One can only imagine the anguish this girl and her family are enduring.
I don't know the identity of the family. Nor do I care to. But I know her school - a highly regarded, relatively small, tight-knit community. And it only stands to reason that those within that community will know who she is and that her ordeal will present some awkward social situations. Her return to school must loom large as September will come soon enough for all of our kids.
It occurs to me that there was another option. Arguably, the family could have approached the school, alerted the headmaster, and demanded that the coach be fired. That might have brought some modicum of satisfaction for the girl and her parents, and would have preserved her privacy, but it would have done nothing for the rest of us.
Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Ferman, while refusing to address the specifics of this case, nevertheless told me that "silence and secrecy are a predator's enablers; when we expose them and their acts, we can remove the opportunity for them to repeat their crimes."
She noted that older teenagers can easily develop a hero-like worship for their teachers and coaches, which can make it easy for a corrupt adult to manipulate the teen. "Simply firing the offending teacher puts him or her back on the job elsewhere, able to take advantage of another teen," Ferman said.
