Manufacturing Predators - One Teacher at a Time

The real crime in Guilford is the conspiracy to destroy an English teacher's life.
The real crime in Guilford is making kids feel dirty for reading.
The real crime in Guilford is making kids hate reading near their parents.
The real crime in Guilford is that a teacher was intimidated into resigning.
The real crime in Guilford is that the person who has lost his life, reputation and good-fortune is still being hunted by predators.

Mom let the cat out of the bag... a comment posted by annoyedparent at THEBEAT says,

I can related to the way you must have felt to think that you 13 yro daughter’s teacher is some kind of predator, you must have been scared. Felt the need to protect you kids, I get it. I know that I am often very protective of my own middle school age daughter, but you crossed the line.

I don’t know for sure but from what I can tell in the news and this thread, I don’t think this teacher was a threat to your girl and you going to the police was over the line. You made what is already a difficult job, teaching, just too much for someone… and they threw in the towel.

Shame on you.

How hard would it have been to at least talk to the guy?

And I feel bad for your girl, at a new school, everyone hates her because her parents flew off the handle and got a popular teacher fired, oh and I forgot to mention that she is 13 …er 14 Isn’t that an age where she would be looking for approval from her peers?

Yeah. This isn't about a graphic novel folks, this is about a parent who was rebuffed by school officials and conveniently escalated that rejection into a concern that this teacher might be a "predator" because she had no proof that he wasn't.

In my book, a false accusation that can destroy a person is a hate crime as pernicious and nefarious as the parade of ethnic, racial, and religious bigotries already recognized. This case is no different and needs to be investigated by the Feds.

Public schools are endowed by the citizens of this country with a sacred trust that they will act in the best interests of children entrusted to them. Implicit in that trust relationship is the understanding that the act of learning is an everyday exercise in heroicism by both teacher and student. Learning takes both people into unknown territories No one is perfect and no one is expected to be. And learning is sometimes a cold, unexpected awakening into adulthood.

All public schools must imprint the idea in students that students have a right to say, no. No to things that upset them. No to things beyond their maturity level. But they have an obligation to try and they have an obligation to keep up to the best of their ability.

And parents can respectfully say no as well.

But just because you say no does not make the material or the idea or the conversation obscene, criminal, or untoward per se.

From the Ten Commandments;

16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.

From the Police Code of Ethics;

I will never act officiously or permit personal feelings, prejudices, animosities, or friendships to influence my decisions. With no compromise for crime and with relentless prosecution of criminals, I will enforce the law courteously and appropriately without fear or favor, malice or ill-will, never employing unnecessary force or violence, and never accepting gratuities.

If the police in Guilford due to stealthy or well-known manipulation of police resources have helped stage a scenario that this teacher is somehow under suspicion of being a sexual predator based solely on hysterical imaginings then they need to be held accountable. Pursuing criminals is one thing. Manufacturing criminal intent from systematic manipulation of the process is another.