RosieKat
Drama Llama
PeaJect #12
Posts: 5,535
Jun 25, 2014 19:28:04 GMT
|
Post by RosieKat on Jan 24, 2018 18:31:51 GMT
People know, and they all deserve severe punishment. Sheltering a known abuser is the same as doing the abusing, in my book.
|
|
|
Post by stampinfraulein on Jan 24, 2018 22:02:41 GMT
I can't figure out why there hasn't been as much public & media outcry against MSU like there was in the Sandusky case. Heads should be absolutely ROLLING at MSU and USGA!
|
|
|
Post by seikashaven on Jan 24, 2018 22:20:35 GMT
My childhood gymnastics coach was a pedophile and I will never forget sitting with police officers at my kitchen table at 12 years old telling them what I knew. I was not a victim, but many of my friends and teammates were.
This hits too close to home for me. What a horrible human being.
|
|
|
Post by Darcy Collins on Jan 24, 2018 22:22:10 GMT
I can't figure out why there hasn't been as much public & media outcry against MSU like there was in the Sandusky case. Heads should be absolutely ROLLING at MSU and USGA! I'm struggling to understand the response as well. I fear a whole lot of people are going to be allowed to fade away into retirement or even worse stay in their positions as there doesn't seem to be nearly as much outrage as appropriate. Several victims testified who exactly they told about the abuse - and nothing.... It's horrible - and what makes me even more surprised is if anything I would expect the outrage to be higher than Sandusky as the public actually "knows" many of these victims. Sure not really, but they're recognizable faces who we cheered on to medal glory and now it's like - "oh that's awful" - next story....
|
|
|
Post by busy on Jan 24, 2018 22:52:33 GMT
It’s such a terrible story in every way. I too am baffled by MSU’s lack of action and the seeming lack of outrage about their failure to act. And Tom Izzo’s comment about hoping the right person was convicted makes me want to puke.
|
|
|
Post by ScrapsontheRocks on Jan 24, 2018 23:16:04 GMT
175 years- I have no problem whatsoever with that. I was 100% with the judge when she told him to shut up and listen to all of the survivors' statements. He was accusing her of playing to the media etc. that being said, her remark that she "just signed (his) death warrant" was unprofessional and if she is lucky, inaccurate.
Stupid question- I am disgusted, like all of you, that gymnastics bodies, Olympic bodies and so forth did not listen to the girls/women. What about the parents? Did the victims primarily hang tightly together and not speak outside the team? Surely a parent would immediately pull their kid out when told? Is that part of the sickness, not telling so as to stay with the programme?
|
|
|
Post by cakediva on Jan 24, 2018 23:16:04 GMT
I read an article today that said one of the victims said It also listed the staff that have resigned or taken leave because of it all. They should all be taken down along with Nassar! It was a Huffpost article - Nassar Sentenced
|
|
RosieKat
Drama Llama
PeaJect #12
Posts: 5,535
Jun 25, 2014 19:28:04 GMT
|
Post by RosieKat on Jan 24, 2018 23:18:02 GMT
I'm so sorry you had to deal with that, seikashaven . Obviously beyond happy you weren't a specific victim, yet you still were in a way - no kid should have to answer those kinds of questions, because we shouldn't need to be asking them.
|
|
RosieKat
Drama Llama
PeaJect #12
Posts: 5,535
Jun 25, 2014 19:28:04 GMT
|
Post by RosieKat on Jan 24, 2018 23:24:12 GMT
There is so much more to this story than one man molesting countless young athletes. The whole environment of competitive gymnastics (and many other elite sports) is ripe for this kind of abuse. I so completely agree with this. I'm glad they caught this one offender, but the sad thing is that's all he is...just ONE offender. My son is the gymnast, and he's there for 4 hours at a time, at just 9 years old. (Yes, this is his choice, lol.) Can I tell you how happy I am that there is basically nowhere in this gym where you can be behind closed doors? The bathrooms are set off enough for privacy for necessary business, but not super private. The boys' locker room is just lockers in an alcove, no doors (and no changing). The boys practice with shirts on as long as there are girls there training. A student may not text or email a coach unless the parent is copied. You can never guarantee a safe situation, but you can take lots of measures to help with it. But evil people like this will still find a way. I figure it's like locking the door to your house - you try to take the basic precautions and stay aware, but a bad person can still break in. How sad that people cannot respect the humanity of another person enough to respect them and their bodies.
