WHY??

[Anonymous]

:eek: Iam just wondering after reading up on all the sexual abuse and attacks on some of the girls that were at VCA. why were'nt their any charges or arrests made. There seen to be alot of statements and accusations from the alledged victims, however little is ever said by the defense or what action was actually taken against the perpetrator. there is always two sides of the story,and for some reason 1 side is not mentioned very much.
 I would like to know why one perticular victim and her family didnt pursue? okay if the officials didnt have enough evidence to ,or didnt take it seriously enough to prosocute and put this slime bag, Palmer in jail and close him down for good. then why didnt the victim and family seem it necessary to drop the suit against him? It doesnt make sense, to many holes in the whole story and maybe to many in the whole case?
IF IT WAS ME AND MY FAMILY NOWAY WOULD I OF LET THIS GO BECAUSE IT WAS A HASSLE OR TO STRAINIG TO GO TO COURT AND PURSUE. UN LIKE THE VICTIM I WOULD OF FOUGHT THE WHOLE WAY AND DIDNT HER PARENTS THINK SHE WAS IMPORTANT ENOUGH! I MEAN WE ARE TALKING ABOUT RAPE HERE.   LIKE I SAID BEFORE TO MANY HOLES IN THE STORY.   :- :: ?

[Anonymous]

OH, another thing I wanted to mention.
 now if they didnt to anything then about all of this then, forgive me but, what makes any of you think they will do anything about it now? 10 &20 yrs later? seriously, there is a statue of limitations.
I do applaude all of you for finally standing up and comming forward especially for trying to prevent it from happening to others that go there. I do have to say that in the last 2 or 3 years the Palmers have removed themselves. They are not even in Florida anymore. Mr. Palmer is hiding somewhere with his wife ,taking care of her and her medical condition, diabetes.
 with all of your attempts and efforts, It has only made the institution and staff aware and paranoid , but believe me they have been following one step behind the whole way and are definately minding there P's and Q's thanks to all of you. any thing that is brought up from this day forward will no longer exist. they have no reason to shut it down nothing is bad is happening, you know what I am saying?
 they will investigate and find no grounds what happened in the past is no longer relevant, because of the time in between that has gone by.
 why are you all stuck? it will hinder your growth why not use all of your energy for what you are faced with for today and days to come.

[Anonymous]

keep letting the parents know the history of the place and places.that is all any of you can do.  ultimately the choice is the parents. If there child is abused or all fucked up when they get out, then maybe the parents should be charged with abuse and child endangerment. come on the parents knew about the controll issues there and they made the choice to subject there children to the outcomes of the program SHAME ON MOM AND DAD!!! :razz:

[The Liger]

We want mandatory licensing for all facilities.  The VCA/Lighthouse-type facilities cannot operate the way they do under state licensing.  No one working on shutting down VCA/Lighthouse is looking to sue for any money.  We believe that the program participants' Equal Protection rights are violated by the State of Florida with the current religious exemption.  We also believe that the Establishment Clause is violated by giving special treatment to relgious groups who are exempt from licensing.

And you are wrong when you say that nothing in the past that happened matters.  It matters to the public, and if enough public interest is garnered, then it will matter to the state's legislators.

[mitzy]

not all parents knew the evils of the homes .
when they first take there child there the workers are all smiles and really good at appearing normal, in fact i think some of our parents were really suckered into it or perhaps
they themselves were brainwashed too.

[GentleStormi]

I am thankful to hear your point of view, I am a survivor of the old Rebekah home in corpus.

There is a very potent issue called accountability with all homes who care for minors.

Thank you for your balanced information and sharing, as some are not so balanced in what they say here...


Thank you also for your wisdom in saying the other person was wrong, and the past does matter, i agree with you!   :smile:
for it is the frame and foundation of all that comes ahead.

You sound like you have your head on straight friend.

Gods Peace
Roloff Rebekah Survivor to Overcomer
GentleStormi

[Anonymous]

You ask why? It seems to me you have answered your own question here. The reason to do what we do is to achieve change, at the same time i must admit i do get a slight thrill out of making them "shake in their boots". They should have fear just like the fear they put into so many young girls in the past. As far as your comments regarding Rebecca (I notice you did not have the courage to use her name) I am quite certain she does not care whether or not you believe her, also remember its very easy to say what you would do however until you walk a mile in my shoes... you know the rest. It might not happen today, tomorrow, or even this year but sooner or later these kinds of places will be forced to become licensed.

[Anonymous]

You should also remember how hard it is to prosecute a rapist.

