This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Live
PTR
10.2.7
PTR
10.2.6
Beta
News Articles
Post Reply
Return to board index
Post by
ElhonnaDS
Porn isn't illegal, and no innocent lives hinge on whether or not you are turned on by cake, Rank. Pedophiles will keep and use naked pictures of children for the same purposes as other people use regular porn. The porn industry sells plenty of magazines featuring naked women on their own being naked, not having any sex whatsoever, and calling it porn.
You don't know what all of those photos looked like, and neither do I.
The clerk didn't go out and tell the school, the neighbors and everyone else that they were child abusers. They called the COPS and told them the truth, which was that they had developed these pictures. The COPS, upon seeing the pictures, decided that that there was enough there to be the basis of an investigation. It wasn't just an untrained clerk who set the wheels in motion. If some idiot takes a baby picture where they are dressed as cupid and calls the cops on the photographer, the cops have the right not to pursue it. In addition to the clerk, trained law enforcement members saw the pictures and agreed that there was enough to investigate.
If the clerk had assumed they WERE child abusers, and had gone on a campaign to publicly announce that, then I would agree with you. The clerk didn't do that. They called the cops, and said we have these pictures, and I think there might be a reason to investigate. And the cops agreed with them.
If you are alone in your house, and the power is out, and you knock over a vase, it will crash. If your neighbors call the cops, they do so because they heard something that may or may not have been you being robbed, and they want to make sure you are safe. If it turns out that nothing happened, then the neighbors weren't despicable people for worrying that you might be getting robbed- they are taking a better safe than sorry approach.
So many stories of child abuse, after the fact, have thousands of people screaming, "How could you not have known? The kid slept over in their bed- why didn't you check? The kid kept saying they fell on the concrete- why didn't you investigate anyway? The kids said their parents were naked all the time- why didn't anyone go over and investigate, just to make sure?"
The answer is that it's not always black and white what definitely is and is not grounds for an investigation- that's why they do an investigation- to see exactly what is happening. I would rather see them investigate nude photos that may be nothing serious, in case they are part of a disturbing pattern (which they sometimes are), than have children murdered or pregnant with their father's children because no one wanted to get sued if the kid was making up a story, or if the kid misunderstood what their uncle was doing with them on his lap, and they can't even ask the cops to look into it without being legally punished for reporting it if they're wrong.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##ElhonnaDS##DELIM##
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
What make child pornography wrong (above and beyond whatever legal or moral weight you give to adult pornography) is that the children are not mentally mature enough to give consent to have pictures of their naked bodies preserved and/or circulated. It does not have to be strictly sexual, nor does it have to be done maliciously. You might call it innocent, but the fact of the matter is that there is a degree of privacy violation happening. Now the law allows some leeway on the matter under various circumstances, and generally innocent picture of kids in the bath being kept within the family are fine. However, the second a stranger is allowed to see those pictures, there is the real possibility of red flags being raised, and in my opinion that is far better than them not being raised, as long as the matter is dealt with within the proper channels and reasonably.
Post by
Rankkor
Then the blame lies as much in those ignorant cops as it does on that clerk.
The law doesn't have the right to play god, they make judgment calls, and if they screw up, they deserve to pay for their mistakes. This family underwent hell, not to mention the kids. That's 2 traumatized kids right there, who were taken from their parents suddenly and without explanation, and had several docs examine their genitals to look for something that wasn't there.
Are we simply to assume that the law in this case is entitled to say "whoops, our bad, sorry, no hard feelings?"
When the law screws up, they need to pay up. And I believe this family deserves a remuneration for the hell they underwent.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Then the blame lies as much in those ignorant cops as it does on that clerk.
The law doesn't have the right to play god, they make judgment calls, and if they screw up, they deserve to pay for their mistakes. This family underwent hell, not to mention the kids. That's 2 traumatized kids right there, who were taken from their parents suddenly and without explanation, and had several docs examine their genitals to look for something that wasn't there.
Are we simply to assume that the law in this case is entitled to say "whoops, our bad, sorry, no hard feelings?"
