I’m glad others understood. I clearly didn’t. I find it easier to read things communicated in full sentences and clearly expressed, but other people may be better at deriving intent from sentence fragments and snippets of commentary around quotes. I’m still not sure what you think “went wrong” here. That LK hasn’t suffered any consequences for having made a “false” SS report against MB (thereby “weaponizing” the SS process)?
Here’s the problem with that reasoning, if that is your reasoning, LK did not successfully weaponize SS. She called and made a report (of some sort) to SS. SS deemed it to be more appropriately investigated by CPS. SS alterted CPS. CPS went out to the property to investigate. Before CPS could complete its investigation, MB shot LK, sending her to the hospital.
THEN SS excluded MB-- not because of the report LK had made about the child abuse but because MB had been charged with attempted homicide. SS excluded MB because he shot a client with a gun and not because of any allegations of child abuse.
Isn’t that what you want? It’s what I want. If someone is a USEF member and shoots and attempts to kill another person with a gun, I want the shooter excluded from USEF events until the criminal charges are resolved. I feel the same way about any violent crime. Do you feel otherwise? You think USEF members who have been criminally charged with other violent crimes (assault, rape, etc.) should continue to get to compete while criminal charges are pending? USEF is a membership club, I am perfectly comfortable with temporary exclusions during the pendency of a criminal process for members charged with serious bodily injury crimes. Now that MB has been found not guilty, I am also fine with the USEF lifting the exclusion. But I think it was completely appropriate to temporarily exclude him while charges were pending (not that it mattered tremendously as he was incarcerated and unable to participate in USEF activities anyway).
What exactly do you think SS should have done differently here? Not report an allegation of child abuse to CPS? Not suspend a member who was charged with attempted homicide of a client? Reinstate MB the moment the jury returned its verdict? This is a complex case with pretty unusual facts. It would not surprise me if MB is ultimately reinstated but I’m not looking for my pitchfork because it didn’t happen immediately post-trial. I think there’s still a fair amount factually that needs to be sorted out here, including whether MB remains a risk to himself and others.
It appears you think SS should in some way punish LK for making a false accusation. It can and perhaps it will. But first there would have to be some evidence that LK did indeed make a false accusation. I think that’s going to be problematic to determine here. CPS didn’t get to finish its investigation (or rather the whole thing kind of got superseded) because MB shot LK while the child abuse investigation was ongoing. So we don’t really know that the allegation was “false.” Moreover, even if it was unfounded, do we really want to discourage people from making SS reports where a child is at risk? There’s a difference between a malicious/false report and one that turns out to be wrong. Even if the report LK turned out to be wrong, it hasn’t been proven to be malicious. It seems like there was a chaotic environment there (even if it was largely created by LK herself) and I am not sure it’s crystal clear that the allegations were wholly malicious even if they turned out to be incorrect. I want people to report even suspected child abuse (and SS in fact requires it) and not only to report child abuse that the reporter has 100% confirmed. We’re all assuming that LK made the report maliciously and that’s certainty one way to view the facts but I am not sure it’s the only way. And that’s why I think this is a complicated matter for SS to sort out. It’s not as black and white as you seem to imply.
We don’t know whether SS is going to take some action towards LK. The trial literally just ended a few days ago. It seems inappropriate to me to claim a system is broken/needs reform when it’s been given roughly a week to “work” in a pretty complex case with a lot of idiosyncratic facts and issues. LK may be suspended in the future.
Look, if you ask me my PERSONAL OPINION OF LK, I’ve got one and it’s not positive. But that doesn’t mean I just get to assume all the facts are as I want them to be consistently with my personal opinion and then be mad at SS because it doesn’t draw all the same inferences from the facts.
This case is complicated. LK made a report of child abuse. But MK also shot her. And the facts around these two events are not crystal clear. They’re subject to some interpretation. That SS has not immediately reinstated MB nor immediately excluded LK in such a complicated (and frankly weird) case isn’t that concerning to me. I think largely the SS process worked as it was intended to.
