6mo ago

Former Aurora cop charged with raping daughter remains free as mom is sent to jail

denvergazette.com Former Aurora cop charged with raping daughter remains free as mom is sent to jail

A retired Aurora police sergeant is facing criminal charges for raping his daughter and sexually assaulting his two adopted daughters, but remains free from custody while his ex-wife is the

A retired Aurora police sergeant faces criminal charges for raping his daughter and continually sexually assaulting her and his two adopted daughters, but he remains free from custody while his ex-wife is in jail for objecting to court-ordered reunification therapy meant to repair his relationship with two of his sons.

THE POLICE PROBLEM @lemmy.world

Bakersfield @lemmy.world

6mo ago

Former Aurora cop charged with raping daughter remains free as mom is sent to jail

denvergazette.com /colorado-watch/reunification-therapy-colorado-child-abuse/article_96e08e26-66f4-11ef-b15c-ab5c4905bfc1.html

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THE POLICE PROBLEM @lemmy.world

octopus_ink @lemmy.ml

6mo ago

Former Aurora cop charged with raping daughter remains free as mom is sent to jail

denvergazette.com /colorado-watch/reunification-therapy-colorado-child-abuse/article_96e08e26-66f4-11ef-b15c-ab5c4905bfc1.html

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Her trip to jail occurs as such therapy and its potential harms are increasingly coming under fire in Colorado.
The treatment is used by family courts to settle custody fights. Services like those provided by Bassett use confrontation and exercises to deprogram a child’s rejection of a parent. In extreme cases, children have been sent across state lines to reunification camps with parents they reject, and they are barred from having contact with their protective parent.
The fuck
- Forced Stockholm syndrome as therapy.
  
  I don't know why people are against it. You get used to it after a while.
  /s
  
  The reunification therapy costs $1,500 a month. Pickrel-Hawkins said she struggles to pay for the therapy. She said she and the children already are stretched thin, surviving on the $2,680 her ex-husband pays her in court-ordered support, though the judge said during one hearing that he believed the mother actually was earning money that she wasn’t disclosing.
  That she has to pay for.
  the mother has custody of the couple’s minor children, and they are living in a domestic violence shelter. She said that she has arranged for family members to care for her children when she goes to jail.
  While living at a shelter.
  The mother said she lost legal representation in the custody dispute after accruing $85,000 in legal bills, which she couldn’t afford. She was sentenced to jail without any representation from a lawyer.
  Even when she doesn't have enough for a lawyer.
  The 17-year-old daughter claims her father, Hawkins, raped her when she was almost six years old and continually molested her throughout her childhood despite her protestations that he stop, according to court documents. The two adopted daughters also claim they were sexually abused, those documents state.
  The oldest son also told a forensic interviewer he felt like his father tried to drown him in a pool in 2018 in Costa Rica, using police control tactics and holding him under water until he began to black out. The boy said he believed his father was vengeful because the boy woke up one night and confronted his father whose hand he claims he saw down the under garments of his sister.
  Trying to keep them away from a man who absurd their kids for two decades and attempted to kill.
  Absolutely nothing about this situation is justifiable, sane or decent. Fuck this cop, fuck this court, fuck this state, fuck this whole fucking country. Absolutely shameful in every regard.
- Seriously. What the fuck. Institutionalized child abuse. And then they say trans people are somehow the real danger.
- Well that's fucking horrifying... The only thing that got me through childhood alive was that the courts let me decide who I would live with. Why the fuck wouldn't you listen to the kids? It's there life on the line.
  
  Seriously, the courts are heaping all of this blame on the mother when the kids repeatedly report physical and sexual abuse by their father.
  Though the divorce judge found there was evidence that Hawkins had physically abused the oldest son, the judge said in his ruling that was “one instance that does not involve either of the two children at issue.”
  Insane. The logic is nonexistent.
  
  Kids sometimes want the “fun” but negligent parent rather than the responsible parent who enforces limitations. Some kids feel a strong emotional bond with a parent who is harmful to them.
  
  From the perspective of the a former kid who was abused by a step parent, personality, preference, and love never came into it, I just wanted to be safe. Once that person was removed from there life, I had every desire to be around that parent again. Not trusting the kids who tell you THAT parent or their partner is an abuser, you're fucking up.
- Ok dad, here is your court ordered hug.
  How does stuff like this not end in suicide or patricide?
  
  That's the problem with abusers they never think thier murder is on the table. I bet they would be hell of lot nicer if they felt thier actions would have consequences.
  
  You mean patricide. Fratricide is the killing of one's sibling.
  
  Yes.. updated
- 'deprogram'...'barred from having contact with their protective parent'.
  This will be decades of lawsuits and millions of dollars.
- This makes me genuinely feel unwell. Some people are just horrific.
- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/reunification-therapy
  It's a little more complicated than this conservative rag makes it out to be.
  
