The Morning Call has attempted to explain why it refused to cover Ce-Ce Gerlach's alleged child endangerment (she dropped a minor off at a tent city) and failed to report suspected child abuse. One of its many poor excuses is that it was unable to verify the facts with anyone, including community activist Jeani Haskins Garcia. If the paper tried to speak to her at all, it was a feeble attempt. Alfonso Todd, aka The Savage Entrepreneur, had no difficulty persuading her to appear on his podcast.
Garcia, whose son was a shooting victim of gang violence in 2012, is considered a community activist. But she considers herself a mother first and spoke at length about her son and the grief she felt when he was taken away from her. She formed Mother2Mother, a nonprofit to assist parents who lose their children to violence, drug overdoses or suicide.
She cares deeply about children and spoke about Grace Packer, a product of our dysfunctional state system. That child was preyed upon and murdered by the people who were supposed to be caring for her.
It is thanks to her Facebook post in April that fellow blogger James Whitney began to look into this story.
Here's part of what she told Alfonso Todd about the Ce-Ce Gerlach case:
"[Gerlach] was an intake worker, an outreach worker, a street worker. She got a phone call at 7 o'clock at night from a runaway, and he asked for help.After doing his intake, Ce-Ce thought it was in his best interests to take him to an unsheltered encampment in Allentown, which we used to call tent city. ... She failed to do her job and let his child down, and in the process of him being in this encampment, he was subjected to sexual abuse. Nothing physical happened, but he was solicited for sex - a sexual act.
"It was brought to my attention by some of the unsheltered people I helped in the past ... . Ultimately, we ended up getting the young boy - the child - the help that he needed. Now that's escalated into [Ce-Ce] being charged with child endangerment and failure to report this incident because she's a mandated reporter.
"There's been a lot of stuff going on and I'm getting a lot of heat it for certain things. I'm standing here unapologetic. This will pass for Ce-Ce. This will pass for me. But this will not pass for the young man who was subjected to that. ... If your kid runs away from home - some run away for good reasons, some run away from home just because they don't want to follow rules - and then you get a kid who reaches out to some organization and asks for help from Ce-Ce, and you get an intake worker who takes you to a tent city, an unsheltered encampment at night, in the dark, with adults who have mental health issues, drug addiction issues, alcohol, there's so much that goes down in those communities that I would never take a child. ... There are just some things our kids should not see. ...
Todd asked Garcia what needs to change:
I think that people who say they have organizations representing the youth be held accountable to do so. I think the reporting needs to be more in-depth. ... If you say you're doing something for the kids and you're getting these grants and you're getting money and you're out here publicizing that you work for the youth and you're here to protect the youth, then DO YOUR JOB! DO YOUR JOB! Integrity shows when nobody's looking, when the camera's not there, when the politics aren't involved ..."
"I'm not going to sit back and not sound the alarm."
She's sounding the alarm for the kids of Allentown. She notes children attending schools in Allentown get about $5,000-6,000 per student, while neighboring school districts are raking in $16,000 per student. She noted that the William Allen graduation at J Brirney Crum had to be postponed three times because of the weather and was finally held in blistering heat. Meanwhile, neighboring school districts held their graduations at PPL Center.
She indicated people like Gerlach need to start taking accountability. "She's literally in the media saying, 'I did nothing wrong.' ... She's not saying she didn't do it. She definitely admitted she took him there. What she's saying is she did nothing wrong. And that scares me. And that's why I can't have empathy at this point.
"We all make mistakes. I've made plenty of mistakes. Accountability starts when you say, ' I messed up. I messed up."
"When it comes to a kid and the safety of a child, that's where I draw the line. I'm sorry. Call me what you want."
"It took eight months for something to happen. It took my Facebook post to bring it to light again and I'm getting all the blame for it.
"I did my job. I reported her to Childline and I felt like the community needed to know."
24 comments:
Bernie
Absolutely at the least VYH needs to be investigated by an outside agency.
Podcaster and bloggers, how dare you! If it's not reported by on of six remaining "reporters" who take deep dives into pizza conteststs when they're not serving as parrots for their corporate daddies and crafting endless advertiser-friendly pieces, it really didn't happen.
