PART I – Six Sisters Sue, including their former Pastor
Am I supposed to “take it on faith” that major DV organizations care who lives, who dies, and which children are being molested by their own,while their church-going parents know damn well that no one’s going to report, as mandated.
More than the care about their program funding and absolutely fantastic websites . . . .
MEANWHILE: Look at this article by Malaika Fraley of the Contra Costa Times:
By Malaika Fraley
Contra Costa Times
© Copyright 2012, Bay Area News Group
Posted: 05/16/2012 10:16:47 AM PDT
|
|
|
ABC30.com
-
San Jose Mercury News – 4 days ago
Ranging in age from 9 to 16, six sisters had been sexually abused by … Child Protective Services went to the Dutro sisters’ Antioch home Aug.
ANTIOCH — Ranging in age from 9 to 16, six sisters had been sexually abused by their parents virtually every day since they were toddlers before finding hope in 1995 that their nightmare would end.
Instead, they say, it grew more horrific as the people they counted on to rescue them — police, child-welfare workers, their church pastor — failed to deliver.
A year after their parents were imprisoned for sex crimes spanning 20 years, the Dutro sisters — Glenda Stripes, Amber and Sarah Dutro, Martha McKnelly, Frances Smith and Christina Moore — are now suing the people and agencies they say failed to protect them as children by not following laws and procedures for handling child abuse.
Child Protective Services went to the Dutro sisters’ Antioch home Aug. 18, 1995, after police had garnered two confessions from their pedophile father because 14-year-old Glenda had disclosed to a church pastor that she was being molested. Had they been given a moment alone with social workers, the sisters say, they would have told them they had been tortured for 16 days in preparation of the CPS visit, after the pastor had tipped off their parents days before calling police.
But CPS, like police, never talked to them apart from their parents, and a light punishment for their rapist father only exacerbated their hellish existence.
|
|
|
1995. SEVEN YEARS LATER, in 2002, SARAH Dutro (then a teen) gives the pastor a full history of abuse, trying to spare others:
The lawsuit, filed in Contra Costa Superior Court last week against Contra Costa County, city of Antioch, Calvary Open Bible Church in Antioch, and seven individuals who are either current or former CPS, police department or church employees. It alleges the defendants were negligent and failed to fulfill state-mandated duties that, if done, would have spared the Dutro children years of further abuse.
One defendant, Calvary pastor Anthony Lee, is named for not contacting police or CPS when a teenage Sarah Dutro gave him a full history of the abuse in 2002 in an effort to stop her mother, Glenda Lea Dutro, the church’s youth adviser before her arrest, from hosting sleepover parties for children from the congregation at the Dutro house.
|
|
|
Bruce Dutro was the primary sexual abuser, while Glenda Lea Dutro facilitated the crimes, often handpicking children for her husband. Both parents physically, psychologically and verbally abused and neglected the children, two of whom are biological nieces that the Dutros obtained legal guardianship of and raised as their daughters from ages 3 years and 18 months.
|
|
|
A THIRD time, the girls spoke up, this time to protect young children from Mexico. FYI — a lot of evangelical protestant churches in California (I can’t speak for Catholics) seem to love to head down to Mexico for missionary work. Supposedly:
For some of them, the sexual abuse lasted into their early 20s.
The parents were arrested in 2009 after an eight-month investigation launched by Antioch police after the sisters came to the department for the third time. The sisters said they were hesitant, having been burned by authority figures before, but anxious that their parents were working with the church to adopt a family with small children from Mexico.
Deputy district attorney Graves and Antioch police Officer Blair Benzler restored their faith in the criminal justice system by getting the 2011 conviction
|
|
|
Let’s go over this again. The first reporting was 1995. The conviction was 2011. Let’s call that one full generation of nonresponse…
I think many women who have been to domestic violence support groups will verify with me that there are loads of Christian women in there, and some of them married to a pastor or a prominent deacon. I am a Christian, but as a result of what I also have seen as to “coverups” I will not attend. Why should I support such an institution, whether it’s Opus Dei related or similar to this crap, above. There IS NO EXCUSE, and this is a hallmark of such groups — their mandated reporters, for the most part, don’t. I was being assaulted in the home in the 1990s, and sought help from plenty of pastors (not only them, but they knew). This is what happens: some churches are taught to imitate their leaders. So there’s a collective silence.