|
|
mallie
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,253
Jul 3, 2014 18:13:13 GMT
|
Post by mallie on Jan 24, 2018 23:25:39 GMT
The first woman who accused Nasser and started the ball rolling was also the last person to speak in the courtroom. Her name is Rachael Denhollander. Here is a story about it: www.yahoo.com/sports/rachael-denhollander-first-woman-accuse-larry-nassar-receives-standing-ovation-courtroom-191725928.htmlI truly think that the reason why there hasn't been as much outrage and coverage as the Sandusky case is largely because the Sandusky case was a man abusing boys so cue up outrage over male-male. I will bet you serious money that if it had been a female abusing those boys, the outrage would have been... not outrage. Finally, Sandusky's crimes went back to Paterno and his program. Paterno was considered a god by many -- when you tarnish a god, especially a football god, people pay attention largely because their world view is challenged. Over and over, I heard more boo hooing about people's fandom being "ruined" and the impact on the football program, rather than outrage over the abuse.
|
|
|
Post by coffeetalk on Jan 24, 2018 23:37:58 GMT
Washington Post Sally Jenkins
USA Gymnastics allowed Larry Nassar to prey upon innocent victims. Congress must investigate. ''A national organization with the initials USA on it forced young girls to submit to pelvic exams by a child molester. Literally hundreds of them were isolated in mandatory “camps” and were repeatedly assaulted by a barehanded pedophile for years on end, while nobody cared to notice the fact that any decent doctor would wear gloves. Where in the fresh red hell is an independent investigation into USA Gymnastics, and why isn’t Congress threatening to smash the U.S. Olympic Committee’s charter into pieces with a gavel over this?
It’s only the worst sex abuse scandal in the history of sports, and maybe in the history of this country. USA Gymnastics and the USOC not only allowed serial pedophile Larry Nassar unsupervised access to the scores of girls in its charge over 30 years, it required them to submit to him. There was no saying, “I don’t like this doctor, I want my own.” The organizations systematically deprived them of any right to say no, to ask for alternate treatment. It makes Hollywood rapes look principled.
“I don’t think people understand just how bad this was,” gold medalist Aly Raisman said in a phone interview Wednesday morning, just before Nassar was sentenced to 175 years. “I don’t think they have all the pieces and understand how USA Gymnastics and the USOC created the perfect environment for this monster.”
Let’s put those pieces together — and understand why Nassar’s trial should be just the start of the investigation and not an end. His years of criminal sexual assaults on gymnasts could only have happened with the assistance of U.S. sports officials and coaches, such as Martha and Bela Karolyi and John Geddert, who let Nassar violate basic medical norms on their watch. It could only have happened because they were willfully blind to his “pelvic adjustments” on young women athletes, for which there was no good reason. It could only have happened because they failed to exercise the most basic, common, fundamental good sense in protecting children, allowing him to probe girls ungloved and sequester himself with them without any nurse present. Here is how negligent they were: The girls were required to see him in their hotel and dorm rooms at night. Alone. On their beds.
