Ohioans For Child Protection

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Ted nine weather forecast. Winter Weather Advisory begins at eleven AM.
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twenty overnight twenty eight degrees of high tomorrow with some clouds.
Clouds overnight twenty and a partly cloudy Sunday with the
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time delinging Cidia with Chuck Ingraman fifty five krs the
talk station, Hey.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Thirty fifty five KRCD Talk Station, Happy Friday. Not a
happy subject matter, but a happy outcome for the children
in the state of Behind on a going forward basis.
Governor Mike Dwineseina bill into law this week making it
a crime for predators to groom a child for sexual
abuse using a pattern of behavior. A woman responsible a

(01:32):
large part Ohioans for Child Protections. Rebecca Serendorff is on
the phone to talk about her journey to get this
bill enacted. Rebecca, initially, let me thank you on behalf
of myself personally and my listening audience and every parent
of a young child out there for getting this pass.
And over the finish line, what I'm reading about this,

(01:53):
this father Cutcher, for example, is just absolutely horrific and disgusting.
Welcome to the fifty five or Morning Show, Rebecca.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Good morning, and thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (02:04):
Really, this was such a collaborative effort from moms and
dads and grandparents picking up the phone and calling lawmakers
to our bill sponsors, Bill Sites and Cindy Abrams and
great committee heads like Manning and Hillier, that helped usher
this through. We had floor speeches from both sides the
aisle and support and it went through unanimously in the

(02:26):
Senate and.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
All but one vote in the House.

Speaker 4 (02:29):
So this really took a village and hopefully we'll be
able to collaborate again because there's way too much sex
abuse in our state.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Well, it really is, and you know, the job is
not over. As I'm I'm looking at the reporting from
wcpo's Paula Christian who was following this story, Ohio is
the sixth that's six, number six in the nation to
criminalize child grooming for sex. I find that impossible to believe. Rebecca.
I do you have any concept as how or why

(02:57):
that might be? Because we've had the Internet and you know,
social media and the like, which makes it so easy
for perverts to reach out to children, people pretend to
be young people and make friends online. We've heard story
after story after story, and it has been going on
for years. How is it that more states haven't done
something about this?

Speaker 4 (03:17):
Well, I think in part, it's a few factors, right.
I think in our imaginations, a lot of us were
raised with the concept of stranger danger, right, But the
facts of child sex abuse is most children know their offender,
and many families know them and trust them. When you
look at online abuse right now, University of New Hampshire
estimates that about one in six kids in our country

(03:39):
are being exploited online and over sixty percent of those
offenders online already know your child and their offline life.
Many times they're presenting themselves as somebody else in peerage, right,
And so, first of all, there's a lot of misconceptions
about that how this works.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Right.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
We also as.

Speaker 4 (03:59):
Parents believe that because we sat down and talked to
our kids about these things such a stranger danger or
that people shouldn't touch you into certain places, that your child.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
Will come home and tell you about the assault.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
And the sad reality is that delayed disclosure is a
real problem for a child after they've been assaulted. Many
offenders will threaten a child, They manipulate them in ways
to make the child feel as if they're wrongly complicit
in this abuse. They'll threaten to harm another sibling if
they disclose, and also PTSD and trauma. Usually a child

(04:40):
can be disassociating. There's a lot happening in the aftermath
of assault, and your child may not come home and
tell you, and sometimes just fear will you believe them
is a problem. So it's that we have programs like
Aaron'swall that was just passed two years ago, but sadly

(05:03):
all the religious schools in our state were carved out
of that, so we're not equally protecting the kids.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
It's only the public school kids with.

Speaker 4 (05:11):
Aaron's Law training, and that's age appropriate body safety training.
And many people will tell you that after a large
school has that training, they have a few children step
forward at the end of it because this is trained
professionals that know how to phrase things in the right
way for the age of a child.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
And their understanding.