Then, here comes the narcissistic domestic violence agencies and — because they’re into technical assistance and training, and are authorities, “surely” the leadership in the faith communities will respond to their really cool sensitivity trainings, and start sticking up for women. Actually, if the faith community never does respond, it hardly matters — because the primary activity (other than helping run shelters) these groups are into is training and publicizing. So long as that can continue, who cares if the agenda isn’t working, and is guaranteed NOT to work?
Do they seriously think none of the faith authorities read a tax return, program goal? For example, when PCADV’s reads:
(TAX RETURN 2009) purpose: (#3) “To expose the roots of domestic violence in the institutionalized subservience of women in this culture.
|
|
. . .that the Bible-toting evangelical communities (some of who are also in on the faith and fatherhood grants streams) are going to buy that line of thinking? There are still plenty of groups around who don’t let women speak from the pulpit, and are actively coaching men in how to control their women. And they aren’t going to go “feminazi” talk especially when it comes to LGBT matters? Even the book of Genesis is pretty clear (let alone of how it’s further bastardized in practice and preaching) – the trouble with Eve was her independence from her husband, and conversing with ‘the serpent.’
excerpt, talking about “Emotional Abuse.”
✔controlling and/or limiting her behavior (e.g., keeping her from using the phone or seeing friends, not letting her leave the room or the house, following her and monitoring/limiting her phone conversations, checking mileage on her car, or keeping her from reading material, activities and places that he does not approve of)
✔ interrupting her while she is eating, forcing her to stay awake or waking her up
✔ blaming her for everything that goes wrong
ALL of these (and a lot more) were routine in my years of marriage, and going too far afield DID result in retaliation when I got home. He also retaliated upon the children in attempt to sabotage some of my work relationships by simply not showing up in time to watch them when it was known I had to go, not enough gas in the car to get back home from the event, sleep deprivation or interruptions (to be shouted at, or lectured), or trashing the house while I was out.
A leopard doesn’t change his spots through sitting through classes, before or afterwards, and GRRrrrreat way to continue control post-domestic violence is for the courts to order joint legal and/or joint physical custody. This basically means people can’t get away.
Someone has to TRULY not understand the religious minds in what’s going on (talking, USA, today) to believe that this stuff would change a pastor’s attitude, or a church’s. For example — do we not yet understand how the Unification Church has been pushing “True Parents” and the healthy marriage/fatherhood programming, or politically how much Sun Myung Moon’s funding of the far right (meaning, conservative religion) is going on? Have we not read anything by Jeff Sharlett (“The Family” re: the Bushes) The Dominionists, I mean, even some mainstream are starting to catch the drift, here http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/14/dominionism-michele-bachmann-and-rick-perry-s-dangerous-religious-bond.html; I’m not sure I’d agree with that’s where it comes from, alone (referring to the 1960s and Rushdoony. It’s been around before. Like, say, “A.D. 381” or earlier….}}
Meanwhile, the theory that people can be trained out of bad behavior by enlightened education — and not something like, for example, if it’s a church that has been complicit in covering up child abuse, domestic violence, etc. — the pastor’s out and the church loses it’s nonprofit status pretty quickly if that pastor AIN’T out. They fire pastors for less than this, so it shouldn’t be a hard concept to grasp if it’s presented with teeth not just “T&A” or rather “technical assistance and training.”
I hope these sisters win every dime they’re entitled to and that the public gets so sick of paying settlements for failures of their own officials that they decide to take a stand voluntarily against child abuse right where it counts– and that includes in the churches. I’m saying this as a woman who reported to immediate family first (who were worse than useless initially), and my own pastor at the time, weeks later after another, similar, only worse incident occurred. Both were in my home. Both were with a toddler in the home at the time, a close witness, and both were while I was pregnant and involved me being thrown to the floor, straddled, slapped repeatedly IN THE FACE while being shouted at by this guy.
