Whoa.

I found out this evening that the sheriff who lives two doors down was fired from his job because he allegedly had an inappropriate relationship with a detainee he was supervising.

The mind immediately leaps to conclusions, rather unflattering ones.

Mostly I feel sad for him and his family.  If it proves to be much ado about nothing, his reputation is forever sullied.  You can't wipe this kind of stain clean no matter how false the origins.  Just ask the McMartin family.

If it proves true, he faces some pretty serious consequences.  I don't know the family well, but if they're typical of this area, he faces losing his marriage, his kids, his job, perhaps his freedom and his future.  It is unlawful to have relationships with detainees, even consensual ones.  It is considered to be rape, regardless of the circumstance, and is treated as such.  It's considered a gross abuse of power.  A detainee cannot, under the law, consent.

I wonder if the horrid woman next door, the one who takes such a smugly superior tone with me when she hurls her judgement at me and my family, knows about this.  While she still discourages her children from playing with or even speaking to mine, she hasn't kept them from visiting with him and his.  I admit, this puzzles and galls - here I am, living openly and honestly and trying awfully hard to maintain my integrity and live a compassionate and loving life, and I'm snubbed and chastised...and there he is, accused of an egregious abuse of power and of breaking what are supposed to be vows so sacred that it offends them and their church to contemplate letting anyone outside their rather narrow norms take them, and he is still more acceptable company than my children.

Sigh.

Que sera, sera, but it is likely that I will keep watch from my distance, watch and wait and reach out to catch his family if they start to fall, make sure they are fed and can find solace if the worst occurs and the life they've always known disintegrates.  The children are not guilty of the sins of the father, not that I believe in sin.  He himself deserves compassion no matter what he has done, because he is human and may have lost his way, and being lost like that can be devastating to the human soul.  I've wandered lost, myself, far too often and too long to let anyone else suffer for want of light.