“The only way he had access to us was in our rooms; that’s where we were instructed to get therapy from him,” Raisman says. “You were told, ‘This is where you have to get therapy.’ . . . When you’re a kid, you aren’t thinking, ‘I’m alone with a man, and this isn’t right.’ An adult would have said, ‘No way, we need a separate room with massage tables and a door open.’ An adult would have said, ‘That’s messed up, I’m not doing this.’ ”
The adults who should have said it, didn’t. They never said that it was unacceptable to treat girls anywhere but in a proper setting on an examination table. Instead, they told the girls it was unacceptable to turn him down, to refuse to answer his knock or let him shove his hands into them. “I had to see him, there was no choice,” Raisman says, “because if you didn’t then it would be reported that we didn’t see him — and if you had a bad practice the next day, we’d get in trouble for not being ‘disciplined’ and not getting treatment from him.”
At least Hollywood actresses are adults with mature judgment with which to defend themselves. At least they have some small power of self-determination. The girls and young women who were abused by Nassar under the roof of USA Gymnastics and Michigan State had none of those. I didn’t truly understand this until Raisman sat in that courtroom and fixed her gaze on Nassar, with an anger that could have set the air on fire. Only then did it hit home just how powerless they had felt all those years in the grip of USA Gymnastics. The price to be an Olympian was to submit to abuse — there was no other option, it was that or be cut from the program, abandon your talent, surrender your genius.
So it’s not enough that Nassar is going to jail for the rest of his life. It is not nearly enough. If a major U.S. airline has an accident that injures hundreds of people, there is an investigation so the problem can be fixed. When the U.S. military has a scandal that harms its people, there are after-action reports and hearings so the problem can be fixed.
This was a national organization that had charge of other people’s children, under a charter approved by Congress. There must be a neutral independent investigation.
One thing such an investigation will reveal is the sick culture of obedience at USA Gymnastics that provided such a hothouse for an abuser. Other organizations recognized decades ago that boundaries and decencies must be observed when going anywhere near the pelvises and breasts of young women. Not USA Gymnastics. Why not? And who is responsible for not enforcing those decencies?
Camps were mandatory. Treatment was mandatory. Physical exams were mandatory. They were required to sign waivers, releases, agreements, indemnifications, a pile of paperwork which ceded their bodies to the control of others. “They always made us feel like if we ever said anything or complained we were being dramatic or high-maintenance or difficult,” Raisman says. “When you only have five girls who make the Olympic team — we were just conditioned from a young age not to say anything.”
Aly Raisman gives her victim impact statement at the Nassar sentencing hearing in Lansing, Mich., last week. (Dale G Young/AP) They were pulled away from their homes for weeks or a month at a time at these camps, isolated from their parents, discouraged from communicating with agents or lawyers. They were not allowed to have visitors. But Nassar could visit.
To read that paperwork now is nauseating. The National Team Agreement required them to “submit to all reasonable requests for examination or evaluation by medical personnel retained by USA Gymnastics.”
The chief medical officer was Larry Nassar.
Physical therapy was mandatory “to maximize your performance.”
The head trainer for USA gymnastics was Larry Nassar.
A 2000 memo at a national training camp for girls as young as 9 instructed them that if they had a problem at night in the hotel they were to call a list of three people. The first name on the list? Larry Nassar. The memo also instructed them, “Please do not call your personal coach.”
It’s still dawning on Raisman just how shoddy the training camps were and how fundamentally strange Nassar’s conduct was, how much was “extremely unprofessional, I now realize,” she says, and should have been flagged by adults. “He was so incredibly immature and giggly and weird with us.” But the rules said anyone who protested, who refused “verification of her illness or injury by a physician (or medical staff) approved by USA Gymnastics . . . may be removed.” She’d be off the team. To speak up meant losing everything.
“When we would finish practice sometimes, I’d be so beyond exhausted, or in tears,” Raisman says. “And then you’d go to treatment. Which makes it all the more disgusting and manipulative. . . . I can’t even fathom how he lived with himself, but then to take advantage when you were . . . .” She pauses.
You can finish the sentence for her. Hurting. When you were hurting. “We didn’t have a voice,” she continues. “And were just desperate to feel better, and he was the only access to getting treatment. Anytime you had an injury, you had to report it to him.”
