TEXAS
Watch Keep
I am posting with permission of the Cedar Park, Texas Chief of Police Sean Mannix, his statement on the Greg Kelley child sexual assault case emailed on July 30, 2014 to his police department, a matter of public record.
All,
As you are all aware, on July 15, 2014, Greg Kelley was convicted of two counts of Super Aggravated Sexual Assault of a small child and sentenced to 25 years in prison with no eligibility for parole or appeal, through a plea agreement. In most cases the next step would be a quiet departure to a state prison with little fanfare. Not in this case. I know that you are all in tune with the fact that Mr. Kelley has garnered much support from his old classmates and others and a movement was established called “Fight for GK”. This group has been very vocal in their support of Mr. Kelley and very critical of the police department and the DA’s office. The Fight for GK movement has taken on a cult-like appearance, as it is mostly high school kids that have only been exposed to the news reports and what fellow supporters have told them, with no interest in seeking the truth. This movement, in my opinion, has been fueled by what I can only characterize as some of the most biased news coverage of a trial that I have ever encountered in three decades of doing this work. In this case there was tremendous coverage of the defense case and Mr. Kelley’s support group and very little coverage of the substance of the trial itself. I have not been able to figure out if the bias was intended or just lazy reporting.
You all saw Detective Dailey take a beating by the Defense with no coverage of his testimony to the Prosecution. A picture was painted that he did something improper by entering the interview room and asking the child to tell them what the child had told his mother. This was irregular, but not improper. In a perfect world the child would have been subject to a deep forensic interview, but at the time the CAC had lost their only staff member qualified for such interviews. We have a luxury of having a child advocacy center available to us. Many investigators around the country do not have access to these resources and are forced to do the child interviews themselves. While that is not ideal, it is anything but improper.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.