When the law screws up, they need to pay up. And I believe this family deserves a remuneration for the hell they underwent.
ElhonnaDS (I assume from reading her replies) and I have been talking about Walmart, not the cops. Sure, I think the cops did not approach the situation correctly and did not have enough evidence to justify everything they did (from what I can see). But that does not mean Walmart or the clerk were wrong or "evil" for bringing the issue to the proper authorities.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
Rank- did you see every picture taken? How can you be so sure there was absolutely no basis in any of those pictures for concern?
Also, how will you explain to the kids who are going to keep getting raped and beaten because no one wants to come forward when the law punishes people even alerting the cops when they're worried, that it's better off if they do because then innocent people won't be investigated and upset?
If the law finds an innocent person guilty, that is them messing up. If the law investigates a possible crime, that's their job. I find the assertion that someone should be punished for calling the cops when they are genuinely worried, with some basis (even if you don't believe it is enough basis) to be dangerous, and I think that it will cost a lot of kids a lot of pain if it becomes accepted.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##ElhonnaDS##DELIM##
Post by
Rankkor
So you believe that absolutely no actions should be taken against the authorities who clearly overreacted to this?
/frown.
I guess its fine to shoot 9 nuns to hit the one prostitute hiding between them. (bad analogy I know, but I'm a little tired and can't think of something better)
Post by
Monday
So you believe that absolutely no actions should be taken against the authorities who clearly overreacted to this?
/frown.
I guess its fine to shoot 9 nuns to hit the one prostitute hiding between them. (bad analogy I know, but I'm a little tired and can't think of something better)
They were saying that WALMART shouldn't be held accountable. While the police might have gone about it the wrong way, they were trying to do what is right.
Post by
Rankkor
I just hate witch-hunts. My own government does them to the extreme, and it results in a lot of innocent people suffering. It pisses me off that one bored clerk sees a couple who want to develop pictures of a family vacation, and because some children are naked in a few of them, they are clearly up to no good.
Is he gonna react that way to EVERY SINGLE NAKED CHILD PIC?
I haven't seen all of the pictures, so I'm drawing conclusions from incomplete data, I'm just basing myself on my instinct as a parent that the pictures (all of them) were clearly innocent, and didn't cast a single shadow of doubt, and this was just both the clerk, and the law overreacting, and staging a witch-hunt. I mean seirously, put the parents in the sex offender register? not even having the decency to cover their legal fees once the mistake was cleared up?
The law needs to be held accountable for their mistakes. And this includes people who overreact. I'm sorry if nobody else feels that way.
The ruined the lives of a happy family, and the only reaction I'm seeing is "meh, that's collateral damage"
Post by
ElhonnaDS
Are you serious? You want to say that murdering people is the same as investigating them, for the purposes of analogy? And that a prostitute poses the same public safety threat as a child molester? I thought you wanted to seriously discuss this.
1) Please answer my question, since you have ignored it twice. Have you seen every photo in the police file, without the kids expressions covered. If not, how can you be so sure that they did overreact.
2) Lets take your analogy down to what it really is. Someone sees someone else go into a convent, and this person has an axe. There are a lot of innocent, plausible reasons they could have the axe, but it could also be a red flag that something horrible is going to happen. The police go in, and the enter the convent and search for this person. They question him, detain him for questioning, and upon confirming that he is not a murderer, and the axe was needed for gardening, they let him go.
That is what ACTUALLY happened if you want to use the convent analogy. Some innocent people were investigated for doing something innocently that also happens to be a common red flag for people who do something dangerous. The cops came in, investigated to make sure it was innocent, and then left.
@Rank- you answered my first question. So how can you call them incompetent if you have no idea what the photos looked like. What if the kids were crying in all the photos? Why if one of them showed the kid squirming to get off someone's lap like they were upset? What if, because of a trick of the angle of the camera, or the way the kid lurched at the last second, there was a really sinister looking pose in one of them. I doubt either Wal Mart or the PD reports every naked baby picture CPS, and they see hundreds if not thousands. SOMETHING set these apart.
