I am currently working on a draft post about “healing.” Its shaping up pretty well and then today I decided to do something very silly. I decided to go back and read through the files of the case against my ex step father.
I should have known that after a month of being on an emotional high inr egards to spreading awareness of sexual assault that the natural order of the pendulum would need to swing the other way to try and restore balance. That pendulum has now reached the far left and no matter what mantra I say, no matter what good place I am in now, I find myself discouraged, frustrated and distrusting of church and many legal entities.
We all know that most crimes go unreported. Not just cases of sexual assault and abuse, but most crimes in general. Mr. Officer who has worked in law enforcement on a federal level says the statistics are alarming. He says 80% are unreported! WTF!
When it comes to sexual crimes, I wonder just how high that statistic is. Perhaps its unreported because people are threatened. They are scared. They think its their fault. There are tons of reasons. Mine would have gone unreported and perhaps if my mom wasn’t so nosy….we’d still be in that same place. (She read my journal. That’s how she found out.)
Years later..Daniel beat me. He beat me because I asked my younger siblings to finish their school work before they watched TV. Daniel was upset that my mother was at work. He didn’t want her to work. He wanted her to be solely dependant upon him. And we were at home and he accused me of undermining his authority because I asked the siblings to finish their school work before watching tv. I became flippant with the lip. So he broke my cd’s and other belongings. He ripped cords out of the wall from a computer I was working on. He began trashing the apartment because I wouldn’t shut up. He was yelling and screaming and for the first time in my life, I yelled back.
So he beat me.
I don’t remember everything. I remember being thrown against a wall. I remember being hit. I remember being called very nasty names. I remember my siblings were sitting on the couch as this was happening. I wonder if they remember this?
The last thing I remember is that he tried to lock me in my bedroom. We lived in a very old style apartment where you could lock someone inside the room from the outside. I knew that if he closed that door, he was going to leave me there and I was scared for my life. I ran for the door and just as it was about the close, my hand got caught in the door.
And Elder Daniel Young, this esteemed pillar of God at New Life Celebration Church of God, SLAMMED the door on my hand. And he kept slamming it and trying to force it to close. And I screamed. I felt like an animal caught in a trap. I begged him to let go of the door. I pleaded. And he just kept trying to slam the door shut.
“PLEASE STOP!” I begged. “MY HAND. THIS HURTS. STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
And he would not stop.
Finally I said, “If you don’t let go of this door, I am going to tell the police EVERYTHING you ever did to me! I’m going to tell them about the sexual abuse.”
And he let go of the door with the quickness. Being sent to jail, being caught was always a fear of his.
I grabbed my jacket and I ran out of the house. I ran to a church. A new church. Not the cult church that had kicked my mother and I out. And I asked them to help me. And I freaked out because I had left my siblings there.
My mother and I went to the police that night. We told them about the beating and we told me about the years of sexual abuse. We grabbed all of our belongings and we moved into the attic of a family friend.
A few days later, the police came to interview and question me about the abuse. It was more of an interrogation. It was more of, “you realize this didn’t have to go on for as long as it did had you said something sooner.”
Officer Underwood. That was his name! After going through these files today, I found his name. He was the jerk who blamed me and also blamed my mother. But he didn’t blame Daniel. That’s so weird and yet I’m not surprised.
I sat there with Officer Underwood, his partner and my mother and spoke in all the details about the abuse. Its only after going through this paperwork and reading Daniel’s confession that I realize it was worse than I thought. And that freaks me out that I can’t even remember all the things that happened to me. What if I’m forgetting anything else? I remember the Officer asking for every detail.
“Did he ever penetrate you?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“How can you not know?” he asked.
“Because sometimes I’d wake up in the morning and all my clothes were off and I couldn’t remember a thing. But I’d remember a smell and I knew that I didn’t take my clothes off myself. So I don’t know what happened but I know something happened.”
Nevermind what I couldn’t remember happening. Just knowing the things I do remember is horrific enough!
So we do this long ass interview. After which I blame myself for the duration of the abuse which lead to years of many mental and emotional problems.
And a week later, they call us to tell us that they LOST THE FILE. They lost everything. Who the fuck loses the file? Files are mainly lost on purpose. When someone is trying to destroy a case! They gave us one day to come and do the interview again. Of course the day they picked, I was out of town on a preplanned trip. So they made a note that we were no longer cooperating.
Two months later my case makes it to DCFS and they began a more thorough investigation. They question us as to why its taken them so long to get the case. We tell them its because of the police. Because they dropped the ball. Or perhaps they threw the ball away!
After many more interviews and evaluations, they tell us things like, “Get an order of protection against Daniel.” But then we were told we couldn’t get one because Daniel hadn’t threatened us. We were told my mother had to file for sole custody of the kids. But the divorce court said she couldn’t yet since they were in the middle of a divorce. So again the police said we weren’t cooperating since we wouldn’t get the order of protection and my mother was refusing to try and get sole custody.
WHAT THE FUCK PEOPLE!?!?!?!?!?!
Do you think I’m making this shit up? I have the case in front of me. I’m reading what the police are saying. What DCFS are saying. What Daniel’s lawyer is saying. I can’t believe how all these adults just dropped the ball.
Next there was a court date set. A court case in which we were never informed of the date. You would think that after us going to the police and filing these charges that we’d go to court to see this thing through.
I don’t know if the police were on some bullshit, if DCFS was doing something weird or if everyone was just stuck on stupid but we were never informed of the court date. Because I wasn’t there to give my testimony, Daniel’s charges of Criminal Sexual Abuse was downgraded to Battery.
And not only that. But his punishment was to seek couseling. The court decided that it was ok for his therapist to be the pastor of the church he attends to this day. Are you kidding me?
You would think after we told the police how one church was ok with the fact that he was a pedophile and let it keep happening, that they wouldn’t be so quick to approve a another pastor as his counselor. Does that even make sense? They said if he complied, he could even get the Battery charge taken off his file permanately after a year and $100. Nice to know that freedom for molestors is so cheap! The the price I had to pay was almost my life.
He was also ordered to stay away from me for a period of 18 months. Of which he didn’t abide. He found out what college I went to. What dorm I was in and he’d write me letters. And even till this day he follows me. He followed me to Texas. I had to cause a scene to get him to back away from me. I had to take pictures and video saying, ‘My name is Sheena Young. Today is May 2009. I am asking Daniel C. Young Sr. to please stop harrassing me and following me and talking to me and he is refusing to leave me alone. This video is proof. The man you see on camera is Daniel C. Young and he will not stop harrassing me” And I just kept repeating that on my video camera and he kept approaching me. This was just last year people! This man is not cured! And yet some of you are letting him teach your children. This is harsh but SHAME ON YOU.
So that’s what happened folks. I did what most people don’t. I reported it. And my mother and I were blamed for the abuse. Our case was lost. We were accused of not cooperating. Important court dates were hidden from us.
And 7 years of sexual abuse was reduced to battery. And to this day Elder Daniel Young tries to contact me and follow me around the country.
And to this day, some of you are still defending him. SHAME ON YOU!
Right now, I am attempting to reach a centered balance. I’m trying not to be upset at the police, at the court system, at DCFS, at church. I’m trying not to be frustrated.
But my heart hurts for every other person this happens to. There are so many victims and survivors being silenced. This is sickening!
