Catholic Priests now Police Officers History repeats itse

Take a few minutes and scan over this story titled “Broken system lets problem officers jump from job to job” written by Nomaan Merchant and Matt Sedensky for the Associated Press and tell me if it does not sound familiar.  I liken this to the story about the Catholic priest who was reported to be molesting altar boys but was never held accountable by those in supervisory positions and shipped out to other churches where they could continue to rob children of their childhood.

The story reports that “A yearlong Associated Press investigation into sex abuse by cops, jail guards, deputies and other state law enforcement officials uncovered a broken system for policing bad officers, with significant flaws in how agencies deal with those suspected of sexual misconduct and glaring warning signs that go unreported or get overlooked.  The AP examination found about 1,000 officers in six years who lost their licenses because of sex crimes that included rape, or sexual misconduct ranging from propositioning citizens to consensual but prohibited on-duty intercourse. That number fails to reflect the breadth of the problem, however, because it measures only officers who faced an official process called decertification and not all states have such a system or provided records.  In states that do revoke law enforcement licenses, the process can take years. And while there is a national index of decertified officers, contributing to it is voluntary and experts say the database, which is not open to the public, is missing thousands of names.  Some officers are permitted to quietly resign and never even face decertification. Others are able to keep working because departments may not be required to report all misdeeds to a state police standards commission, or they neglect to. Agencies also may not check references when hiring, or fail to share past problems with new employers.  In 2010, a woman sued the Grand Junction Police Department in Colorado, insisting the department erred in hiring officer Glenn Coyne and then failed to supervise him. Coyne was fired, and killed himself days after he was arrested on suspicion of raping the woman in September 2009.  That was sexual assault accusation No. 3, court records show. While Coyne was still with the Mesa County Sheriff's Office, another woman accused him of subjecting her to a strip search and groping her. The complaint came after Grand Junction had completed its background check, and Mesa County officials — who declined comment — did not investigate or inform Coyne's new employer, according to court records.

Much of what is written here is also much of what goes on in several other organizations from teachers, professors to lawyers, judges, doctors and politicians.  In the haste to not make any organization look bad or feel sorry for those who commit these crimes, we say just let them quietly slip away as if that will cause them to stop and get them on the right path to Jesus.  Only a true fool would think that not holding them to account here on earth would stop them from ever trying it again.  I can relate to the need for compassion in some cases but to allow so many compassion when they failed to consider compassion toward the victims of their crimes makes me wish to re-think.  Our only solace is the fact that no matter what you get away with here while on earth and in the flesh, you will be held account when you step in front of God to answer for your transgressions and since God can do more damage to you than man ever could, maybe that’s good enough.