And there are so many more legal hoops and red tape cops get caught up in here vs. your country, that it's not a fair comparison. And we're walking about the kind of crime that is terrible, that is easy to hide, and is rampant in society. I would rather have the cops show up for innocent naked pictures, and investigate (NOT CHARGE, BEAT, JAIL, OR SHOOT, which seems to be what you seem to think they did), and make sure the kids are ok, than to have people ignore it and leave kids in horrible situations.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##ElhonnaDS##DELIM##
Post by
Rankkor
I said it was a bad analogy sis, a rather poor one. And I didn't ignored your first question, its up there on my latest post.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
I edited- reread now.
Post by
Rankkor
Just read it. this part caught my eye:
I would rather have the cops show up for innocent naked pictures, and investigate (NOT CHARGE, BEAT, JAIL, OR SHOOT, which seems to be what you seem to think they did), and make sure the kids are ok, than to have people ignore it and leave kids in horrible situations.
Ok, they showed up, they investigated. This investigation took a month. A MONTH. And it caused harm to the family. They lost a lot of money, they suffered a traumatic experience, and lets not even start on the damage this undeniably caused the girls. Now that the investigation is over, and the parents are clear, what do you think should be done about this "whoops, our bad" situation?
Nothing? the suffering of this family is just collateral damage?
Or hold the authorities accountable?
And they did charged them. They were placed in the sex offender registry which ruined the carreer of the mom so they caused a permanent damage to this family.
Its one thing that they come, investigate, find nothing wrong, and leave, and antoehr to take the kids for 30 days, put the parents on the sex offender registry, and bleed them dry of money on legal fees just to have their kids back.
sis, that's A LOT of damage they caused, do you honestly think they should get away with that? absolutely no accountability for their screw ups? that this family doesn't deserves ANY form of justice?
I'll use your analysis of the convent analogy (which again, was a poor one on my end)
Someone sees someone else go into a convent, and this person has an axe. There are a lot of innocent, plausible reasons they could have the axe, but it could also be a red flag that something horrible is going to happen. The police go in, and the enter the convent and search for this person. They question him, detain him for questioning, and upon confirming that he is not a murderer, and the axe was needed for gardening, they let him go.
That is what ACTUALLY happened if you want to use the convent analogy.
Would you feel the same way if they take away the man with the axe, place him on the criminal database, hold him in custody for 30 days, costing him his job, and his family has to pay a lot of money in legal fees to get him released.
Another "whoops, our bad".
Post by
ElhonnaDS
There are several legal premises at work here, Rank.
1) They don't punish people for trying to follow the law in good faith. These parents didn't do anything wrong. Neither did the clerk in reporting- in fact, in some states, NOT reporting is actually a crime. The law establishes that if someone is acting in good faith, and trying to follow the law, then they aren't punished for it. The clerk may or may not have been smart about what they considered incriminating, but there is no doubt in my mind that they did think it was incriminating. In such cases, the law says call the cops, and let them investigate. The law will not exact damages from someone for reporting something they suspect to be criminal, even if they happen to be wrong, because there is nothing wrong legally or morally in reporting suspicions like this to the police.
2) In addition to the inherent premise that reporting suspected crimes to the cops is a good thing to do, there are a number of laws specifically enacted to protect people who come forward legitimately to report or testify against people accused of crimes because it protects society as a whole. They will punish someone for lying, or for reporting someone they know is innocent when they have another agenda, but other than that the law makes sure that there are no penalties for coming forward with legitimate concerns, because otherwise people won't and a lot of innocent people will get hurt.
Lets say that the couple wins the appeal. And as a result, there is a huge headline that hundreds of thousands of people read, about how some woman reported a couple because she was worried about the naked pictures they took of their kids, and it cost her her house. And as a result of that, 3000 people who would have reported something suspicious (bruises on a kid, a naked picture, a suspicious drawing or story a kid made) decide they can't afford to lose their house, so they'll ignore it. Of those 3000 cases, that the cops now never know to investigate, 100 were legitimate. 50 of those kids are dead now because the law punished one person for not being right in her suspicions. 25 have a permanent injury like brain damage, or a crippled limb. 25 grow up and after years of sexual abuse their lives are never normal. All of that is the result of the legal system not protecting people who report suspicions of abuse when they have a legitimate reason to do so. All of that is why the law shouldn't punish people who make reports to the authorities in good faith that they are worried about someone breaking the law.
