | May 18, 2010 05:49 AM
Here's how to fix the problem. Two ways.
1) Children should have no contact with adults. Let babies be raised by nobody older than 12.
1) Everybody gets spayed and neutered. No more children, no more problem.
Posted by: Rev. Bootie | May 19, 2010 12:37 AM
You're a bunch of moral degenerates who promote drugs and sex with children. You should all be arrested and shot.
Posted by: Harlen Thomas III | May 21, 2010 12:54 AM
Protest the kids, but not at the cost of families. Keep them safe from danger, not from people who love them.
Posted by: Harry the Ape | May 22, 2010 08:09 AM
Sometimes you're very funny Rev. Bootie. If you posted like this in more of your posts I'd like that.
And please, everyone, don't feed the trolls.
Posted by: TawTew the Naturally Perfurmed | May 27, 2010 07:21 PM
Excellent point. You're accused you're guilty. Should the suspect's name even be published until after trial?
Just wondering, are each of your articles written by yourself? You write like a published author. lol
Posted by: Valerie Guttenberg | October 6, 2010 05:27 AM