Category Archives: child advocacy

May 14th Attack in Port Lavaca

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It is a quiet little neighborhood– close to the bay, an elementary school, a fire station. People felt safe there until the events of May 14th, 2013.

A local resident was brutally attacked sustaining significant injuries. Her assailant was wearing the mask pictured below.

When I first saw the mask I was afraid it was a dark and inappropriate joke. We are so accustomed to seeing the pixilated composite drawings of suspects–not the garish color of a menacing demon mask.

Do not be deceived. The mask is no joke. It is a powerful clue. Whoever attacked our friend and neighbor had been watching her, had planned his attack carefully, put a great deal of evil thinking into what he did.

I assume he is a man based on the strength and severity of the attack. I also assume that:

This mask is traceable.

He bought it somewhere.

Someone in our community can help solve this crime by providing
assistance into the origin of the mask.

Find the mask, find the man, stop the evil…before he can strike again.

Please.

Alanna Gallagher: two doors down from deadly

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I have been praying for justice for Alanna Gallagher. No child should be tortured and murdered.

I am grateful for news of progress in her case. If allegations that her 17 year old neighbor is the prime suspect are true, all parents should take note. Predators watch their prey. Alanna was a victim of proximity to evil. How well do you know your neighbors?

And how well do they know you?

The Conjuring and Haunted People

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I do not like horror movies for one simple reason: violence and pain is not entertaining.

There is too much real horror in the world for us to get our jollies from “fake” horror.

So I was intrigued when I read about The Conjuring, no real violence? Only a modicum of bloodshed? Has a man known for his scarifying horror porn turned a corner in making a scary movie with old-school methods instead of new-school exploitation?

Perhaps. But I don’t usually stray into movie review just for kicks.

The reviewer I read pointed out that most of us just say–why doesn’t the family move? That is the second time this week someone has posed that question in connection with horror. The first time the question was in response to the 7 deadliest neighborhoods in the US. A friend asked–why don’t they just move?

There is no reason why a fictional family beset by camera-funded haunts could not up and move except the placement of the crafts services table.

In real life however, the answer is right up front–poverty. People stay because they are too poor to move. The neighborhoods stay dangerous because poverty does not fund decent law enforcement.

Poverty begets crime, neglect, and the exploitation of our most vulnerable citizens.

When the money is gone so is the safety. We live in a dangerously impoverish country–little girls left in trash bins and garbage bags. Grown women murdered by a sex offender who stalked their neighborhood…then left them curled in trash bags. Kidnapping and harm.

The value of human life is plummeting in our country. Law enforcement does not keep us all safe–especially in the poorest places.

Ironic. We all know this movie will gross millions, hundreds of millions, all the while the gleaming cities of America go bankrupt, and more children die in our haunted streets.

Where could we move to be safe?

A Survivor Speaks Up:

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Sometimes I get angry when my adopted sister gives people trouble when they are just trying to help keep kids like me safe.

Sometimes you should not worry so much about other people’s stuff. You are a mother now and need to focus on being a good mother. You should not harass other people who know it is hard to be a survivor of child abuse.

Losing people

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A few days ago I received an email from a family member–normal right?

I could tell this person’s email account had been hijacked because s/he and I do not have a family relationship anymore. S/he joined the ranks of friends and family who were so chagrined by me that the relationship could not be repaired.

Close relations of crime victims often inflict terrible secondary wounds.

They are ashamed of me and my story and to preserve their “normal” life they do really wretched things.

Friends can be equally painful. They stop being friends, shrinking quietly into the shadows, not calling, not inviting our family to events. That familiar blanched look of fear…silence…gone….

I had a friend who was a sister to me. Unlike many she stuck with me through the shock, grief, and early period of survival, but she deeply disapproved of my public efforts to draw attention to what happened to us. Too public…to noisy…

She is gone. It hurts.

The list gets longer and more erratic after that–people who make their money from shepherding other people–gone or worse–cruel.

