Northwood Coach and Security Guard Arrested Child Sex Felony
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Anonymous
Reporting to the police is just providing information that you know. If you are hearing rumors that could be child abuse, give the police the tip and let the police investigate to determine if there’s truth. You should call the Special Victims Unit for the Montgomery County Police Department. |
Anonymous
If you hear a rumor that a student has a gun at school and is preparing to use it, but you haven’t actually seen the gun, do you sit tight and assume it’s just a false rumor? The responsible thing is to report to the police and let the police investigate. Same is true if you hear rumors about child abuse or predatory behavior. |
Anonymous
You can also make an anonymous report regarding school safety issues through the Safe Schools Maryland tip line’s app, web form, or call line). No one can investigate if people are silent when there are red flags. https://schoolsafety.maryland.gov/Pages/Tipline.aspx Phone: 1-833-632-7233 |
Anonymous
MCPS website hasn’t been updated with the Reumante letter to the community, but his arrest would equal 8/29 arrests or 27% of arrests are of people affiliated with sport programs in MCPS schools. These are the arrests - Giovanni Reumante Kirkland Shipley Christopher Papadopoulos Maxwell Bero Duke Williams Thomas Ridges Cory Boatman Michael Riley (employed 30 years in MCPS including Athletic Director) Other areas with high percentage of arrests are Special Education (17%) and after school programs (10%). |
Anonymous
You can report anonymously here: https://schoolsafety.maryland.gov/Pages/Tipline.aspx No one will investigate unless someone from the public speaks up. This is a way to report but protect your child from retaliation. |
Anonymous
Sorry, I’m unfamiliar with a few of the names. I had to look up Michael Riley… his actions date back to 1984, where is he now? Who is Duke Williams? Thomas Ridges- his actions that led to charges took place about a decade after he left Mcps. Were there additional charges from the time he was an MCPS employee? |
Anonymous
Read the Letters to the Community in the link provided. And there was a typo - should be Dake Williams who is in the Williams letter. Michael Riley - Google his name for the news records. He retired MCPS to work for a private school as a track coach. He was coaching when the arrest occurred. A child predator is a predator no matter when the offense or where the offense occurs. For Thomas Ridges, why issue a Letter to the Community if his contact with children in the community during his employment by MCPS wasn’t relevant? Often, these letters go out to see if other victims will come forward. |
Anonymous
Right, I’m all for getting these scumbags away from our school and athletic programs but the point is how do we examine what has happened in the past to prevent future cases of abuse. If a coach or school employee has not arrests or reports of sexual deviance against children, how are these creeps screened out during the vetting process? Many victims fail to report, which is understandable, but what options do districts have. Is the whole, “MCPS knowingly hires child predators and protects them” argument valid? |
Anonymous
Reread the letter regarding Thomas Ridge. He was employed by MCPS as a para educator and a coach at the time of his arrest. He had been working in various MCPS schools for over a decade by the time he was arrested for abuse that occurred at another non-MCPS job. Mr. Ridge was placed on administrative leave by MCPS when he was arrested. |
Anonymous
| *no* arrests |
Anonymous
MCPS has a culture of ignoring and covering up problems instead of believing victims when they come forward. MCPS repeatedly does their own internal investigations before CPS and the police when they learn of serious allegations. The Damascus group chat is an example of the knee jerk reaction to overstep and interview witnesses of abuse before reporting crimes to the police. MCPS knows of many cases where the Employee Code of Conduct was violated but they keep the person in contact with students till the police make an arrest. There should be a reexamination of employees who have violations but are still working in MCPS. Until the Code of Conduct is enforced, predators will have free access to victims in MCPS. The link above also has Superintendent yearly reports of the number of child abuse complaints that are reported for MCPS employees. There’s less than 10 investigators in CPS to investigate these complaints. 90% of complaints are screened out meaning they are not investigated. MCPS falsely points to the lack of arrest as justification of keeping an employee who is violating the Code of Conduct in their job. That defeats the safety mechanism that the Code of Conduct was written for - a way to fire a predator for grooming behavior BEFORE a crime is committed or provable. |
Anonymous
What? Here’s the letter informing the community of Ridge’s arrest: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/childabuseandneglect/ThomasRidges.pdf |
Anonymous
You're missing the point. The system rely on vetting them out during the hiring process. That system is obviously a failure. A new system that attempts to weed them at during the application process AND THEN continues to monitor them in the high risk groups (athletics and special needs) is sorely overdue. The guilty parties are not suddenly in the students bedroom one day. They are grooming them for weeks, months, even years before hand. They are violating policy by having private communications, by being alone in cars, locker rooms, busses, by speaking to them in unprofessional manners publicly, by taking special interest in them and crossing g all sorts of lines that could have been caught and reprimanded beforehand. But MCPS failed to even attempt to do so. |
Anonymous
I’m not missing the point, I’m not understanding how this looks like in action. Some things sound reasonable on paper, but what specific steps can an employer take to monitor employees. How many layers of checks and balances will it take? People already complain about money waste, and pay to play isn’t an option. I have athletes both in and out of school. Every organization at this point deals with this similarly- safe sport policies, rules coaches must follow, educating students, and their parents. You’re forgetting that these pedophiles are criminals and are sneaky. Grooming is also hard to monitor as some creeps take months if not years to groom their victims. Even trained adults fail to see it. As a child that was sexually abused. My senses are heightened for this type of behavior. As an adult, I worked with a man that spent time in prison for sexually abusing elementary aged students. When it hit the news, I was floored. Later learned he would offer parents to give their children a ride home from activities. He also invited children for sleepovers. Apparently he’d sit in hot tubs at the camp and molest his victims. I want to vomit every time I see that man’s picture. This went on for years because children, and some parents didn’t report it. One parent finally listened, reported this man and once it hit the news more victims spoke up. I was around this man for years. I missed signs of grooming. Am I at fault for not noticing? He was a sneaky @sshole. Parents loved this man- kids around him appeared happy. I saw no favoritism- he had over a dozen victims, male and female. This man was highly recognized for his work with children. FWIW, this was years ago before cell phones & social media and messaging apps. I get the need for oversight- but what does that look like? I’m not trying to be contradictory, as I think our goals are ultimately the same, but what can we do to protect our children? This is not unique to MCPS. MCPS is just a larger organization so will statistically have more cases. |
Anonymous
You sound nearly hysterical. If there were 30 employees who had sexual contact with students over a 20 year period then that’s not a bad record. If all 20 were arrested for rape or sexual acts by force then that would be a problem. Seeing that of the cases involve the female “victim” flirting and seducing the teacher it’s a ho hum issue seeing that there would have been 100,000 employees during that time period. |