Thank you for your more nuanced and thoughtful response.
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[ATTACH=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“small”,“data-attachmentid”:10099655}[/ATTACH]JW Ring.jpg
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You’re right…for far too long people refused to see and deal with the bad…letting the good justify the despicable. I’m glad we are no longer okay with justifying sexual predators…and that the “pendulum” IS swinging in the other direction…
But, I’m also not okay with it swinging to the other extreme…to an extreme where people that ‘should have known because how couldn’t they?’ are labeled as accessories. To an extreme where someone that says:
She has already interviewed a number of the girls who have said that they were abused. One even said she was raped. OF COURSE, THAT IS INDEFENSIBLE, HORRIBLE AND DESPICABLE. I do not think anyone is saying it isn’t. Jimmy did what he wanted to and that included underage girls.
That part of Jimmy I despise. But there were other parts of Jimmy which should be noted if one is to get a true picture of what it was like to be at Flintridge during that time.
is labeled as defending pedophiles/sexual predators. Or to the extreme that when another someone says ‘they couldn’t have all known’ and is told she is victim blaming.
I did but only because my dad went to Flintrjdge to play golf at a nearby club with his co worker who lived right up the hill from the riding club. We visited that family (lovely home on a bridle path), several times while the guys golfed and we had fancy lunch as friends guests at the riding clubhouse once. I was 13ish and it was over 50 years ago. Thought it was part of the same club at the time, didn’t care much. We lived 20 miles away and couldn’t afford a horse at all, let alone Flintridge membership on top of that.
Never gave that much thought over the years. sorry for confusing the thread even if it has nothing to do with the subject. I got a horse about 5-6 years later and started showing around 1970. First A show couple of years later then showed up until 79 or so up and down the coast. Disciplines showed together, had great friends in ASBs and HJ, I showed Western and we partied together. It was a small world. Miss everybody being together, learn a lot from each other’s disciplines…see things and get the dirt too.
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@Release First Unfortunately the resolution on that isn’t good enough to read. Maybe if I had younger eyes…
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Yea and I don’t know how to fix it. Bottom line is that they are renaming the Jimmy Williams Arena and calling it Ring 1. They are taking all connections with Jimmy out of their advertising. A DVD that was in production was halted. They will make sure that all complaints are investigated and that members will be safe while there.
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I do not believe that if anyone came forward years ago and tried to tell what was going on, that they would have been believed, and anything done about this sexual predator.
Look at the ages of the women coming forward and talking now, and how some have slandered them, and said horrible things about why they were victimized. Children, young women, and even adults weren’t believed then, and many don’t believe them now.
Look at the Nassar sexual assaults, and how many of the parents, and authorities refused to believe anything happened. There are reports that fourteen people at MSU were told, and had reports, and did nothing. Look at the reports on Nassar, and how many people who had constant contact with him over the years are ‘shocked’, and knew nothing.
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MVP wrote, " . . . had this been handled right at the time, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now." LadyJ79 referred to “nuanced and thoughtful responses.”
These points are what my posts are driving at. We need more thought and nuance to understand this situation fully and truthfully. And why it wasn’t “handled right” at the time.
Aside from all the concerns about power, embarrassment, culture, causing victims of sexual abuse to be silent, which is well understood, I don’t get where the parents were. Where all of them were, all the adults. And how attentive to their children were these parents? No loving parent would sacrifice their child’s well-being for the sake of appearance or prestige. As I said before, mine would have gone straight to the police and to court, if the directors didn’t respond to a complaint and do the right thing. My experiences there during the same time frame were all positive, yet I get criticized for saying so, and for disputing the apparent belief of some that there was an evil and widespread culture of cover-up and condoning criminal behavior afoot.
There just wasn’t.
I don’t think my parents were deaf, dumb, and blind. I know they weren’t. And I wasn’t either. I knew the girls in the article, though we weren’t in the same circle of accomplishment or social standing by any means, but I wasn’t jealous of them, quite the contrary. I didn’t have any sense that something was wrong. We all were having fun, doing what we loved doing. There were literally dozens of us.
And I repeat – though it’s apparently very uncomfortable for some to hear, and leads them to another conclusion than mine – that while it’s certainly possible that something furtive and hidden was happening, it was most definitely not common knowledge. Despite what the memories of some on this forum seem to indicate, who weren’t there at the time, apparently based on what they were told by others, and by what the present grapevine is saying.
So, to repeat, why wasn’t this “handled right” at the time?! And is it being “handled right” presently?
The letter that’s been posted here from Flintridge Riding Club is just about impossible to decipher without magnifying it somehow and I don’t know how to do that. But I called a friend who is now a member and she told me it says, among other things, that the Club was not contacted by the Chronicle in advance of publication. Other than that, it seems to be forward looking describing the safeguards currently in place there for reporting misbehavior or allegations, and states that the main ring will no longer bear Jimmy’s name. That’s understandable, since I doubt any of the directors now were even members way back when, 40-45 years ago.
At the time of the incidents described in the article, the 70s, that had to be the responsibility of that group of directors. A lot of them had to be parents, and a lot of them had to be around quite a bit. Why didn’t they know about this activity? When did the parents learn of it, and why didn’t they act then?
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Oh, but it was common knowledge that he was a “ladies man.” Perhaps that depth of what that meant wasn’t known or even considered to be in that “bad” box, but it was known.