3) Child abuse cases take longer to investigate, because often there is more than just one crime scene to look at. The cops have to do interviews, with the people around the family, and look for further signs of abuse. They have to subpoena medical records, they have to give the children time away from the parents to feel safe enough to confide in a counselor or another family member. They have to make sure that they don't give kids back to abusive parents because the parents have hidden the abuse too well.
The reason they take the kids is because there are laws that require it. In earlier times, kids would tell someone, or someone would suspect abuse, and the parents would talk to the cops and deny it. Then the cops would leave, and the child would be horribly hurt, or killed, because the parent takes out their anger on them. Enough of these cases occurred that the law recognized that they needed to have procedures in place to prevent it. For an innocent family, that month is heartbreaking. For a guilty one, it saves lives. The law decided the latter was worth the former.
4) In order to get to this point, these photos had to go through a number of steps:
1) A photo clerk- who by nature of their job probably see hundreds of kids photos, many in diapers or naked, was disturbed enough by this particular set of photos to call the cops. There is no indication the clerk had a personal vendetta, that there was some kind of malicious issue. And since getting the cops involved at work is a huge hassle for any company, the clerk's life could have been easier if they hadn't said anything (unless the law was such that they NEEDED to say it). The only reason they could have had to report it is genuine concern.
2) The responding officers, who would likely have dealt with this kind of thing a number of times before, saw them as red-flag-raising enough to take the complaint and forward it to CPS.
3) CPS (child protective services) is staffed with social workers and therapists who specialize in child abuse, and they were convinced enough that the photos bore an investigation that they went through a month of it.
4) After the parents were found innocent, they sued Walmart and lost. Which means a jury of their peers who saw the photos ALSO agreed that there was enough there that the clerk was reasonable for calling the cops.
That's a lot of layers of people with a lot of experience/expertise with these things, or with no reason to pick one side over the other besides the truth, who sided with the clerk on this.
The only people who are siding with the parents seem to be the parents, and a journalist. Compared to who fell on the other side, I'm not really ready to cry foul on the other side.
For someone who has such a hatred of witch hunts, Rank, you're sure ready to call one based on one interview with these parents, when every other professional and juror who has been involved thus far, who has had access to all of the information that we don't have, has sided against them. Not against them that they were abusive, but against them that the clerk had enough of a reason to reasonably suspect that they were, and call the cops, based on those photos.
I understand that you hate law enforcement. And there are a lot of cases where our system screws up. But I think you're jumping all over this one when all of the signs point against it being one of those. Just because someone is innocent doesn't mean that there wasn't cause for an investigation. And if we fine every person who ever investigates or reports someone and then the investigation shows they are innocent (or in many cases, that there is just not enough evidence to convict despite them being guilty) then the system doesn't function, and the law can't protect anyone because no one will come forward.
Remember you told me that a lot of people wanted Chavez out, but too many were worried about losing their job or their house to do the right thing. That's what the law wants to keep from happening in everyday legal matters. They want people to not worry about doing the right thing and then having their lives destroyed because there isn't enough evidence, or the jury doesn't convict, or the things that they saw had reasonable explanations that they didn't know about.
And for your example, if someone sees someone enter a back door with and axe and calls the cops, and in their attempt to verify he works there and isn't a psycho, he misses his next appointment and loses his job, that sucks. But because the neighbor had a reason to worry, and because I don't want 50 other people who see someone taking a weapon into a house through the back door to turn a blind eye because they're protecting themselves, I agree that in that case, it's "Oops- too bad." And, the couple wasn't IN custody for 30 days- they were being investigated for 30 days, which unfortunately is what it has to be to protect kids in these kinds of cases.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##ElhonnaDS##DELIM##
Post by
Rankkor
Sis, I am talking about what do we do now that this is all over. Are the parents supposed to be left like that? The law made a mistake, and NOTHING is to be done about it?
