Slightly unrelated but, when I read this, it made me think of a movie I recently watched, Monsters and Men. One of the dilemmas within the plot was that there were repeated incidents of police brutality against black boys by the hands of white officers. An investigation pursued, but when a fellow black police officer was questioned about the integrity and practices of his peers, he covered for them. I must note that the black police officer’s character experienced intense internal conflict due to his decision to cover his peers’ brutality, but other friends had convinced him that if he cooperated in the investigation, it would only stir the pot, more people would get in trouble, and the community would trust them all even less than they already did. Well, I think the same exact thing happens in schools too. My immediate reaction when I read this passage was: “how many people knew these school personnel were capable of treating a child like this before such severe incidents occurred”? How in the world is this type of abuse inflicted on young children by school resource officers and other school officials and no one is “aware” of it until only after there’s a severe incident such as the ones mentioned in the quote above? I find it hard to believe that these cited incidents were first-time offenses for each party respectively and, although I did not look up their actual consequences, I think it’s probable that neither one of them were barred from ever working in a school setting again, let alone with children. If these were not first-time offenses, it means that other people in the building knew those employees’ attitude and behaviors towards students have/had been inappropriate and no proactive interference was ever made. I’m sure they were “reprimanded” in private after the fact, of course, but what happens next? I remember writing this at the beginning of the semester: what would happen if we encourage these kind of people to no longer pursue employment that involves children if they really don’t enjoy educating and nurturing them? Reprimanding these employees just isn’t good enough, in my opinion. When are we going to tell these people they’re just not fit to do their jobs? What if a doctor wasn’t fit to do his/her job? Would we just reprimand him/her and hope he/she doesn’t do it again? What about a lawyer? If you’re not fit/qualified to carry out your job well, then there needs to be checks and balances to ensure you’re removed when necessary. I think the most disheartening truth of it all is that we obviously have loopholes in our various systems to protect those that do bad, and no place to hold people truly accountable for their corruptions and/or abuse of power.