We expect our schools to protect our children, and that expectation is reasonable. Students with special needs, however, may be afforded additional protections as well at the state or federal level; that, too, is reasonable. What we don’t expect is that teachers will not only ignore those protections, but act in a way that is…
Let’s say things got a little rowdy at the office holiday party this year: too many people had too many drinks, and everyone’s inhibitions seemed to fly right out the window. While you were standing in line for a glass of champagne, or chatting with a friend, a coworker you barely know comes up and…
Michael Jackson, Kobe Bryant, Ben Roethlisberger, Bill Cosby and David Boreanaz all have a couple of things in common with O.J. Simpson: every single one of them was accused of criminal behavior, and not one of them went to jail. However, in every single instance, the accusers opted to bring a civil lawsuit against these…
The first allegation came in 2001, but it took another 15 years before the Los Angeles Police Department could charge Dr. Michael Howard Popkin with a crime. According to NBC News, the 67-year-old GP is facing “one count of Sexual Exploitation of a Patient and three counts of Sexual Battery, said Los Angeles Police Department’s…
It takes two. And therein lies the rub for an allegedly large number of sexual abuse victims who are members of the Jehovah’s Witness church. They say — and, in cases where the abuse victims are children, the advocates speaking on their behalf say — that they are stymied in their attempts to properly identify,…
In the sad realm of child sexual abuse in the United States, is there anything more tragic and disheartening than the sordid tale of persistent abuse inflicted on children by clergy members of the Roman Catholic Church? Pedophilism is of course unlawful and egregious criminal conduct that targets and can forever haunt thereafter victims who…
Recent news coming in from the United Kingdom underscores both a staggering “local” problem relating to child sexual abuse and its trans-border dimensions that embrace the entire globe. The FBI and supporting investigatory task forces across America appreciate well the uphill battle they fight against pornographers and pedophiles focused upon obscene and illegal child imagery…
Until last week, the largest fine ever issued by the federal government in a so-called Clery Act case was $350,000. That levy was assessed against Eastern Michigan University in 2008 for the failure of officials there to timely warn students of campus-posed dangers following the murder of a student. That exaction was eclipsed in a…
Unless you’ve been on a weeks’-long hiatus to some remote corner of the earth or simply sworn off all media for a month, you are acutely aware that sexual assault allegations and stories have been front-and-center news items of late. We won’t get into the details of what’s been a focal point of public discourse…
What is the antidote to the “sharp uptick in roadway deaths” that a recent national news piece notes have been occurring in the United States over the past couple years? Likely, there is no such thing, at least not in any absolute sense. As long as human beings sit behind the wheel and navigate vehicles…