Morning call--too far left
The Community and more importantly D.A. Martin did need to know. If you hadn't come forward, who knows how many more children C.C. could harm.
7:13, Child abuse and the failure to report about it have nothing to do with ideology.
The Morning Call is NOT too far left or too far right. It is there to protect what academics call the urban growth machine. I have seen them go after Lisa Boscola, Sam Bennett and John Callahan with gusto. All are Democrats who were threatening Charlie Dent, a Republican. It has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with protecting the rich and poewrful.
A newspaper should afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. The Morning Call does the opposite.
That's the point you miss. It's also the point that Gerlach's defenders miss. This is really about a broken child protective system and outfits that take in millions while failing to be accountable. The Morning Call is protecting them instead of children.
""reporters" who take deep dives into pizza conteststs"
Hot dogs too.
Lisa Boscola
Call did four pages single spaced on Lisa.
"That's the point you miss. It's also the point that Gerlach's defenders miss. This is really about a broken child protective system and outfits that take in millions while failing to be accountable. The Morning Call is protecting them instead of children."
If the Call wants to be redeemed, do an in-depth investigation of each VYH board member (who had to approve the $300K executive salary). Discover if there were any convenient business transactions between members and the agency.
Child abuse is a non-partisan abomination. But to say TMC is not too far left is the hilarious stuff of which posts from The Onion are made.
It’s the Associated Press, the Washington Post, the Tribune, the New York Times, etc. that are too far Left. Because the Morning Call relies on these sources for almost all of its non-local content, the newspaper reads as too far Left. This will not change under the new Alden ownership.
I just ignore those pieces.
But, yes, this VYH failure to protect youth is a problem regardless of political affiliation. These days, it seems non-profit funding recipients are getting too careless. Perhaps, because the need to EARN support is lower than a profit-making enterprise.
This is where I believe the Morning Call has made its biggest error. Way too much emphasis on national news. Who needs that? It already comes into our living rooms all day long. The Lehigh Valley would be better served if the majority of the paper was LOCAL. Not likely to happen when the staff here has been stripped bare.
Yes, we don't need a local paper spewing left-wing biased rhetoric. We already have that on TV with the three major networks, CNN and MSNBC. I cancelled my Call subscription last year. Local news, sports and entertainment was their only saving grace. But those features kept shrinking while they relied more heavily on national/international news content which was 90% biased against Trump and Republicans. Most of the letters to the editors were from their core left-leaning readers. I had enough. Saved over $700 a year by dumping that garbage!
If the morning call is not a left wing newspaper - BERNIE IS A GOOD LAWYER
To those whose daily diet is the drivel spewed by Gateway Pundit, TMC might seem like a left wing paper. It is actually a pro-establishment paper that does its best to help the urban growth regime. Party is irrelevant. That is why the paper refused to tell the truth about Fed Ed until the feds were literally at his door. As I mentioned several times, the paper had no difficult pursuing three rather prominent Democrats - Callahan, Bennett and Boscola. This paper does not give a shit about ideology. It is there to help the comfortable remain that way. It does try to portray itself as woke. I'll give you that.
I don't know if the Councilwoman committed an illegal act or it was complete incompetence on Her part. Either way She is not competent to serve on Council and collect a paycheck for doing so
Alfonso is a stand-up guy. The fact that the Blog Mentor tormented him and his wife so viciously for so long tends to confirm that -- in addition, of course, to his strong history of well-intentioned and effective community service and action.
Again, Integrity has left our society. We are reaping what the Participation Trophy and God out of Schools, Government generation. Enough is Enough.
6:04: The Oversight Regional Office is probably already involved and I'm guessing recommended her firing.
Bernie, love ur 7:40am theory that would be great if true in this day and age! That in itself is a very deep statement! Later statements you seem to have a lapse in brain function as oldhiemers sets in after lunch.
Woke, Is Bull Sheet , fashionable,fractional ,fictional vocabulary is here today gone tomorrow. Let’s get non political and have a mind set that what was happening here was of our own , or your own family member. How would you judge this then ? I separated colors on laundry day only , that’s it. I served in three branches of Armed Service, all different cultures and non of those Son of Bitch political hacks that make up rules served a moment on a U.S.Navy for example. I’ve seen shit you never heard of. Dropping off a child ,to a group of indigent worthless POS , subject to sexual advocates is a human crime beyond description . If true , I say tar and feather 🪶.