For someone who has such a hatred of witch hunts, Rank, you're sure ready to call one based on one interview with these parents
I'm not. I'm not asking that the arresting officer gets jail time, or pays an exorbitant amount of money.
The point of what I'm trying to say here, is that this family was wronged. Do you not believe they deserve SOMETHING to make up for the hell they were put through? or do you honestly believe that their suffering is just collateral damage taht must be ignored?
I'm not saying a specific individual has to be scapegoated to make this family feel better. I'm saying that hte state owes this family A LOT for whta they put them trhough, and they deserve some compensation for the many damages wrongly caused.
I'm just putting myself on the shoes of the other side here, and imagining what would it feel like to be accused of a crime I didn't made, receive punishment for it, and when asking for some semblance of justice, have it denied.
Ohhhh wait.............. it already happened to me. It makes me biased to this case, I know ,but that's the way I feel about it.
And again, because it needs be said, this doesn't mean a specific individual needs to be scapegoated, the STATE of arizona owes this family compensation for the damages. At the very VERY least they should give them the 75.000 dollars they spent in legal fees. Don't you agree with at least that much?
Post by
ElhonnaDS
Rank- I don't know how else to explain it.
The state has to be able to investigate things. If they can't keep people safe, it's not much of a state. If they had to pay restitution to every person who was fairly and legally investigated and tried, and found innocent, then they would not have the money to function. If the parents had been caused these fees because someone had done something that was wrong, then they would be entitled.
But if everyone involved did the right thing from a legal standpoint, followed procedure, and based on the information they had were doing the morally right thing, then no, they don't owe them anything. Because the state paying is really us paying. I'm as innocent in this as the parents- why do I have to make restitution to them? Sometimes unfortunate things happen that are no one's fault- a tree falls on a car, someone gets sick, there is mistaken identity that costs someone money. Law can't punish people for doing the right things based on the evidence, and being wrong.
And, Rank, seeing a family go through losing a four-year-old in a horrible, horrible way because no one picked up on the signs in the mother's boyfriend until it was too late has already happened to me, so maybe that makes me biased against people who want to weaken the structures in place to catch child abusers. I want people who see things to be able and encouraged to come forward. I want governments that are already being slammed for not having enough of a budget devoted to investigating child abuse and letting kids fall through the cracks to not be unable to pursue these investigations because of the money. I'll trade 100 kids lives for a couple of innocent families legal expenses any day and sleep well at night.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##ElhonnaDS##DELIM##
Post by
Rankkor
Then we have a different interpretation of justice sis. I dunno what else to say.
I don't believe in people making mistakes and not owning up to them. I also don't believe in the law having the right to play god without repercussions.
That's more or less all I have to say about this.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
I don't believe that someone doing the best job they can, following every law, and trying to protect children the best way they can, who based on reasonable cause go through the task of collecting evidence until they are satisfied that the kids are safe, have made any mistakes they need to own up to.
Post by
Rankkor
I'll trade 100 kids lives for a couple of innocent families legal expenses any day and sleep well at night.
Even if that family is your own? its easy to say it when it doesn't happen to you, but when you're a victim of the law making a mistake, its hard to be passive about this.
As I've said before, I'm biased on this, because I've already been punished by the law, wrongly, for a crime I didn't made, and received absolutely ZERO compensation for it. So seeing it happen to someone else angers me, and as a parent I imagine how would I react if someone did to me what they did to that family.
Post by
Eccentrica
I have to weigh in here on Rankkor's side. Yes, children need to protected. Allegations need to be investigated. Cases need to be tried and the guilty need to be punished.
However, when the state is wrong it shouldn't be the innocent who are punished, who are left holding the bag and paying for the mistake. We don't live in Banana Republics for heavens sake. This family is due compensation, at the minimum for their legal expenses. I'm sure their state legislature could forgo one martini and cigar lunch to cover it.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
You do realize that the money would come out of the operating budget of Child Services or whatever agency is involved, right? There isn't some evil rich guy who's making money off this family's misfortune.
Post Reply
You are not logged in. Please
log in
to post a reply or
register
if you don't already have an account.