You Can Never Be Too Careful
School bus driver Danny Floyd of Moorpark (CA) was arrested on May 7th on the suspicion of molesting a 14-year-old autistic boy, the Ventura County Star reports. Floyd and the boy were paired through the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and have known each other since November; the molestation is alleged to have occurred between March 1 and May 5. Bail for Floyd has been set for $250,000.
As the mother of a minimally verbal autistic boy who has just entered puberty…………I can’t be too careful.
Tags: abuse, asd, asperger, autism, big brothers big sisters, bus, molestation, pdd-nos, ventura county
10 opinions for You Can Never Be Too Careful
Bonnie Sayers
May 8, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I just saw the tail end of this on the news and missed the part of the kid being on the spectrum.
Heather Haley
May 8, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Dear Kristina;
I find your blog very helpful, thanks for all that you do. I just heard about the Son Rise method. Any thoughts, opinions, info?
Warm regards,
H
Mrs. C
May 8, 2008 at 11:06 pm
People like this I suppose are just sick and it’s a SHAME that we have to be so downright suspicious of everybody. But you’re right, you have to.
Kristina Chew, PhD
May 8, 2008 at 11:25 pm
@Heather Haley,
We’ve known a few families who tried Son-Rise. None stuck with it for too long—-there was a lot of interest in it at first and then people just stopped talking about it.
One criterion that my husband Jim and I apply to any treatment is: Can it be applied successfully to a school setting? I don’t think this is the case for Son-Rise.
@Mrs. C and Bonnie,
And it didn’t help to read about disqualified bus drivers being allowed to drive children here in NJ!
Jamie Sue
May 9, 2008 at 12:09 pm
You strike on one of my deepest fears in terms of my child. How do I protect him from be victimized (sexual and otherwise) from others? With little to no perception of “danger” and limited ability to comunicate to me what is happening to him when he is outside my care… what is a parent to do?
Marla
May 9, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Terrifying. We all do have to be careful.
Regan
May 11, 2008 at 9:54 am
This is going to sound slightly un-PC, but sometimes I think that it is a useful exercise to look for MYSpace pages, such as some of the Fortune 500 do now, to see what kind of judgement someone exercises or how they would fit, or where they are coming from when they let their hair down.
I obviously don’t understand someone molesting children. I especially don’t understand it with a differenced child. It’s one of those things that evokes a very visceral response.
Kristina Chew, PhD
May 11, 2008 at 9:59 am
On a related but slightly off-topic note, I joined Facebook a few months ago as some friends were on it and started to get requests from students at my college—-they have to be careful with the photos!
Driver accused of raping 12 year old autistic girl
May 13, 2008 at 8:40 pm
[…] story that has “you never can be too careful” written all over it. School van driver Israel Santiago accused of raping 12-year-old […]
theasman
May 14, 2008 at 10:35 am
@Kristina
So you think I should remove the photo of me having my smoke in the morning ?;>
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