For those posting here that MCall is left leaning, here's a WAKE UP for you. Its national reporting is typically syndicated and equitable. You just think its leftist because it reports facts and facts are something Trump supporters are unhappy about because their guy is a proven liar. As for state level politics, the relatively new Spotlight reporters are also equitable fact finders and should be valued. The bias of a newspaper can often be found in the way they write headlines, placement of certain articles, and their op-ed section. If anything the local and syndicated large op-ed pieces they tend to run are by more conservatives. Letters to the editor are more reflective of everyday local folks and lately contain more Democratic leaning concerns. Again, Trumpers have lost their ability to judge left vs right...its the cult vs everyone else.
Huntress, I'd agree that AP is very fair. I have no idea why someone would suggest otherwise. So is Reuters. WaPo and NYT have become extremely biased against Trump, while The Epoch Times is extremely biased in his favor.
Trump's cult will certainly reject anything that in any way contradicts their false idol. But many media outlets have themselves been poisoned by Trump's extremism and have become extreme themselves.
The media today reminds me of the media that existed during the Civil War. I go to Chronicling America, a Smithsonian project, and read news accounts here in PA during the Civil War era. Sadly, the only local paper is German, and I am unable to read it. But there are plenty others here in Pa. All are slanted, one way or the other.
I'd agree Spotlight reporting is good but way overdue. Harrisburg should be a candy store for reporters, but most of them are too lazy to do much of anything. It is a cesspool and one of the reasons is the lousy reporting.
Locally, I reiterate that TMC and most local papers tend to be there to support their local establishments. I know for a fact that at least one reporter left the paper bc his/her editor refused to allow him/her to inform the public about what was going on in Allentown. I also know that some of the reporters lauded for their Fed Ed coverage did nothing until the feds were knocking at his door. The entire business model is built on shedding people who might question things and keeping salaries low.
Frankly, I don't care what the paper does. But then it published an explanation for its refusal to cover Gerlach that is both untrue and in insult to me.
I decline to publish an opinion that "everyone knows" when this comment thread makes clear there are differing views.
Bernie, Mrs. Garcia is a hero. Calling Childline is the law and what should have been expected from "Me Me" Gerlach. Being a mandated like myself (high school teacher for Allen and Dieruff students) it is the law. She should have know better and made that call to the proper authorities. If I would have done this, I would have lost me job and ruined my career. We need to look futher into these agencies (Valley Youth House) and see if there was any other skeletons in their closet. I am sure there is. Gerlach put that youth/juvenile in seriour danger. I hope the family takes away Tom Harrington's outragous salary ! Sadly be surely that LV4All/Some needs to be dismantled. Endorsing people like Gerlach and Zanelli smells alot like the unethical train that is trying to run over everyone that tries to stand in their way. Thank God the the people of Allentown decided to weigh in on Gerlach's campaign to not vote her in. The voters made the right choice. Please West Bethlehem and Fountain Hill voters make the right choice and not vote Zanelli in a Magisterial District Judge position. If you do you will certainly regret it !!!
Bernie, Mrs. Garcia is a hero. Calling Childline is the law and what should have been expected from "Me Me" Gerlach. Being a mandated like myself (high school teacher for Allen and Dieruff students) it is the law. She should have know better and made that call to the proper authorities. If I would have done this, I would have lost me job and ruined my career. We need to look futher into these agencies (Valley Youth House) and see if there was any other skeletons in their closet. I am sure there is. Gerlach put that youth/juvenile in seriour danger. I hope the family takes away Tom Harrington's outragous salary ! Sadly be surely that LV4All/Some needs to be dismantled. Endorsing people like Gerlach and Zanelli smells alot like the unethical train that is trying to run over everyone that tries to stand in their way. Thank God the the people of Allentown decided to weigh in on Gerlach's campaign to not vote her in. The voters made the right choice. Please West Bethlehem and Fountain Hill voters make the right choice and not vote Zanelli in a Magisterial District Judge position. If you do you will certainly regret it !!!
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