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When a ton of people come forward about something horrific that was evidently fairly common knowledge and your reaction is to attempt to nuance the situation, I just can’t. What does coming on here and saying “I was there and I never saw anything and all those victims seemed totally fine at the time” do except attempt to cast doubt on their stories. I think people are feeling guilty and defensive. For every mass pedophile scandal there are a ton of people who didn’t want to know. This is no different than the Catholic Church or USA Gymnastics, etc. etc. etc.
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Thanks for the additional details. I would honestly say that if anyone roached the mane of a horse of mine on a Tuesday, the horse would be on a trailer headed to a new barn by Wednesday at the latest.
Maybe it speaks to the culture in place at that time if he was able to pull a stunt like that without losing any customers. That might explain how he was able to pull some of the other stunts as well.
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I am sorry for the abuse you suffered. Will the NYT tell the story you say COTH won’t?
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It is common knowledge. I doubt anyone will come forward any time soon.
TWO LEA said…
Aside from all the concerns about power, embarrassment, culture, causing victims of sexual abuse to be silent, which is well understood, I don’t get where the parents were. Where all of them were, all the adults. And how attentive to their children were these parents? No loving parent would sacrifice their child’s well-being for the sake of appearance or prestige. As I said before, mine would have gone straight to the police and to court, if the directors didn’t respond to a complaint and do the right thing. My experiences there during the same time frame were all positive, yet I get criticized for saying so, and for disputing the apparent belief of some that there was an evil and widespread culture of cover-up and condoning criminal behavior afoot.
There just wasn’t.
I don’t think my parents were deaf, dumb, and blind. I know they weren’t. And I wasn’t either. I knew the girls in the article, though we weren’t in the same circle of accomplishment or social standing by any means, but I wasn’t jealous of them, quite the contrary. I didn’t have any sense that something was wrong. We all were having fun, doing what we loved doing. There were literally dozens of us.
And I repeat – though it’s apparently very uncomfortable for some to hear, and leads them to another conclusion than mine – that while it’s certainly possible that something furtive and hidden was happening, it was most definitely not common knowledge. Despite what the memories of some on this forum seem to indicate, who weren’t there at the time, apparently based on what they were told by others, and by what the present grapevine is saying.
So, to repeat, why wasn’t this “handled right” at the time?! And is it being “handled right” presently?
At the time of the incidents described in the article, the 70s, that had to be the responsibility of that group of directors. A lot of them had to be parents, and a lot of them had to be around quite a bit. Why didn’t they know about this activity? When did the parents learn of it, and why didn’t they act then?
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Just Stop. No one did Anything, and many people Knew. I KNEW that Barney Ward assaulted me. Two others knew. I said nothing. They said nothing . Horses died, others were assaulted and My silence could have assisted it. In fact, my silence was classic enabling.
Again, I am Sarah Hochschwender. Who the heck are you, because hiding behind a newly minted screen name to continue to try and validate your version of LALALAND is just lame. You didn’t know. Okay. That does not mean that others didn’t and that Williams didn’t have plenty of people enabling him.
Your passive aggressive “it’s apparently very uncomfortable for some to hear” is about as lame as it gets. For YOU it wasn’t “common knowledge”. For others it was, and still is, a nightmare. Have a nice life in your rose colored glasses.
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Horses died, others were assaulted and My silence could have assisted it. In fact, my silence was classic enabling.
Stop that right now.
Do not blame yourself for the heinous actions of others.
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Sarah, just like Ghazzu said, you did nothing wrong. You did not deserve what happened to you, and don’t ever think that there was anything you could do.
The horse killers were ruthless, and cruel, and there were a lot of people who not only knew, but arranged for killings, knew what was happening, and were a big part of why this happened. You could have done nothing to stop this.
It took a lot of effort from law enforcement to stop this. If you had said anything you not only would not have been believed, but it probably would have risked your life.
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That’s illegible
thank you you for your kind words. I actually was working at Eagle’s Nest Farm while that scum Jim Druck was harboring Tommy. So, there’s that, too. It wasn’t exactly Camelot BITD. A very small pot of stewing horrors always on the back burner which some of us smelled but couldn’t quite locate. It’s no wonder Lisa Jo made herself into someone else…
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I will say that I think it is valuable to remember the “nuances” of JW and all those who commit these acts ONLY BECAUSE it is really important to realize that just because someone is good at their job, or has other great qualities, that doesn’t preclude them from being horrible, evil, sick people.
I was just having this conversation with coworkers about an unrelated topic. We as humans tend to think (in my observation) that you can pick up on who the bad people are because they’ll be obvious about it. We don’t seem to remember that a talented doctor could possibly be harming people, or that an amazing trainer could be raping children or having horses killed for the insurance money, or that a religious leader is skimming funds.
So for that reason, and that reason alone, I think it is important to also talk about the so-called positive aspects of these people. The tricky thing is doing it in a way that points out that people aren’t an either/or, without defending the person or lessening the impact of the horrible things they did.
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Judy-Remember the Jon Edwards affair? Lisa Druck, who became Rielle Hunter was prominently mentioned in the horse killings for insurance, since her dad told Tommy the Sandman how to electrocute the horses. Ms. Hunter and her daughter live in the WEF area, in a very upscale subdivision, at least the last time I heard where she in. Her horse Henry the Hawk died during that time. The Vanity Fair articles about this are very interesting, but horribly graphic, and nauseating to read.
