All-Star Md Gymnastics Instructor Arrested....

[SharkDad]

@catlady et. al

Lots of examples here but the point is that there are thousands of situations across this country with AllStar, middle school, high school, even college cheer. It is impossible to levy blanket morality or any one of our personal ideas to all of them.

If a reputable program looks, there are standards to avoid sexual harassment of any type let alone getting to the point of sexual exploitation. As parents and athletes we should look for those programs and avoid those that don't have any policy at all or ignore the subject altogether.

 

[NJ Coach]

even in private gyms? For some reason, I thought it was just in schools.

Depending on the state, yes. In NJ we are mandated reporters.

 

[nicolee]

Coaches are mandated reporters. If they have knowledge of or suspect abuse, they must report it.

I'm aware of that, but I wasn't talking about abuse here. The scenario involved a comment, which is definitely inappropriate, but not abusive.

Of course any suspected abuse needs to be reported immediately, but an inappropriate comment doesn't necessarily mean that there is other illegal behavior happening.

 

[Helen uk uni cheer]

Someone mentioned about everything going through a group facebook page and no private messages. In theory sounds great but practically some things an athlete might need to tell the coach but doesn't want the rest of the team to be aware of such as injuries or illness. These are perfectly innocent things to ask your coach about or say I am ill.
An idea I had was to have team facebook group run by a gyms page soif they private message the group, all owners can see and prohibit cotacting coaches on personal fb pages. Even if the coach had a fb for coaching and a personal one it might work

 

[nicolee]

Let's toss another hypothetical in there.

Male coach accidentally grabs a female tumbler/flyer on the breast while trying to catch her and prevent her head from hitting the floor. Contact is extremely incidental and corrected immediately. Child is not groped in a sexual way at all and thinks nothing of it. Mom hears what happened and demands his firing and the police be called?

Should he be fired and police involved?


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No and no. If it truly was an accident (and especially an accident that couldn't be avoided since he was trying to prevent an injury), then calling the police or firing him would be ruining the guy's job and life for nothing.

 

[catlady]

@catlady et. al

Lots of examples here but the point is that there are thousands of situations across this country with AllStar, middle school, high school, even college cheer. It is impossible to levy blanket morality or any one of our personal ideas to all of them.

If a reputable program looks, there are standards to avoid sexual harassment of any type let alone getting to the point of sexual exploitation. As parents and athletes we should look for those programs and avoid those that don't have any policy at all or ignore the subject altogether.

Perhaps I'm just not communicating my point well but, Suzie's mom's blanket morality was never a goal of any of my posts, protecting children, owners and employees is my goal, and keeping in mind nothing is 100% foolproof. I am not for restricting coaches from appropriate age, texts, touch, etc. or anything that resembles healthy coach/athlete relationships. I'm for gyms teaching appropriate behavior upfront and documenting or reporting anything that may be questionable every single time. It should be included, if it isn't, in USASF training in my opinion. A coach calling out in a lobby , "Hey you look sexy....." isn't a crazy mom blanket morality issue, that is a sexual harassment law suit whether adult to adult or adult to minor. Disagree? Call a lawyer and see if your business can lose a law suit over that comment. Gym owners need to know without a doubt what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior, train their employees or be willing to lose their business and reputation over it. It has never been about Suzie's mom's blanket morality of "I don't think...", these "hypotheticals" end up in court everyday and there are only two outcomes, you win or you lose.

@nicolee calling the police and stating this is what happened, "does it need to be reported?", and then documenting the situation and officer's name does not ruin anyone's life. In fact, it has saved many innocent people in law suits.

 

[nicolee]

Perhaps I'm just not communicating my point well but, Suzie's mom's blanket morality was never a goal of any of my posts, protecting children, owners and employees is my goal, and keeping in mind nothing is 100% foolproof. I am not for restricting coaches from appropriate age, texts, touch, etc. or anything that resembles healthy coach/athlete relationships. I'm for gyms teaching appropriate behavior upfront and documenting or reporting anything that may be questionable every single time. It should be included, if it isn't, in USASF training in my opinion. A coach calling out in a lobby , "Hey you look sexy....." isn't a crazy mom blanket morality issue, that is a sexual harassment law suit whether adult to adult or adult to minor. Disagree? Call a lawyer and see if your business can lose a law suit over that comment. Gym owners need to know without a doubt what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior, train their employees or be willing to lose their business and reputation over it. It has never been about Suzie's mom's blanket morality of "I don't think...", these "hypotheticals" end up in court everyday and there are only two outcomes, you win or you lose.