It got worse from there . . .. And as I have daughters, I am also seriously concerned (as we speak) about my own family member’s obsession with them, and manic need to keep me from having a real relationship with my own kids. It’s known that there is incest in an involved family line (actually ,two involved family lines) as well, although it was not an allegation in our family law case.
Some churches may be decent, but many are hellish, and I mean that in the truest sense of the words. Like batterers, they don’t come out drooling and spitting, but smooth and empathetic many times. On the inside, it’s pretty much like Jesus said — whited sepulchers. And maybe for some, ignorantly. . . . . . Let’s put it this way — what those sisters said is entirely credible (as a possibility) based on my own awareness of this situation, and my own case history. I know how it goes.
Just a reminder — the Jaycee Dugard case also came from the same town, Antioch.
Malaika Fraley and the Contra Costa times should be commended for this reporting. I intend to follow up when I’m less deeply affected by it, which doesn’t make for very good writing, here.
PART II
Over at Scranton Political Times recently, as more evidence that a GAL is recommending custody of little children be switched to fathers who injure mothers, or later get convicted of raping other minors, I have some more commentary — from today. Others (who live in the area) have said that a recent man arrested for raping a teenager over many years, also had his own custody case involving both DV and child abuse; he got custody. Search “Tunkhannock” or “Maurice Hunting” on the site, it’ll show up. Meanwhile, I’m talking about Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence and one of their subgrantees (who is in Scranton), the “Women’s Resource Center” — below. Hopefullly there’s enough to chew on. I discuss the HHS grants some as well (easier to view on the forum than below): Notice all the earmarks:
http://scrantonpoliticaltimes.activeboard.com/f319624/main-message-board/
dare you to scrutinize these grants:
Like, grant 90XP0223 ($85K in 2008, $297K total, congressional earmark)
“a training, education, and prevention institute on domestic violence and homicide prevention”
from “Washington Watch“
Prevention, Education and Training Institute Project
$250,000
Sen. Robert P., Jr. Casey (PA) requests $250,000 for:
Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence (PCADV)
Harrisburg, PA
“For the first time, USReps are required to publish their requested earmarks ONline” Rep Holden D-17 requested $377 for this:
PRESS RELEASE on creating this institute, with Case & Specter
A big one is the “National Resource Center on DV” (marked “Discretionary” — most are). $8 million over 5 years (HHS)
Since 2005:
| Award Number: |
90EV0353 |
| Award Title: |
DEMO PROJECT FOR ENHANCING SERVICES FOR CHILDREN EXPOSED TO DV ** |
| OPDIV: |
ADMINISTRATION FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES (ACF) |
| Organization: |
FAMILY AND YOUTH SERVICES BUREAU (FYSB) |
| Award Class: |
DISCRETIONARY ($350K so far) |
**popular now, why not expand (note: how could Penn State Univ have ever happened, Sandusky, with this giant communicator & trainer, PCADV in the same state, Harrisburg?)
They already have a “National Resource Center” which is primarily on-line links to publications (as far as I can tell). But why stop a good thing? So here’s $750K or so more, do start up another one:
| Award Number: |
U1VCE324010 |
| Award Title: |
NATIONAL ON-LINE RESOURCE CENTER FOR VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN |
| OPDIV: |
CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION (CDC) |
| Organization: |
NATIONAL CENTER FOR INJURY PREVENTION AND CONTROL (NCIPC) |
| Award Class: |
COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT |
( $728K since 2007, small so far).
Goal of the National Resource Center (since 1994):
“To change belief systems and practices that support violence and abuse that disproportionately affects women, and other marginalized people, the DVAP recognizes and promotes the participation of the entire community in building social intolerance towards domestic violence…”
Flowchart — interesting:
Here’s a profile from a group that tracks nonprofit salaries, revenues, etc (EERI), up through 2004. Its contributions and its revenues are about equal (??), and ca. $26 million (see bar chart). SO WHAT IS IT SELLING?
TAX RETURN 2009 shows one of its purposes (#3) “To expose the roots of domestic violence in the institutionalized subservience of women in this culture.
|
|
Like this:
Like Loading...
Helping Rural Battered Women and Their Children:
Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 
