A Clarification and Apology.

      On Friday, another news article about the situation at Niños de Mexico came out, this time in the Missourian. I will give my full thoughts on that article and the revelations in it some time after the Thanksgiving holiday, but I need to address something in it immediately. 

     Upon reading the article, I was legitimately horrified to see that a statement I made to the reporter who wrote that story was framed in such a way as to give the impression I coyly stopped just short of calling the executive director of Niños, Steve Ross, a child abuser. In truth, I do not think that, which is what I fully intended to convey with my statement. This is why I said I had no hard evidence of that, as opposed to unsubstantiated rumors, and immediately pivoted to what my actual stated concerns were, the same things I have been saying for months and months. 

     I sent the reporter a year's worth of documentation. I have done Lives on Facebook all year. I have had countless personal conversations about this issue with churches and supporters. We also had an in-depth article in the Post Dispatch about the situation. In not a single one of these, has Steve's personal behavior with the children been a part of my stated concerns with him or Niños.

    Again, let me go further and say I do not think, nor have I ever thought, that he was an abuser, which I why I have never said that, even in private with the most trusted of confidants. I was asked about this by the reporter in the Post-Dispatch story and gave him the same answer and the entire issue was rightly left out of the discussion/article.

     To bypass every victim, most of the actual abusers, and details of the actual crimes committed to run with something I said had no hard evidence for is infuriating and distressing, especially since my statement was designed to give the exact opposite impression than the article makes it seem.

     I believe in an attempt to make the article different from the Post-Dispatch article, the reporter ran with statements that framed our concerns in a different light. The result was a story where victims are erased, the abusers are largely ignored, and my stated concerns with the leadership of Niños fade into the background to make way for more sensational material. 

     I take these kinds of accusations and implications very seriously. I have labored over every case I brought to the Board and to supporters, to understand the details: who was abused, when they were abused, what was the nature of the abuse, who reported and to whom, when they were told, what was the response, what was the final outcome, etc. 

     I have left many things on the cutting room floor because of insufficient evidence.  

     I take full responsibility and issue the most heartfelt apology to Steve and his family. I have also contacted the reporter who wrote the story with my concerns.