Speaker 4 (05:34):
And it just gets to a different level because many
times you have to describe a behavior, like a forensic nurse,
for example, is not going to ask someone have you
been ranked? They will maybe describe the circumstances. That is
because even labeling what an assault is is its own
process for any age victim, right, So getting evidence based

(05:58):
approaches is so key, and that's why we've been calling
for Sexual Violence Caucus up at the state House. We
would like to get all the minds to the table,
from lawmakers to forensic nurses, to the good folks at
Ohio Liancedend Sexual Violence, the Council and child Abuse. There's
so many great organizations in our state and law enforcement,

(06:22):
the prosecutors. Get these people to the table, and let's
start taking a comprehensive approach to updating our laws, because
predators are always updating what they're doing and how they're
exploiting our children, and the legislative process can take a
long time.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
This bill took five years to get to the finish line.

Speaker 4 (06:46):
Yes, I think of all the children that were exploited
in that time. Status the Girls Report says one in
five girls were sexually assaulted in Ohio in the last
twelve months.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
When they did a climate survey of our young.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
God, one in five.

Speaker 4 (07:02):
One in five, we're above the national average. Can you
imagine if one in five cars were stolen this year?

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Ah, they d be screaming, bloody nightmare. All let's ill
tell you what. We're not done with this conversation, Rebecca.
I want to hold you over and talk a little
bit more about it. I'm also curious to know about
the lone no vote. But I want you to enlighten
my listeners as to how this will work, and how
this this grooming process and how far it has to
go before they might find themselves subject to criminal liability

(07:31):
under this new law. Will continue with and thank God
for her, Rebecca Cerndorf after these brief words.

Speaker 4 (07:37):
Fifty five KRC, Well, did you know that Future Health
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Speaker 1 (07:43):
Here's your nine first morning weather forecasts. When weather revisory
starts at eleven am last week Tomorrow morning at seven Today,
snow kicks in around eleven AM, expecting two to maybe
five inches. Twenty eight three is going to be the
high today snow and around eleven they're suggesting overnight roads
might be covered with snow slick to be careful low
of twenty twenty eight to high tomorrow mostly cloudy, partly

(08:05):
thoty over night down to twenty and a partly cloudy
Sunday thirty two. It's seventeen right now, time for chuck
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Speaker 1 (08:23):
Two sixty three.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Crews continue to work with an accident stop found seventy
five above Middletown traffic backing up towards Franklin in one
twenty three. Traffic elsewhere is doing just fine. Chuck Ingram
on fifty five krs the talk station.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
A thirty nine coming right eighty forty fifty five kerc
detalk station. There are good people out in the world,
and there's some terrible people out in the world. One
of the good ones so fighting for protecting our young
people from molesters and would be child rapist Rebecca Cerndorf
on the program High Winds for Child Protection. It's easy
to find her organization if you're a Facebook on Facebook,

(09:02):
just search Ohilands for Child Protection to take your right
to the web page. And congratulations on getting Mike Dwayne
to sign this. It only took five years to get
the bill that criminalizes grooming. And you mentioned it was
unanimous with the exception of one House vote. Can I
ask why that was it? Was it a no vote
or an abstention vote? And I was there any reason

(09:25):
associated with not embracing this seemingly I mean bulletproof from
a need standpoint bill.

Speaker 4 (09:35):
We'd never circled back with the lawmaker. But I would
imagine that maybe they just wanted to just register that
like a pause there of like let's.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
Make sure it's narrow enough.

Speaker 4 (09:47):
And that's a good thing to have, is whenever you're
looking to criminalize something, particularly when you're going to have
a new crime in your state, you want to make
sure that it's constructed in such a way that it
won't be tossed out for beg or that your nets
so wide that you would sweep up innocent people, because
that is not our intention in any way. And after

(10:09):
further vetting of this bill, everyone became much more comfortable
with it. And it's great that that's how this process.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
Works in committee.

Speaker 4 (10:18):
And and basically this is constructed to kind of mirror
other parts of Ohio Revised Code, like pattern of behavior
in grooming mimics that in stalking and stalking itself. Individual
behaviors in stalking can be relatively innocent, right, Like if

(10:39):
someone going past your house this morning, completely innocent behavior,
isn't it. But if they came past your house eighty
times in.

Speaker 3 (10:49):
The one week, combined with like they show at your.

Speaker 5 (10:54):
Job site, Yeah right, I mean we all know the
difference between like innocent behavior, creepy behavior, and clearly there's
more to this threatening behavior right right, And then that
ties into this reasonable adult standard which.