  No. No it isn't. Forced reunification to your abuser. You sick fuck. Go on and double down. Tell us all how that's complicated. Raise your coward hand again.
  
  Sure.
  The deal is it's not really about reunification with your abuser, in cases of severe abuse you wouldn't be reunified with someone who wasn't fit, you'd remain in the foster system. In cases of milder abuse, a judge has to weigh whether the parent might be rehabilitated or you'll be better off staying in the foster system, which is always itself a risk, remember. Foster families are not always the best.
  Reunification therapy is also for divorce cases though, where one parent has essentially poisoned the well against another with no real abuse being present.
  So, uh, sorry for whatever happened to you, it can be a very difficult situation when a child has nowhere else to go. Depending on availability of foster families, a judge may be forced to sometimes make a difficult decision, it just depends on the circumstances.
  edit: Oh, and do keep in mind, this publication is owned by the same people that run the Washington Examiner. It's NY Post or Daily Mail-tier when it comes to accuracy.
  
  Unless they're all outright lying or the newspaper has made this up whole cloth, the facts of this case are fucking horrifying.
  The father sexually abused his pre-adolescent daughter. This was witnessed by his son who says he was then held under water until he nearly blacked out.
  Reunification therapy would be appropriate years down the line, if this all turned out to be some kind of misunderstanding. Forcing them into a room with their abuser, forcing them to show affection towards someone they have highly complex feelings of fear, loathing, and love for, is abuse.
  And that's all without the mother's allegations of the therapist's behavior. The judge is a piece of work too, weasel wording his rulings. He noted CPS can make rulings based solely on the one child's account as a way of discounting their findings. Completely ignoring the fact that there is corroboration. And then says the abuse was only proven for the older kids. So the younger ones are fine.
  In what fucking country do we put children back into an abuser's orbit/care/house because they haven't been proven to have abused that kid yet, just other kids, exactly their age.
  The fact that you're trying to defend this by going after the news organization and sharing the WebMD of psychology is telling. The facts of the case are horrifying and you know it.
  
  I am not arguing about this case. I definitely see problems here, and I find it odd that the therapy is being performed by some christian group as well.
  My issue is the article's portrayal of the therapy. The question I responded to was about the therapy, not this specific case, so I'm talking about the therapy more broadly, and not this specific case. This specific case is either grossly exaggerated or some extreme fluke. Like I said, in cases of severe abuse, reunification therapy is inappropriate.
  I also don't trust the publication, important details can be left out or exaggerated to make something more rage-baity, and I could not find any corroborating news. Regarding being horrified by it, it's very hard to horrify me with anything on the internet that isn't old and established, I stay very suspicious of the entire thing.
  
  Much like abusers going after kids, judges who give orders like these aren't doing it in a vacuum. They've done it before and they'll do it again. Look up Kayden's Law. (You know why it has a kid's name on it) Using the courts and this therapy to re-abuse children is prevalent enough Congress had to pass a law restricting its use. Some of the stuff in the law is exactly what the article alleges on the broader scale. So it's obviously happened.
  You not wanting to believe it is just another in a long line of people deciding not to believe victims when they come forward.
  
  I fully support reasonable restrictions on the therapy, no question. What I do not support is lumping every instance of it all together into one perceived abusive framework, when that is not the full story. There's both bathwater and a baby here, in that there are legitimate uses for the therapy that are not abusive or enabling further abuse. These are fine.
  
  I wish there was an emoji shovel for a situation like this.
  
  I wish the world wasn't quite so full of knee-jerk reactionism to sensationalist internet content, where one of everyone's favorite things wasn't "omg".
  
  Be that as it may, it doesn't seem like the therapy is being applied appropriately or skillfully in this case. You did read the article, didn't you? Also surely you don't expect a news article to get into the details of the therapy, what it is and isn't, when the focus of the piece is on the rapist father and the jailed mother.
  
  Why read when I can bloviate in the comments section about something I have no expertise in?? - op, probably
  
  The question I was replying to was asking about the therapy, not the case. I agree that, if the facts are as represented, the therapy is inappropriate here. That's a big if though, I don't just trust random new publications on the internet right away.
  You shouldn't either.
  
  This was a good clarification and I understand the point of your original post. I was a dick and I apologize.
  
  No worries. I do fully empathize with why this upset everyone so much.
  
  A parent does not have a right to affection from their children. Isolating from abusive people is a healthy reaction. Forcing this kind of therapy is itself abuse.
  
  Usually. There's two exceptions that I'd acknowledge. One is where abuse simply was not present, which does happen sometimes due to divorce, which young children can't always understand.
  The second was when abuse was minor and something the offender might be able to overcome after themselves undergoing treatment, and there are no other family that could take the child. If there is a shortage of foster parents as there often is, it can be preferable to try to reunify over just sending the child to grow up in a shelter.
  Note, I'm talking about the therapy more broadly, not this specific case.
  