[The Liger]

And also, VCA had and still has control of any physical and documentary evidence.  They regularly destroyed journals while I was there.  They had power to destroy whatever they wanted.

[GentleStormi]

Hi there Anonymous Poster #1

I was reading you and I thought to comment here. About the lack of victims coming forward, when you are coerced to do things by emotional abuse and manipulation, there is built into the mind and emotions of the person being so used, a big barrier of shame, and even fear that others will not believe one. There is built thru the consistent breaking down of a persons spirit and will, a fear that they are even wrong, the intensity of self doubt has crippled most of them to not be able to rise to defend themself. And the saftey of a board here to speak out and be heard and find validation is so very empowering and healing.

When one has been a victim of any kind of controlling relationship, one loses ones empowerment to be one self and grow healthily to relationships and life goals. When one has to use all of ones power to survive, when one is still haunted with nightmares that one has no power to stop from happening, one has not a lot of energy or empowerment to go on and seek a normal life.

If you need to read up and research a bit on some of what trauma does to people, there is a very good website about trauma memories and how it is different from normal memories, found at
http://www.jimhopper.com , also read up and research how rape victims go through the healing process, until you have been raped you do not know what you refer to, and you may be speaking out of a complete void of ignorance about the reality of the truama of a rape victim.

I would wonder at your lack of compassion to those who are doing all they can to survive and move on, adn pull the very real pieces of thier spirits minds and souls back into a state of being able to walk on.

until it is behind one, it is still in ones way. If the trauma of a car wreck happend four months ago or 10 years ago, and left one severly damaged , one would have to focus all of ones emotional and physical energy on just learning to get whole or just cope as one is.

so too with severe emotional and spiritual abuses, trust has to be rebuilt with parents, with church leaders, with God, with oneself, and it is truly like beginning again.

You do not need to help shame the parents who already sit in the ashes of shame, some of them are deeply sorry, while some are very brainwashed and think it is of God to break the wills of young persons.

What Rameriz did in standing out no the News in front of that place was i am sure very very empowering and healing for her to do, it took a TON of courage, nay, 500 TONS of courage to do what she did, she showed her face and she spoke her cause, and she didnt have to drag it through the torture of the justice system to help bring about some justice and help fight against the perpetrator. he is i am sure, sitting in his own shame he pooped out on himself.


Why is this so important to you, are you a survivor of the place or one like it? or are you a worker of one of these places? what difference does it make to you personally, why such an emotional reaction from a supposed complete stranger who strolled into the forum here adn just decided to talk out of a great huge pool of complete ignorance, and pretend she/he is bigger than they are?

yes too many holes in the stories, when one is pumped full of psychotrophics adn the tapes play all night in your sleep and you are beaten down with boards, adn not given a chance to make sense of your inner pain adn struggles,then one is made to forget things, there becomes a breaking in ones mind, and this is evil workings .... this is not of God, period! no questions about it, funny how satan clothes himself in clothing to appear good...but when noone is looking he slays those who are innocent and poor, rendered orphans from the severance that is put into place between them and thier parents, this is not of God, God is all for healnig the family , God does not see it as the kid being the issue, but he sees that the family needs help, the kid is just reacting tothe pain in the family. period.

[GentleStormi]

T. S. Eliot:
The highest form of treason: to do the right thing for the wrong reason. ---
Murder in the Cathedral


Albert Einstein:
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.


George Eliot:
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to stay, abstains from giving us worthy evidence of the fact.


James Michener:
An age is called Dark, not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.



Molly Ivins:
I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil. And that no one knows the truth.

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utcah/00 ... 00293.html
Correspondence and legal documents relate to a lawsuit against Ivins and Ronnie Dugger by Texas evangelist Lester Roloff.
[ This Message was edited by: GentleStormi on 2005-05-03 20:20 ]

[The Liger]

In response to the comments about why Rebecca didn't pursue the case:

You really don't know what it would be like IF IT WERE YOU (since we're capitalizing things we think are important, I guess).  You think you know what it would be like to be sixteen and be raped by a man in his 50s who is supposed to be a man of God?  Why don't you do a bit of research on how many rapes go unreported, let alone prosecuted or civilly pursued?  

What are you talking about "to

• many holes"?  Where?

I was there when it happened.  I'm not the only witness, either.  The police have love notes that Palmer admits writing to Rebecca.  Read up, kid, 'cause you don't know what you're talkin' about.

[betty277]

I find absolutley no solice in the fact the Palmers no longer run VCA i find it quite disturbing that the Cookstons now run VCA. We must all remember that these are the people who were in charge at GBTS when it was closed down for abuse, i mean come on....It does'nt make me sleep any better at night thats for sure.