Speaker 3 (11:11):
Is all over us laws.

Speaker 4 (11:14):
Is this notion of would any reasonable adults see that
the purpose and purpose is also another keyword when it
comes toime writing laws. It is a higher standard than
for example, recklessness, right exactly, so does a reasonable adult
see that this was for the purpose of sex abuse?
And then the teering mirrors also are sexual battery laws.

(11:39):
So if this is someone in a position of authority
over a minor, such as a teacher or a coach,
or a youth minister or a cleric, you now have
a different tier for that. It also tiars it for
if there's drugs and alcohol and if the victim is
under thirteen years of age.

Speaker 3 (11:58):
So this starts out as a mistamean and it becomes
a felony.

Speaker 4 (12:02):
Based off of if you have priors for sex offenses
as well, because we were still leaving the door open
for like someone did not realize like how very problematic
their behavior with a mirus that they have a chance
to clean it up.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
If they don't have that.

Speaker 4 (12:23):
Special relationship as a position of authority over the minor
and that, But we wanted something that's going to come
up on a background check, right, all these youth serving
lords with background checks, If they can't see that you
have a history of grooming minors, then how are they
going to guard the gate as to who has a

(12:45):
lot of access and authority over children?

Speaker 1 (12:49):
Fair enough? And I you know, as I sit here,
part of this reasonable standard I suppose is under what circumstances.
And I personally, with the exception of you know, my
and my children grown. My son's thirty, my daughter's twenty eight,
but I'm projecting backwards and I'm remembering when they were younger.
I might have a reason if I'm trying to find
where my son is in these in these technological age,

(13:10):
we already kids got cell phones. Anyway, The only reason
I can think I would even be interacting with someone
who is this young would be maybe to try to
track down my son. But that would be an innocuous
sort of hey do you know where Jerry is? Kind
of thing. It's a fair question to ask one of
his friends, even if they're only twelve years old. But
beyond that, why would any grown adult have reason to

(13:33):
regularly communicate with a minor along these lines when they're
not you know, a parental figure or someone that has
an in local parentice relationship to that young child.

Speaker 4 (13:44):
Right, Well, there are forty two grooming behaviors that were
found in some research by Winters in jeglists out of
John Jay College.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
If I recall, and basically the.

Speaker 4 (13:57):
More these behaviors you see, the more that this is
probably escalating or that abuse has already occurred. And they
basically researched what was normal mentor behavior with people had
never been abused and those that were, And there's a
whole series of red flag behaviors that you're in a

(14:18):
high risk situation if you were seeing this, and some
of it is creating circumstances like we saw with the
San Dusty case, creating circumstances to be showering with the youth,
right that you were creating circumstances for nudity, like encouraging
young people the skinny dip with you, which we see

(14:39):
in some of the investigative reports have been done on
historic church abuse as well. Also adults that are texting minors.

Speaker 3 (14:49):
About sex acts. But it is clearly not in the
spirit of sex ed.

Speaker 4 (14:54):
We all know what that really looks like in life, right,
it's usually your health teacher or the parent custodian of
the child having a discussion with them, many times bringing
thoughtful resources, particularly in a classroom setting. I mean, we
all know how this is done right out of the
health books, right, and this instead, like if you look

(15:14):
at the culture case, I can't even quote some of
the content there.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
Oh, I know on the region because it's better regulated.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
Right, Yes, I'm reading some of it right now. This
is why I this is text messages back and forth.
And I again, I'm trying to envision the circumstances why
any adult would need to engage in any type of
long back and forth regularly occurring discussion with someone of
that age. And this kid was I guess fourteen years

(15:43):
old or I don't know, but for this this minister
to be we have a regularly engaged This is not
providing counseling or ministry. This isn't you know, coming into
the priest's office and sitting down and getting advice about
the lord or something object.

Speaker 4 (16:00):
And I think as parents and concerned adults, I would
see this as that when you're seeing things that are
starting to add up.

Speaker 3 (16:09):
And you're concerned.

Speaker 4 (16:10):
Right, First of all, like start monitoring the situation. Better,
consider this like a yellow light situation here, and.