  No. There is no right to force another human to feel something for you. Period.
  
  Sure, but you're not trying to force positive feelings, you're trying to break down negative feelings that may not be based in reality.
  
  That's the same thing. Especially when much of reality where personal relationships are involved is subjective.
  
  No, it isn't at all. If you have an arachnophobia, treating your fear is not making you like spiders. Simply addressing the aversion. Nobody properly engaging in the therapy is trying to brainwash kids into loving someone, just reducing the aversion.
  Check something more rigorous about the topic, don't just use news articles of cases of failure and unethical choices to form your full opinion. You know damn well how the news is, what they profit from, how times where the therapy actually went well because it was used appropriately will not be reported. And social media isn't much better when it comes to factuality.
  The Psychology Today article I posted properly cited its sources.
  
  Reunification therapy is a child-focused therapy, meaning it must proceed at the child’s pace, and move forward when they have made progress. It can also be difficult as parents are asked to put aside their differences and focus on the goal of restoring healthy attachment for the benefit of the child or children.
  Meanwhile:
  She said she checked on her children during the session and found one of her sons curled in a fetal position on the ground in Bassett’s office
  She went into the room, and the very first thing that my boy said that she told them was, ‘We need to make progress, and today you need to tell your father that you forgive him.’
  Whatever this therapy is supposed to be, it doesn't really sound like that's what's happening.
  
  Yeah I agree. There's something fishy about this whole article though.
  How is the mother even in jail when a year ago Colorado put restrictions on the therapy in just these sorts of cases? I feel like either some facts are being misrepresented, or we're not being told everything, or this is some strange outlier and judicial malfeasance.
  
  I mean the article explains it pretty clearly.
  The new law barred courts from restricting the custody of a parent who is competent, protective and not abusive solely to improve a relationship with the other parent. It prohibits reunification treatment that is predicated on cutting off the relationship between a child and a protective parent the child has a bond with.
  Putting aside the insanity of this ever being allowed, it doesn't apply in this case because custody has not been (officially) cut off. She's in jail because she objects to the therapist and her methods, believing them to cause severe anxiety in her children, and has thus tried to interfere with the court ordered sessions.
  
  Sure, but if the therapy is going as described, it seems to me like the situation fits
  predicated on cutting off the relationship between a child and a protective parent the child has a bond with.
  And besides, according to the article, the mother can and did point to the investigation into the abuse. All together, this just doesn't make sense. Given that this publication is owned by a company well-known for bullshit under their Washington Examiner label, I'm withholding judgement until I learn more. This just reeks of ragebait.
  
  I don't understand how it fits. They're not cutting off their relationship to the protective parent (the mother), which is what the new restrictions prohibit. She still has access and custody, but they are also required to attend reunification therapy. Where is the contradiction?
  It's also explained why the abuse investigation does not impact the ordered therapy.
  Though the divorce judge found there was evidence that Hawkins had physically abused the oldest son, the judge said in his ruling that was “one instance that does not involve either of the two children at issue.”
  The father is only seeking custody of the two youngest sons, who were, as far as the court is aware, not abused by their father. So the judge does not see this or the seven charges of abuse of a minor as relevant in this case.
  I'm all for being aware of the quality and reputation of a paper, but it seems you are putting more weight on that then the quality of the article itself. You are pointing at supposed inconsistencies that seem to be explained by the article.
  
  It's pretty insane to think a proven child abuser will simply not choose to abuse some of his kids when it's proven he abused his other kids.
  
  Perhaps I did misread something in the later half of the article regarding the mother and the therapy. I'm not going to dig through it again to confirm, but I can acknowledge I may have misunderstood.
  A judge has a responsibility to take a broader context into account, with the overall health of the children being the main consideration. This would be opposed to a strictly mechanical interpretation of the law, where just because you're not accused of abusing this specific child, you're deemed a safe parent to them. If the judge does not see things this way, they're being derelict in their duty. My suspicion remains that there is quite possibly more to this story though.
  Correct, I think one should absolutely not adopt a trusting stance towards a new publication. Trust in reporting needs to be earned, and an appropriate caution should be exhibited until then in 100% of cases. This is because we cannot judge the quality of the article itself from just the article, you can't tell if something is being omitted or misrepresented without other sources to compare it to. All we can judge is how it sounds, and that is not very good evidence of anything.
  
  I guess I could be wrong, but I can't be assed to spend two minutes rereading the article. I'll just continue to pontificate from my position of misinformation
  
  Admitting I may have misunderstood on how the law applies to the mother's jailing has nothing to do with my other two arguments.
  There's frankly little point in digging through an article I do not trust to begin with, it's a waste of time. You can give it your trust if you want, but I have no strong reason to.
  
  has nothing to do with my other two arguments.
  So your two paragraphs of pontificating have nothing to do with what's in the article?
  I guess you're just here to say "I believe judges are always good at their jobs and never make mistakes"?

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