Systemic failure

By Mike Masterson
Arkansas Online
June 14, 2015

http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2015/jun/14/systemic-failure-20150614/

Please, we implore you national media types who insist on rehashing and second-guessing the sad plight of the Duggar family--give your sensationalized repetitions a rest.

One aspect of the Duggar deluge that does deserve deeper scrutiny is to discover how the system so bizarrely mishandled it. Washington County Juvenile Court Judge Stacy Zimmerman on May 21 ordered that young Josh Duggar's police report from a 2006 investigation be destroyed. However, a day earlier, May 20, Springdale Police Chief Kathy O'Kelley had agreed to release redacted copies of the same report, as political reporter Doug Thompson writes.

As folks from Arkansas to Timbuktu must know by now, that report implicated the now 27-year-old Josh Duggar in admittedly fondling five female victims through their clothing in 2002 and 2003. Four of those were his sisters. Fear not, I'm not about to review the entire mess yet again.

Josh Duggar got a "very stern talk" at the time by former Arkansas State Police Cpl. Joseph T. Hutchens (now imprisoned on child pornography offenses) but wasn't charged with a crime. Last month he resigned as a lobbyist with the D.C.- based conservative Family Research Council. God knows, there's been plenty of personal and professional hemorrhaging from this debacle and subsequent "official" decisions surrounding it.