This morning I read a story in the news that has made me sick to my stomach. It is the story of a mother's fight to protect her children from the man that she believes is sexually abusing her youngest son. The suspected abuser is not a stranger, but the paternal grandfather of the youngest child, a six year old boy.

The boy's father passed away when the little guy was only four months old, and the grandparents sought legal visitation of their new grandson. For reasons not stated in the article, the visitation was to be supervised by the grandmother. Everything seemed to be going along just fine, until the boys older brother was caught with another student in a sexual manner. When questioned as to if he had ever seen this behavior before, the boy answered that he had not seen it, but his younger brother did the same thing to him all the time. Both boys were then put into counseling, where the older brother also spoke of his younger siblings grandfather wanting to take a shower with him while they were both naked, and that had scared him.

Both the sheriff's department as well as DSS were called, and an investigation was started, however the sheriff's department quickly ruled that the boy's statements were not enough to substantiate sexual abuse. A few months later, the younger brother admitted to being sexually abused by his grandfather to a forensic investigator. The investigator wrote in his report that the child's statements about the incident should be taken seriously, and recommended that the visitation with his grandparents should be supervised by a neutral third party.

Ignoring the investigators report, and focusing on the facts that the grandfather had passed a polygraph, and that both DSS and the sheriff's department had closed their cases (without ever speaking with the child's teachers, counselors, or therapists) the judge ruled that visitation with the grandparents should continue. Doing what most parents in this situation would, the mother refused to send her son to a man she suspected of molesting him. She was charged with contempt and put in jail for two days. Given the same circumstances my butt would have been sitting in the exact same place.

It would seem that the sheriff's department and DSS had a breakdown in communication in this case. Each thought it was the responsibility of the other to investigate the case, so in the end each filed a report without speaking to a soul, and closed their 'investigations.' Way to Protect and Serve guys, a banner job, your love for children and their safety shines right through your outstanding efforts. That being said, my children shall never set foot in Columbia, South Carolina where sexual predators have a place to call home since reports of a child being molested don't seem to raise a large enough alarm to cause officials to get off of their hindquarters, leave the comfort of their desk and actually do their job and investigate.

110 days a year a mother packs her child up and sends him to a place where she knows that he isn't safe. And if that isn't enough to break a woman...the grandparents are now suing her for full custody of the boy, so now grandpa can get his thrills on those 255 days a year that he has been missing out on. Still on the fence about good old grand pappy? Still desperately trying to give him the benifit of the doubt? Just after the interview with the family took place for their article in the newspaper, a stepdaughter of the grandpa stepped forward; writing a letter to deputies stating that he had victimized her over two decades ago.

So now we have two victims coming forward, the little boy, and a young woman, and this man stands to possibly gain custody of a child? This man is still legally entitled to have visitation with this little boy? This man is legally allowed to continue molesting his grandson? Hey South Carolina, in case nobody ever told you, adults touching children is wrong, it destroys lives, it hurts children, and it isn't allowed. Now you know, so do something about it.



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