Submit, submit, submit. Not until 2015 did USA Gymnastics acknowledge that Nassar was a horrific problem — and then tried to squelch it with a confidential settlement to McKayla Maroney. Another piece of paper, another girl’s submission.
Without a full, meaningful investigation of how Nassar was shielded by these institutions for 30 years despite the most obvious medical misconduct, the testimony of the more than 160 women over the last week will be for nothing. Otherwise there will only be another abuser after him. The USOC and USA Gymnastics and their persistent cultures of evasion and avoidance and enforced silence have to be torn down. The people in charge of this horror chamber must be exposed and punished. And replaced by real leaders. And it’s probably going to take the pressure of a Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) or a Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) to do it, to remind the USOC and USA Gymnastics that they exist solely by virtue of an act of Congress. Here’s why:
When Raisman showed up in that courtroom last week to give her victim-impact statement, “I was so terrified at first,” she says. Think about that. A two-time Olympic gold medalist, captain of the 2012 “Fierce Five” and the 2016 “Final Five,” renowned for her competitive courage, was terrified of the coaches and administrators of USA Gymnastics. “I was terrified at first, because I was so used to them having control,” she says. “But I realize we’re fixing things for the next generation.”
Let’s be sure it really is fixed this time. Don’t waste her bravery.
“Inaction is inaction. Silence is indifference. Justice requires a voice,” Judge Rosemarie Aquilina told the courtroom Wednesday. “There has to be a massive investigation as to why there was inaction. Why there was silence. Justice requires more than what I can do on this bench.” ''
|
|
|
Post by monicad on Jan 24, 2018 23:46:42 GMT
I think they should strip him naked and let some one shove a baton up his ass everytime he tries to cower away Has anyone ever seen that horrendous Adam Sandler movie, "Little Nicky?" The only good scene is when they show Hitler getting a pineapple shoved up his a** every day in hell. I'd like to imagine there is such a place, and "Dr." Nassar will be joining him. There really are no words for how disgusting and vile this man is. ETA: I'm glad to see that there is additional investigation into how this was allowed to happen to so many girls. Hopefully this will be the upside to all of these abuse cases: not just blaming the perpetrator but ALL who are complicit.
|
|
peabay
Prolific Pea
Posts: 9,860
Jun 25, 2014 19:50:41 GMT
|
Post by peabay on Jan 24, 2018 23:46:52 GMT
175 years- I have no problem whatsoever with that. I was 100% with the judge when she told him to shut up and listen to all of the survivors' statements. He was accusing her of playing to the media etc. that being said, her remark that she "just signed (his) death warrant" was unprofessional and if she is lucky, inaccurate. Stupid question- I am disgusted, like all of you, that gymnastics bodies, Olympic bodies and so forth did not listen to the girls/women. What about the parents? Did the victims primarily hang tightly together and not speak outside the team? Surely a parent would immediately pull their kid out when told? Is that part of the sickness, not telling so as to stay with the programme? I read an article, because I do know that there are legitimate medical procedures that involve digital penetration and I wanted more information about Nasser and how this devolved into abuse. The guidelines for those procedures with minors are that parents are in the room; gloves should be worn. He did neither. He would also dim the lights and take off his belt and get an erection as he whispered in their ears, asking them how it felt. Parents were either discouraged from being in the room or would've had to walk across a gymnastics floor to get to his small room, with a covered window, on the other side of the gym. He had groomed all of these kids, made them feel special and made them think this was a part of what can be a legitimate medical procedure for pelvic and lower back pain. He's the lowest of the low. What a piece of pondscum.
