The monster came through the window.
The little girl’s family was poor.
Their house had no air conditioning that summer.
They left the window open.
Screens don’t keep much out.
The prosecutor at the rape trial spoke slowly. We tell our children there are no monsters, he said to the jury. We look in the closets.
We get on our hands and knees to look under the bed with our kids. We show them there are no monsters.
He made that argument more than 20 years ago. I recall what he said next as if he were standing here repeating it:
“We lie to our children.
There are monsters.” He turned from the jury and pointed at the defendant.
“And that man sitting right over there is one of them.”
A lot of awful things have happened that I’ve had to cover. I’ve seen and heard about things no decent person should see or hear about. Nothing I’ve ever covered haunts me like that trial. The details of it and the evidence presented have no place in a family newspaper.
Nobody needed training to see the evil I saw that day.
Some monsters, though, are harder to catch. Thatgirl’s attacker was like a werewolf. There was no mistaking there had been an attack; there was too much blood.
Others are like vampires.
They keep their victims alive to feed off them. The victims have pallor and two little marks on the neck.
Just looking at them, you think they’re sick. That’s if you can recognize any problem at all.
Someday, those victims may become vampires too.
Many a monster can’t help it. We have to remember that some of these monsters were victims once. Sometimes, it’s hard.
You need vampire hunters for those. They also know how to help and protect the victims. They tell the rest of us when there’s a monster in our midst.
You can help train some hunters. You can even become one.
NorthWest Arkansas Community College is home to the second National Child Protection Training Center in theseUnited States. We should all be immensely proud.
The college wants to raise $3 million. This would renovate the old Highlands Oncology building. Then it will include a model house, an exam room and a mock courtroom.
Houses are where you find monsters. Exam rooms are where you look for signs on the victims.
Courtrooms are where you take the monsters. The victims have to go too, to bear witness.
“We don’t just need some classrooms. It means something to smell rotten milk and see a cigarette next to an air tank,” saidHadley Hindmarsh. She’s a college trustee. She’s also chairwoman of the fund drive.
Children are afraid of monsters - especially real ones. Child interview tactics are tricky; so are handling cases in courtrooms. Wolfsbane, silver crosses, holy water;
none of those help these monsters’ victims. It’s harder than that.
The center trains for rough work. Victor Vieth directs the other child abuse training center. He said many people who work with abused children burn out. I believe that.
Two decades have passedsince that trial. It still rattles me.
Better training helps people last longer, he said.
It also helps them do much more good while they can still do that work.
“If you get this certificate or this minor, you will go into the field with knowledge it took us five years to gain,” Vieth said when he came to Bentonville.
People burn out faster when they’re less effective than they could be. We all know the feeling, that you just aren’t doing that much good. The center offers the option of a short five-day program. Five days.
That’sless time than many a home improvement project has cost me.
Brenda Zedlitz directs children services at Economic Opportunity Agency Children’s House.
She burned out when she was a social worker, she said. “I found myself scooping up children to put them into my car seat.
I loved that feeling when they would relax in my arms. It broke my heart. I wasn’t trained for any of that.”
“My dad was a preacher and a good man. I was taught you treat people right and you treat children right,” Zedlitz said. “As a case worker and as an investigator you learn this is a rough world.”
Yeah, it is. Time to get rough back. Help catch a monster. Or, if you’re a merciful soul, remember this: It’s really a rough world when the worst thing in someone’s life hits in childhood. Help spare someone from that. At least we can help spare them from more of it.
The fund drive is through the NWACC Foundation at 1 College Drive, Bentonville, AR 72712. The website is nwacc.edu/web/ foundation/index.php. The phone number is 479-619-4184.
DOUG THOMPSON IS EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR.
Opinion, Pages 14 on 10/23/2011