I never cease to be amazed by the conservative press. Here in Alabama, where I live, we have an explosive story unfolding. It involves a retired fourth-grade teacher named Daniel M. Acker Jr. who has confessed to molesting 21 girls over roughly two decades.
This all happened in Shelby County, a Republican stronghold just south of Birmingham. The Birmingham News, our staunchly conservative metro daily, now is voicing outrage about the Acker situation. But this is the same newspaper that has been ignoring wrongdoing in the suburban, GOP enclave for years.
And get this: A school superintendent tried to take aggressive action, but she was overruled by a school board when "church people" came out of the woodwork to protect Acker.
Talk about irony.
Why did a child molester get away with his crimes for so long? A complaint was filed against Acker in the early 1990s, but nothing much came of it. After an investigation, the school board returned him to his job and a grand jury decided not to indict. Acker now faces four counts of sexual abuse, he has confessed to other cases of molestation that still are being investigated, and he sits in the Shelby County Jail.
Shelby County is so conservative that Democrats generally don't even bother running for office. I'm not aware of any public official in Shelby County that is either a Democrat or a person of color.
One public official is long-time Shelby County commissioner Daniel M. Acker Sr. He just happens to be the father of the man who now has confessed to being a serial child molester.
It appears that Acker Jr.'s ties to the Shelby County conservative power structure helped him get away with unspeakable crimes for years. And guess who is complaining about that? None other than John Archibald, the lead columnist for the staunchly conservative Birmingham News. A progressive blogger finds rich irony in that. He has shared information about corruption in Shelby County with both Archibald and Editor Tom Scarritt. But wrongdoing in suburbia did not interest them. Reports Legal Schnauzer:
So a guy with the right connections, in the white hierarchy that governs Alabama's most conservative county, gets off--and then proceeds to go on a molestation spree that lasts roughly two decades. John Archibald can't figure out how this happened?
I know how it happened. John Archibald, and the white conservative hierarchy that runs his newspaper, helped make it happen. I know how that works from first-hand experience. . . .
Archibald and Scarritt have known for years about widespread wrongdoing in Shelby County. I know because I told them. I had individual meetings with both of them, a few years apart, and went armed both times with public documents that proved corruption among certain judges, lawyers, and law-enforcement officials in Shelby County. This was not a matter of me being a "disgruntled litigant"--and it was not open to interpretation. I had information that showed exactly how judges and the county sheriff repeatedly violated clear law in order to favor certain attorneys and parties. I also had information that showed this was not just "misconduct." These actions constituted crimes under federal law.
Neither Scarritt nor Archibald was remotely interested in what I had to say. Neither even bothered to look at the documents I offered.
What's my take? Crime comes in many forms. Some crimes, such as child molestation, come with serious shock value. Other crimes, such as those committed by rogue judges or law-enforcement officials, can be more subtle. They don't have a "wow factor."
But when a newspaper ignores one kind of crime, I would guess, it is more likely to miss the other kind of crime.
That apparently is what happened here in my backyard. The editors at The Birmingham News want to know how the Daniel M. Acker Jr. story could go mostly undetected for roughly 20 years? Perhaps they should look in the mirror.
What is the environment like in Shelby County? Consider this quote from Norma Rogers, who was the school superintendent when allegations first arose against Acker:
"If you are asking me if I had absolute proof that this man did this thing all those years ago, the answer is no," Norma Rogers said Wednesday in an interview with The Birmingham News. "I know the grand jury decided not to indict, and the school board voted over my objections to reinstate him.
"And, I know the board did that after hearing Acker deny it and after all these church people and others came to his defense."
To me, that is powerful evidence that the conservative social and political structure in Shelby County, indeed, helped a child molester get away with his crimes.