I have a friend who was accused of sexual harassment at a community college and the claimant was over 18. No arrests. No suspension. I don’t recall if the claim included sexual contact, but it included alleged comments made about the claimant’s body parts in front of a class of 100 students. The union stepped up with consultation and provided the funds for an attorney. So, yes, the union was a major help here. The claimant’s attorney could find no one in that class of 100 who had heard the alleged remarks so, for that reason and others, the claim was ruled unfounded. As far as I know there was no tracking. Not quite the same situation because no minors were involved.
@Texarkana - thanks for both of your responses from the perspective of both racing and teaching suspensions! It really does put things in perspective. Especially the complaints regarding how “unfair” everything to do with all things SafeSport is for all these poor trainers from the 70s and 80s…
No system for any profession or sport is perfect. If we all demanded perfection all the time, we would all be unemployed and completely sedentary and totally uninvolved with any sports.
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I can understand this reality.
There do seem to have been multiple current clients of RG, and other people who had him come to give clinics who knew he was currently suspended, and the fact that it had gone from temporary status to a permanent decision with the opportunity for appeal was out there for months. So these folks had the opportunity to reconsider their choice to clinic or train with him, but decided to continue their professional relationship anyway. Who knows how that would have played out over time if more victims came forward, if the appeal was denied, or if a victim decided to come forward publicly with their story.
Not being able to show or take students to shows, or judge, or work as a course designer would be an enormous problem - I do understand that. But in the event Safe Sport investigations didn’t drag on for months and months, but were concluded relatively rapidly and no further action taken, it seems like professionals would be less harmed. If that makes sense.
As far as show officials needing to know who is on a temporary suspension… I guess that’s valid. I hope that show organizers are relying on “up to date” lists from USEF though when trying to make sure people who are on temporary or permanent suspensions are not participating… and not just looking at public website info. Plenty of websites have delays in updating info published for many different reasons. So it seems like USEF could keep temporary suspensions unpublished, but make the info available to show organizers.
There are no simple easy fixes I guess though for any of these issues.
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I have lost a lot of respect for many people, both on COTH and FB, over this.
Also, the people yelling about constitutional rights show exactly what is wrong with our country. It shows a complete ignorance of what is and isn’t a constitutional right.
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See, I’m torn. If they are interim suspending and then releasing the suspension anyway so these people can go to shows (and continue to molest if they are guilty) then the names are just put out in press releases to create hoopla around the names. (USEF didn’t need to send out the email blasts naming these people. They could come up as suspended with no reason given on the website). And the investigator I spoke to was CLEARLY not trained as she gave out information that a highly trained one would not have given out. She also as me leading questions. It was obvious they were hoping to guide me. Thankfully, I had screen shots and a phone call recording to back up my testimony.
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As I understand it, thise people currently on interim suspensions can not be released from suspension go to USEF governed shows until the investigation has been completed exonerating them,
They are free to continue to operate their business outside anything under USEF governance, some have done quite well doing that. Buying and selling, at home lessons, sometimes lessons at shows on off days, training, clinics. Whatever.
Unrelated to this and SS but today a local to me school district announced charges had been filed against a male elementary school teacher accused of molesting over 20 youngsters over some period of time. Somebody had to know something or been told something by their child with that many kids over however long it went on. Yet it was allowed to continue. No details about the victims were released to the public and none will be according to the DA.
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OK, you lost me-- when you say “interim suspending and then releasing the suspension anyway so these people can go to shows,” are you referring to situations where there was an interim suspension that did not result in a sanction, or are you saying USEF/SafeSport allows people to go to shows while on the interim suspension list? 
Because the latter is not suppose to happen from everything I have seen in the training and read in the policies. That would be very concerning.
In the case of the former, where a person is not sanctioned-- someone conducting misconduct should be found “guilty” in the investigation process and a sanction (aka temporary or permanent ineligibility) should be applied. When they are releasing people, it should only be because the investigators found the accusation was unfounded; no evidence misconduct occurred.
I’m really sorry to hear that the investigator you spoke to was not trained. I know that probably adds to your skepticism of the process. With no experience with SafeSport investigators, but lots of experience with law enforcement, all I can say is that sometimes individuals in law enforcement stink at their jobs, too… I hope SafeSport evaluates their employees and retrains/removes those doing a poor job.