Speaker 3 (16:18):
If this is happening at a school, you may.

Speaker 4 (16:22):
Want to start documenting the concerns or co child protective services.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
This is one of the things we hope.

Speaker 4 (16:27):
Will come of this is that now when you're reporting
grooming behavior, you are now reporting a crime potentially, right.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
And in the past this wasn't quite categorized.

Speaker 4 (16:40):
As anything because it's very rare for someone to witness
the sexual assault, and these things happen behind closed doors.
The grooming is the smoke and there's usually a fire, right,
But the responsible adults see the grooming behavior and sometimes
because these are young children, were miss seeing the larger

(17:00):
context here. Like in the father Jeff Drew case, we
saw reports from boys in three different counting over the
course of multiple decades from the eighties right up until
a few years before his arrest, that they were reporting
they didn't like the hugs from behind. The hugs from behind. Well,
these are young children. They knew they didn't like the

(17:23):
hugs from behind. But it wasn't until I heard the
victim impact statement two years after Drew's arrest when he
was pleading guilty that the victim spelled out as an
adult man that Drew was aroused and rubbing himself on
that that's already a.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
Crime in Ohio.

Speaker 4 (17:43):
Right, But this gets back to vocabulary and the young mind.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
Right.

Speaker 4 (17:47):
The child isn't the vocabulary for it. It'd be very
difficult to train them to understand that moment better. Yes,
but take into account the alarm.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
That your child has.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
Right.

Speaker 4 (17:58):
Your child isn't coming home to report a hug that
felt good. They're coming home because their body was telling
them that they were in danger. And if anything, tell
your child to trust themselves and their instincts. If someone's
making them feel sick to their stomach, they should tell.

Speaker 3 (18:16):
You about it.

Speaker 4 (18:17):
And they don't have to unpack it for you today,
but they're allowed to proceed with caution. And I think
it's also good for children to have a safe word.
One of the the great moms that we spoke to
that's retired from working with exploited children, she said, it's
great for your child to have something that they can
text you or say to you. I think they're quite verifiable,

(18:42):
but lets you know that they don't feel safe in
this moment, whether it's a sleepover.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
Or uncle your child's hanging out it Uncle Jim's down
the street too regularly that I mean, like that that
kind of thing. Red flag. Wait, why is a grown person?
Why is a grown man spending so much time with
my minor child? You know, outside of the regular confines
of the norm. Like again, going to church and seeing

(19:13):
the priest, that's one thing, But if the priest is
inviting your child over to his house, that's a completely
different thing right there.

Speaker 4 (19:20):
And I think this happens gradually, right like, these things
start off looking innocent and then they take a dark turn,
and it's important to just kind of reframe it.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
Think of the other.

Speaker 4 (19:30):
Trusted adults in your life, your child's life, and then
just take these behaviors, plug in different names, and if
it sounds bizarre, you need to rethink.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
Is this perceived with a ton of caution?

Speaker 4 (19:43):
Or are we picking up the phone and calling child
Protective Services about it or the police?

Speaker 3 (19:48):
And by all.

Speaker 4 (19:49):
Means, watch your child's social media used.

Speaker 3 (19:53):
I can't tell you, oh snaptat coming up.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
But also you hit upon one of them pet peeves
right there. We have so much capability to control our
children's interactions online. You have special software you can put
on You can monitor your child's online behavior remotely, but
just by installing the appropriate app. I don't know why
more adults just don't do that as a default mechanism. Period.

(20:17):
End of story, Rebecca. All I can tell you is
thank you very much, and I'm just imagining down the
road all of the children you have saved from the
next step after the initiation of this grooming process. Lord Almighty,
Rebecca ser.

Speaker 4 (20:33):
Has one hundred and fifty victims. So if we can
stop them early in their offending timeline, we can save
thousands of kids.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
Thousands from a lifetime of psychological harm. Let us not
ignore that reality. Rebecca. Thanks again on behalf of everybody
in the state of Ohio and all the other states
out there get on board to have a wonderful weekend, Rebecca,
and thanks again for your work. It's eight fifty two
if if you have KC

Speaker 4 (20:59):
Detalk Station fifty five KRC a U line the prevailing
opinion