I have a boat load of caveats. This is a nuanced opinion, and if I share it in a blunt way, I will do more harm than good.
(Deep breath)
The crimes done here are reprehensible. Even if they are judged to be technically legal, the emotional damage has already been done. For the life of me I can’t speak to monetary damages, since money rarely makes up for trauma. It can, however it generally doesn’t.
Persuing justice helps many people with closure, and moving through the stages of grief. It is important, but yet again doesn’t change the fact they were assaulted. Nothing changes that. It will be with them for the rest of their lives.
Given that restitution is being sought, and justice is being sought, I emphatically hope the women in this story seek talk therapy. It doesn’t take away the pain, nothing will. However the coping mechanisms can be a powerful tool for moving forward.
It is fucked up. Vengeance and retribution has its place. Justice has its place. Healing has its place. More than anything I hope the scales tip slightly in the direction of healing.
(As an aside, I constantly ask myself, why do we do this to each other? I have no answers.)
FWIW, the text above does say that the girls are receiving counseling, and that they chose to push forward with charges in hopes of stopping future abuses.
And given the uphill battle for justice they face, it stands to reason that this has happened many times and gone unreported. Moreover, sexual predators this deliberate are rarely one-time offenders. You can bet he’s probably raped other girls who were too afraid to speak out against him.
The majority of the disgust I feel about this centers on the fact that I am totally, completely, 100% not surprised in the utter least that this happened, or that it happens frequently. CBP is full of the scum of the earth, who are proud that they are the scum of the earth.
I’m betting that most people here think that they’re fair and honest people. How long could the average person here deal with being in uniform? Broken departmental policy etc… aside, the sheer degree of human trauma that you’d deal with on a daily basis would destroy anyone with any significant level of empathy. You’d either have to be a truly selfless completely compassionate person, or some sort of sociopath to be able to deal with it.
I’m not in uniform or any kind of public service, but I have to walk through some of the worst blocks of the Tenderloin almost daily, and just being in the vicinity of so many untreated/undertreated addicts and severely mentally ill and hopelessly impoverished grinds on you. You can actually feel it damaging something in you. As you say, only saints and sociopaths are equipped for such an environment, and I don’t think even the saints are real psyched about it. Jesus didn’t wake up in the morning eagerly looking forward to washing lepers’ rotting feet after a hearty breakfast.
