Ruminations

Blog dedicated primarily to randomly selected news items; comments reflecting personal perceptions

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Predators And Their Victims

It seems miraculous, and thank Fortune for miracles. Three-year-old Kienan Hebert has been returned to his family. He's far too young to cope with what has happened to him; spirited out of his secure bed in a bedroom of his family home during the night while his parents were fast asleep. It could scarcely be foreseen that he would be returned. Albeit returned as mysteriously as he disappeared.

The man assumed to have abducted him during the night, 46-year-old Randall Hopley, an obviously troubled man with a long troubled past is likely to have been the one who returned him. Just as it is likely he took possession of the child. This kind of episode, the abduction of a child from the child's bedroom while the unsuspecting guardians had no idea of impending disaster, occurred on an earlier occasion.

He had laid plans years ago to kidnap a ten-year-old mentally-handicapped boy from a foster home. He was apprehended, however, and strangely enough although it was quite clear that abduction was the motive, he was found guilty of breaking and entering. Despite that the presiding judge indicated that the incident was "better seen as an attempt to kidnap a vulnerable 10-year-old from his foster parents".

He had previously spent two years in prison for a sexual assault, and was convicted on another occasion of assault, among other criminal activities. Police indicated that the man was on probation for property offences of more recent vintage. But, they declined to elaborate, citing his "privacy and his rights". Such commendable delicacy.

In 1987 a psychiatrist warned the parole board sitting on Randall Hopley's case that he was likely to become a repeat offender. There are some indications that the man isn't the brightest bulb in the pack. Making it possible that the full purport of his activities in hunting down little boys doesn't quite inform him of society's and morality's abhorrence at his deviance and the danger he poses.

That's his possible excuse, one might suppose. And then there's the police, admitting or confirming that Mr. Hopley's presence, despite his crimes, had not been revealed to the community in which he resided. "We do have people who have been previously active in a variety of criminal offences and they live amongst us", said RCMP Corporal Dan Moskaluk.

"Some of them become quite good citizens and partake in our community and integrate back and some don't... There's not information that can be disseminated in every case about every criminal that lives amongst us." That's certainly politically correct. It amounts to a good deal of pussy-footing and a lack of responsibility and concern about predators and their victims.

Isn't it past time that concern for the well-being of potential victims trumped that of criminals?

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