@nicolee calling the police and stating this is what happened, "does it need to be reported?", and then documenting the situation and officer's name does not ruin anyone's life. In fact, it has saved many innocent people in law suits.

I was referring to a hypothetical situation in which it was very clear that no known illegal activity had taken place. Why run to involve the police? Sort it out within the gym first unless truly inappropriate or illegal things are happening.

Sure, you may not instantly ruin the person's life, but you'd be treating them like a criminal and a predator, which they may not be.

 

[catlady]

@nicolee I think people are using TV or extremes as a guide and they aren't reality. Your responsibility as a gym owner is to make sure all parties are protected and that requires taking appropriate action and documentation. A call to the police to inquire if it needs to be reported is not giving someone a record, it is protecting the employee and the gym owner if "crazy" takes it to court.

 

[nicolee]

@nicolee I think people are using TV or extremes as a guide and they aren't reality. Your responsibility as a gym owner is to make sure all parties are protected and that requires taking appropriate action and documentation. A call to the police to inquire if it needs to be reported is not giving someone a record, it is protecting the employee and the gym owner if "crazy" takes it to court.

Excuse me, I'm not using Law and Order as a guide here, I am actually familiar with legal proceedings.
Giving a call to the police does not give a record, I never said it did. I said the person's name could end up on the police's reports and general radar, which it certainly could.

 

[catlady]

Excuse me, I'm not using Law and Order as a guide here, I am actually familiar with legal proceedings.
Giving a call to the police does not give a record, I never said it did. I said the person's name could end up on the police's reports and general radar, which it certainly could.

You may be familiar with legal proceedings but, your statements on "calling the police can ruin a life" are simply not true unless they are actually charged with a crime. That is what I meant by my TV and taken to extreme comment.

This is not hypothetical, I was involved, questioned, and there is a police report. I was a Sunday school teacher along with a friend of mine, we taught 1st grade. We had a Down's child in our classroom and the child wanted to be held all of the time. The parents were the ones that told us if he wasn't held, he would have a melt down, which was true. One Sunday, my friend was holding him while I was reading the story and he started patting and squeezing her chest. She calmly removed his hand and told him he needed to keep his hands to himself or she would have to put him down. He continued, thought it was funny until she put him in his own chair and he began screaming. She got his parents, explained the situation, they were fine and removed him for the remainder of class. After class, we documented the boob squeezing incident with the Church secretary as we were trained. A few hours later, I was called and asked if I could come up to the church, the police wanted to ask me some questions. A visitor's child in the class told her parents, "the teacher was holding a boy, grabbing his hands, touching her boobs, while he was screaming "no". " The parents called the police and reported it.

I am named in the police report as being a witness to an alleged situation described by a witnessing child, involving sexual contact between an adult and a minor. It also states, we reported the incident to church staff prior to the police being involved, and the child's story was found to be unsubstantiated and relayed incorrectly to the parents. It goes on to tell our account of the situation. I continued to teach children at that church until we moved. I have had 3 background checks done in Atlanta, two at church to work with children and one to be a GS leader . My friend has not had any problems and she's a public school teacher. While you state that police report could have ruined our lives, that police report is our only proof of innocence.

 

[nicolee]

You may be familiar with legal proceedings but, your statements on "calling the police can ruin a life" are simply not true unless they are actually charged with a crime. That is what I meant by my TV and taken to extreme comment.

This is not hypothetical, I was involved, questioned, and there is a police report. I was a Sunday school teacher along with a friend of mine, we taught 1st grade. We had a Down's child in our classroom and the child wanted to be held all of the time. The parents were the ones that told us if he wasn't held, he would have a melt down, which was true. One Sunday, my friend was holding him while I was reading the story and he started patting and squeezing her chest. She calmly removed his hand and told him he needed to keep his hands to himself or she would have to put him down. He continued, thought it was funny until she put him in his own chair and he began screaming. She got his parents, explained the situation, they were fine and removed him for the remainder of class. After class, we documented the boob squeezing incident with the Church secretary as we were trained. A few hours later, I was called and asked if I could come up to the church, the police wanted to ask me some questions. A visitor's child in the class told her parents, "the teacher was holding a boy, grabbing his hands, touching her boobs, while he was screaming "no". " The parents called the police and reported it.