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This person received an email on a Thursday PM saying they were suspended via safesport. Friday USEF put out an email blast naming this person. Monday AM they contacted safesport. The suspension was lifted during the investigation. Investigation is still going on. Person is able to compete until safesport gives an official yay or nay. There are many factors to my skepticism but I can’t speak publicly until the investigation is complete. I don’t want any backlash on this person.
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That sounds like a major USEF liability if it is indeed occurring AND it is a case regarding sexual misconduct.
One area where SafeSport makes things a little murky (for me) is with cases of abuse of a non-sexual nature. They say they may address them, or may refer them to the NGB. You don’t necessarily need to answer this (since you probably can’t/shouldn’t), but I wonder if that’s what is going on here.
considering safesport and usef have released minors’ names as well…yes there are some things to be concerned with.
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This isn’t inconsistent with the process.
It goes something like this: SafeSport has allegations that they’ve done a preliminary investigation on and they find credible evidence of a serious and dangerous violation, such that they feel there’s a risk that the person involved could be a current problem in the community. Thus, the person is suspended in the process of the investigation.
As the investigation continues and the accused gives evidence, concerns of a current violation become less. I don’t know all the reasons they’d jump from step A to step B, but if it were my process, it might be even something like the accused demonstrating that he has no minor students and a cooperative response that quickly turned over some key documents. SafeSport has two goals: to deter and prevent bad behavior, and to protect the community.
One of the specific reasons that they DO make it public that someone is under investigation for serious misconduct is to shake out any other stories out of the woodwork. It’s really common that once one accuser steps forward, that others do as well. So a situation where other stories come out, versus one where they don’t, is part of the investigation. Most investigations will start with one accuser, but they don’t all end there.
All of this is not unlike a situation in a public school, where a person might be suspended for a period during an initial investigation, and then reinstated before the investigation is fully completed. It is also possible, in a public school program, for someone to be dismissed as an employee even if it is referred to law enforcement and the DA declines to press charges, based on said investigation. And if you’ve been dismissed as a teacher from this cloud, it’s unlikely anyone will hire you in education ever again, conviction or not. (In truth, if you’ve been dismissed as a teacher ever even for unknown reasons, it’s quite difficult to get hired again in education.)
In horse sport, for decades, there’s been no one to investigate and no one to tell. And sadly, it seems like the only way to be believed is for the accuser to have more Olympic medals than the accused. (But even then…I am so sorry for what Anne has had to endure.)
I can see that there may be some process adjustments that would be appropriate - like maybe email isn’t the right way to make this notification. But I think we can talk kindly and constructively about those without attacking the program as a whole or suggesting it needs to be dismantled.
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This is what happened. I’ve watched it unfold. If that isn’t their protocol, then they have violated their own protocol in this case. I witnessed it first hand.
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Poltroon said it wasn’t inconsistent, i.e. it was consistent with how the process is laid out and meant to proceed.
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Right but the suspension was only about 3 days. (Because it was a weekend). They hadn’t yet spoken to the accused or those associated. It was just a formal letter from a lawyer that got the suspension lifted. The way poltron explained it, he should have been suspended for more time pending the investigation…
I would think the case with Jimmy Williams had less to do with anyone’s medal count, and more to do with the number of people who came forward with similar experiences. As you said.
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The accused has a right to request a hearing at anytime during the suspension. Perhaps that is what happened. Not every case is going to go from point A to point B with the same amount of time in between.
Clearly whatever was said in the letter was enough to lift the suspension. They didn’t need to talk to the accused or anyone else. It seems now your critical of something good?
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Really? When? Obviously not asking you to give out minors’ names but that’s rather extraordinary. Anyone else hear about this?
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I believe there was one minor guy’s name released and redacted within like 48hrs. Not that that makes it right, but that’s what I recall. he received a temp suspension and it was gone almost immediately.
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@GPjumper’s claims honestly should quiet half the SafeSport opponents out there…
Not only do you get a hearing (which anyone who spent 30 seconds researching could have confirmed), but they may even release your interim suspension as a result of it?!?
“Blasting” a name of an accused adult is never going to be problematic in my eyes. Any public servant is subject to the same treatment. We get bombarded with so much information these days that any hits to the reputation are temporary at most.
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Exactly. I can’t even see how they can complain about the process aside from having a friend caught up in it. A 72 hour suspension? Imagine if it was the police? Way longer.
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