|
|
|
Post by busy on Jan 24, 2018 23:58:47 GMT
|
|
Dalai Mama
Drama Llama
La Pea Boheme
Posts: 6,985
Jun 26, 2014 0:31:31 GMT
|
Post by Dalai Mama on Jan 24, 2018 23:59:40 GMT
There is so much more to this story than one man molesting countless young athletes. The whole environment of competitive gymnastics (and many other elite sports) is ripe for this kind of abuse. I so completely agree with this. I'm glad they caught this one offender, but the sad thing is that's all he is...just ONE offender. My son is the gymnast, and he's there for 4 hours at a time, at just 9 years old. (Yes, this is his choice, lol.) Can I tell you how happy I am that there is basically nowhere in this gym where you can be behind closed doors? The bathrooms are set off enough for privacy for necessary business, but not super private. The boys' locker room is just lockers in an alcove, no doors (and no changing). The boys practice with shirts on as long as there are girls there training. A student may not text or email a coach unless the parent is copied. You can never guarantee a safe situation, but you can take lots of measures to help with it. But evil people like this will still find a way. I figure it's like locking the door to your house - you try to take the basic precautions and stay aware, but a bad person can still break in. How sad that people cannot respect the humanity of another person enough to respect them and their bodies. It’s not just a matter of opportunity. Paedophiles spend a lot of time grooming their victims. The USAG treats it’s athletes as a commodity - those who win are handed the world, those who don’t are shunned. It is a brutal, emotionally devastating environment for anyone, let alone a child. In this case, Nasser didn’t need to groom his victims, the USAG did it for him.
|
|
|
Post by monicad on Jan 25, 2018 0:04:03 GMT
They handle campus sexual assault cases the same way; dissuade girls from reporting so their statistics stay down, which keep the alumni donating and the new students applying. Colleges across the country have proven that $$ will always be far more important than student safety.
|
|
|
Post by Darcy Collins on Jan 25, 2018 0:35:52 GMT
The first woman who accused Nasser and started the ball rolling was also the last person to speak in the courtroom. Her name is Rachael Denhollander. Here is a story about it: www.yahoo.com/sports/rachael-denhollander-first-woman-accuse-larry-nassar-receives-standing-ovation-courtroom-191725928.htmlI truly think that the reason why there hasn't been as much outrage and coverage as the Sandusky case is largely because the Sandusky case was a man abusing boys so cue up outrage over male-male. I will bet you serious money that if it had been a female abusing those boys, the outrage would have been... not outrage. Finally, Sandusky's crimes went back to Paterno and his program. Paterno was considered a god by many -- when you tarnish a god, especially a football god, people pay attention largely because their world view is challenged. Over and over, I heard more boo hooing about people's fandom being "ruined" and the impact on the football program, rather than outrage over the abuse. But in many ways it’s the same - this happened under the “gods of gymnastics” at Bela Karolyi camps - where the hell is the demand for accountability. Way too few are talking about the enablers and if so they’re quietly “retired” - it’s bs
|
|
|
Post by Darcy Collins on Jan 25, 2018 0:49:55 GMT
I’ll add if you haven’t read the Indiana Star article linked in the above yahoo article you should. Those reporters should be commended as well for their research without their story the first victim might not have come forward and this pervert would still be abusing - as clearly no one else was going to stop him.
|
|
|
Post by busy on Jan 25, 2018 2:44:04 GMT
The president of MSU has resigned. Thankfully.
|
|
|
Post by Darcy Collins on Jan 25, 2018 3:41:06 GMT
The president of MSU has resigned. Thankfully. She must have been less clueless than her trustees. That interview you posted was horrid.
|
|
|
Post by busy on Jan 25, 2018 3:56:05 GMT
|
|
QueenoftheSloths
Drama Llama
Member Since January 2004, 2,698 forum posts PeaNut Number: 122614 PeaBoard Title: StuckOnPeas
Posts: 5,955
Jun 26, 2014 0:29:24 GMT
|
Post by QueenoftheSloths on Jan 25, 2018 4:06:10 GMT
I got teary when I watched the coverage of the judge reading her verdict. I hope the survivors find some comfort in it and can successfully move past these horrific acts, and that justice finds all those who collaborated in covering this up.
|
|
|
Post by busy on Jan 25, 2018 4:20:34 GMT
|
|
|
Post by kristi on Jan 25, 2018 4:48:21 GMT
This story is horrific and I suspect is going to get bigger as more comes out about how many adults knew about his behavior and ignored it.