I am named in the police report as being a witness to an alleged situation described by a witnessing child, involving sexual contact between an adult and a minor. It also states, we reported the incident to church staff prior to the police being involved, and the child's story was found to be unsubstantiated and relayed incorrectly to the parents. It goes on to tell our account of the situation. I continued to teach children at that church until we moved. I have had 3 background checks done in Atlanta, two at church to work with children and one to be a GS leader . My friend has not had any problems and she's a public school teacher. While you state that police report could have ruined our lives, that police report is our only proof of innocence.

Again, I was referring to a very specific hypothetical scenario in which calling the police would be too far. This was a 21-year-old using the word 'sexy', no physical contact like the situation you describe.

Do you not think it would do a number on your mental health to have your bosses speak to the police about an isolated incident in which no illegal activity took place, treating you like a predator and not simply sorting it out internally before going down that path?

Actually forget it. My comments have either been misunderstood or taken out of context.

 

[Mom2Cheergirls]

Again, I don't want to necessarily defend the gym because I don't know exactly what did/didn't happen. However, we don't know what prompted the firing.

In the interest of getting more discussion going, and hopefully helping prevent further incidents from happening at other gyms, I would like y'alls opinion of a hypothetical. (This hasn't happened anywhere that I know of, just trying to think of a scenario close to the dividing line.) A 21 year old male coach tells a 17 year old female athlete they "look really sexy in that outfit" in a crowded lobby. I imagine that gets them fired pretty much on the spot and the parents of the athlete brought in for a discussion at minimum. If that were the only thing like that that had happened, do you call the police?

I think that is the point you bring in the parents and meet with them and the girl to find out if anything else has gone on. You may also call a parent meeting of that team and inform the parents what went on to squelch rumors and have them discuss with their athletes the potential that the coach had less than appropriate contact with another athlete. More may have happened and you don't know but at that point if you as an owner have concern enough to fire than following through further would make logical since. Note did not say call police but certainly checking on your athletes and families would be the minimum I would hope from a gym who cares about their athletes.

But one thing the general public may not know. Is that Child Protective Service hotlines are the perfect place to ask this question. You may call and discuss if it is a true situation they would say needs to be followed or not and you may do this confidentially without names and other information. This goes for if a gym owner has concerns about potential abuse or neglect of an athlete from home as well. Calling them as a resource is always an option and does not mean you are filing a full report although be aware there may be sometimes when they would say that is the next step.

 

[kristenthegreat]

On the police thing:
Being the type of kind-faced, big-eyed lady in NYC who gets her fair share of creepers, for those who are concerned about the reporting process in my fair city:

I can tell you the guy who followed me home and then creep-scored my number and told me he hoped I fell down the stairs because I ghosted him? He could not be reported to the police. But the guy who pretended to know producers and turned out to be a dude with a criminal record who threatened to dox me after I said 'No thank you' when he texted me out of the blue 3 months later? He was definitely reported, although restraining orders are much harder to get (because the perpetrator can fight them).

In case anyone was curious about the process of reporting things. Not everything is taken down, nobody is notified of anything unless further action is required (the fake producer guy- I filed a police report on but I don't believe he was notified as he continues to change his number and text me random stuff all the time).

--Yes. I'm a creep magnet. Welcome to my life.

 

[Fiercecheermom]

Again, I don't want to necessarily defend the gym because I don't know exactly what did/didn't happen. However, we don't know what prompted the firing.

In the interest of getting more discussion going, and hopefully helping prevent further incidents from happening at other gyms, I would like y'alls opinion of a hypothetical. (This hasn't happened anywhere that I know of, just trying to think of a scenario close to the dividing line.) A 21 year old male coach tells a 17 year old female athlete they "look really sexy in that outfit" in a crowded lobby. I imagine that gets them fired pretty much on the spot and the parents of the athlete brought in for a discussion at minimum. If that were the only thing like that that had happened, do you call the police?

Nope. The comment is definitely inappropriate, but if the gym fired the coach and spoke with the parents, there is no need for police to be involved if it stops there and that was the only thing that happened.

 

[Fiercecheermom]

Let's toss another hypothetical in there.

Male coach accidentally grabs a female tumbler/flyer on the breast while trying to catch her and prevent her head from hitting the floor. Contact is extremely incidental and corrected immediately. Child is not groped in a sexual way at all and thinks nothing of it. Mom hears what happened and demands his firing and the police be called?

Should he be fired and police involved?


**Slip n Slide. Official sponsor of Worlds 2016**

Nope