You start to rethink people. The world seems increasingly lonely.

Yesterday the Christian Post asked if it’s readers experienced loneliness. A bunch vehemently denied it–

Never! I have God! Ditto!!! Double that!

But of course I have to be the lone dissenter. I said,

Jesus experienced loneliness, why shouldn’t I?

That is my motto and I am sticking to it. But I won’t lie to you–I wish I had kept my mouth shut for my children.

They had a shot at “normal,” if it weren’t for my big mouth.

The truth will set us free…no one said it would make us look normal.

Normal is the lie.

For all of us…not just mouthy me.

The Practice of Justice

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When I mull over the latest horrendous story of a child being exploited or murdered I think–somewhere in the multiverse there is a version of me who writes a blog on great chili recipes.

I hate this beat.

But I write about it because I know that exploited children are forgotten, marginalized, stigmatized, and dismissed.

How do I know? Because my children are crime victims. It has been a lonely road for all of us. We have lost family and friends. People react with distance at best. I am not going to catalog “at worst.”

But here is the thing–my kids–the crime victims are vibrant, intelligent, compassionate, wise beyond their years.

I write for them in belief that many other children who have been victimized deserve to heal with dignity.

They deserve a voice.

If you say you are “against child abuse” but then sideline, stigmatize, and ignore actual victims you drive home a message of silence, oppression, and injustice that indeed speaks louder than words.

It all comes down to who you actually invite to your party. That is the test of justice. Ironically it is also the measure of love.

The Age Factor: Ahlittia North

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Sometimes in the effort to write about extremely difficult stories I cut corners in my clarity of purpose.

It is hard to face so many tragedies.

But this time I need to be painfully explicit:

If the news report is correct, Ahlittia’s mother was a mother by 14. Her current partner is 46.

13 year olds do not decide to have sex for kicks (with other 13 year olds). They are more likely to be the sexual targets of older men. That is rape.

When I was 13 I knew a young woman who was pregnant as a result of incest–raped by her step-father. I hope he went to jail for it, but I am not optimistic.

I do know that my schoolmate was brave and deserved more support and help than she received. To carry a pregnancy at 13…to walk through the aggression of rape by a family member…

Her child is 30 now.

When I say, good folk did nothing, I mean this–

Whatever the story of Ahlittia’s murder, her life proves that her very young mother was a victim as well.

Baby girl is gone, who will help Lisa North? And more to the point–who could have helped before her kindergartener was murdered?

What happened to Lisa was a crime.

What happened to her daughter was unspeakable. But we must learn to speak it.

Make yourself uncomfortable. Ask the hard questions. And treat the Lisa Norths of the world like kin.

Because, to quote Carson McCullers–the life you save may be your own.

–praying for Lisa.

Gizzell Kiara Ford

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I went to the Vietnam memorial with my father once. He never said much about his time in the war but I knew it was a game-changer. He combed the wall in silence looking for a name, names…when he found the one he was looking for he touched it in silence. Memories of the dead.

This is my Vietnam memorial. Gizzell Kiara Ford is on it. Beautiful child. Lost.

Alittia North–Another Child in the Trash?!

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I tried repeatedly to post the Amber alert for Alittia North. Facebook did not allow it. I can’t tell you why I did not blog about her other than a lack of information and a sinking feeling.

Now the information is grim.

No one should ever throw a child away. No one should ever treat a human life like a discarded gum wrapper.

Years ago I taught in a neighborhood where a little girl was found in a trash bin. There are no words to describe the pain of knowing a beloved child has been treated so abominably. It lowers the value of all human life and raises the haunting question–why?

It seems to me our modern record is becoming mired in the bodies of our children–young, defenseless, abused, and murdered.

Do not turn away. Do not pretend this is some kind of statistical inevitability. In every case like Alittia’s someone did something terribly wrong to a child and…a whole bunch of regular folk did nothing to stop them.