It is unbelievable that when alerted, they continued to let him off time and time again.
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
Sept 16, 2024 9:46:32 GMT
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2018 5:54:44 GMT
People know, and they all deserve severe punishment. Sheltering a known abuser is the same as doing the abusing, in my book. One of my favorite musician's lines about this is... The fact remains if you protect a single kiddie-f#($*er then pope, or prince, or plumber, you're a f#($*ing mother-f#$(er. And yes, he further goes on in the song about how too many get the vapors over "language" but raised no protest as kids were being abused.
|
|
|
Post by flanz on Jan 25, 2018 6:35:12 GMT
Every person from the top to the bottom who had any inkling of a connection to this needs to lose their jobs. That pathetic piece of shit need never see the light of day again. Can you even imagine the sense of power he thought he had for all of those years? I hope every inmate in his prison wields the same power over him every day of the rest of his life. Also, I'm kind of stunned that this thread has not gotten more attention than it has. Cindy Although... I think perhaps it is too hard to think about for some/many?
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
Sept 16, 2024 9:46:32 GMT
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2018 14:10:31 GMT
|
|
|
Post by littlemama on Jan 25, 2018 14:14:13 GMT
her remark that she "just signed (his) death warrant" was unprofessional and if she is lucky, inaccurate. He is in his 50s. The minimum sentence is 40 years. She was stating that he would die in prison, not that he would be killed in prison.
|
|
|
Post by gryroagain on Jan 25, 2018 14:38:28 GMT
Ok I can’t quote because ancient iPad, but Dali mama when you said “USAG groomed them for him”- spot on.
There is such a culture of coaches know best, parents stay far away, girls competing for every ounce of attention so they will do whatever it takes to be “in”.
This story broke my heart.
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
Sept 16, 2024 9:46:32 GMT
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2018 17:34:06 GMT
"When my oldest daughter was in eighth grade, she was picked for a traveling all-star soccer team, and I momentarily lost my mind. I stopped being a parent and started being a fan. The coaches became deities, their orders became gospel, and my faith became blind." "If a child molester like Nassar can be protected by a major university, a national sports organization and the United States Olympic Committee, who can parents trust with their child athletes? The answer, as we've all been so horribly reminded, is to ask questions, listen to your child and trust nobody until they've earned it.... Athlete after athlete told stories of being ordered to visit Nassar by a coach, often without a parent present. During what he called treatment, he would vaginally or anally penetrate them for as long as 20 to 40 minutes. When they complained, they were told they didn't understand medicine or were otherwise shushed. Until now.... The issue of trust has been a recurring theme. The athletes and their parents had to trust a system that churned out Olympians. Or they had to trust the university if they wanted to compete in college. And that gave Nassar his opportunity. Anne Swinehart, whose daughter Jillian was abused when she was 8, spoke for many of the tortured parents when she said, "To think I let this happen to my child when I was sitting right there…'' This could happen to any of us with children in sports, right? We hand them over to strangers with no questions asked. We send them to distant backyards for pitching lessons, to desolate ice rinks for early-morning skating practice, and we walk away for hours or even entire weekends.... In one of the most sickening statements in a case full of them, trustee Joel Ferguson said during a radio interview, "There's so many more things going on at this university than just this Nassar thing. … I mean, when you go to the basketball game, you walk into the new Breslin and the person who hustled and got all those major donors to give money was Lou Anna Simon.''
For Ferguson's Michigan State, it seems that money trumps morality. Listening to the gymnasts, the same philosophy was followed by USA Gymnastics in the pursuit of Olympic gold....
The USOC needs to decertify USAG, clean house, and start from scratch. Current gymnasts might temporarily lose funding and their ability to compete internationally, and that might not be fair, but it's the only answer."
www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-gymnastics-placshke-20180123-story.html
|
|