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submitted 2 months ago by Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

A retired Aurora police sergeant faces criminal charges for raping his daughter and continually sexually assaulting her and his two adopted daughters, but he remains free from custody while his ex-wife is in jail for objecting to court-ordered reunification therapy meant to repair his relationship with two of his sons.

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[-] PugJesus@lemmy.world 374 points 2 months ago

Her trip to jail occurs as such therapy and its potential harms are increasingly coming under fire in Colorado.

The treatment is used by family courts to settle custody fights. Services like those provided by Bassett use confrontation and exercises to deprogram a child’s rejection of a parent. In extreme cases, children have been sent across state lines to reunification camps with parents they reject, and they are barred from having contact with their protective parent.

The fuck

[-] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 175 points 2 months ago

Forced Stockholm syndrome as therapy.

[-] Brickhead92@lemmy.world 45 points 2 months ago

I don't know why people are against it. You get used to it after a while.

/s

[-] inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world 23 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The reunification therapy costs $1,500 a month. Pickrel-Hawkins said she struggles to pay for the therapy. She said she and the children already are stretched thin, surviving on the $2,680 her ex-husband pays her in court-ordered support, though the judge said during one hearing that he believed the mother actually was earning money that she wasn’t disclosing.

That she has to pay for.

the mother has custody of the couple’s minor children, and they are living in a domestic violence shelter. She said that she has arranged for family members to care for her children when she goes to jail.

While living at a shelter.

The mother said she lost legal representation in the custody dispute after accruing $85,000 in legal bills, which she couldn’t afford. She was sentenced to jail without any representation from a lawyer.

Even when she doesn't have enough for a lawyer.

The 17-year-old daughter claims her father, Hawkins, raped her when she was almost six years old and continually molested her throughout her childhood despite her protestations that he stop, according to court documents. The two adopted daughters also claim they were sexually abused, those documents state.

The oldest son also told a forensic interviewer he felt like his father tried to drown him in a pool in 2018 in Costa Rica, using police control tactics and holding him under water until he began to black out. The boy said he believed his father was vengeful because the boy woke up one night and confronted his father whose hand he claims he saw down the under garments of his sister.

Trying to keep them away from a man who absurd their kids for two decades and attempted to kill.

Absolutely nothing about this situation is justifiable, sane or decent. Fuck this cop, fuck this court, fuck this state, fuck this whole fucking country. Absolutely shameful in every regard.

[-] finley@lemm.ee 112 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Institutionalized, systemic gaslighting, a product of fascism

Terrifying

Edit: not even our most horrifying fiction has imagined such a thing, yet here we are, my god…

Edit 2: no, maybe, briefly, on a smaller scale, there was Arkham Asylum and something similar in a Star Trek TOS episode, but nothing on quite this scale, nor with children…

[-] BlemboTheThird@lemmy.ca 102 points 2 months ago

Seriously. What the fuck. Institutionalized child abuse. And then they say trans people are somehow the real danger.

[-] Snowclone@lemmy.world 53 points 2 months ago

Well that's fucking horrifying... The only thing that got me through childhood alive was that the courts let me decide who I would live with. Why the fuck wouldn't you listen to the kids? It's there life on the line.

[-] Theharpyeagle@lemmy.world 25 points 2 months ago

Seriously, the courts are heaping all of this blame on the mother when the kids repeatedly report physical and sexual abuse by their father.

Though the divorce judge found there was evidence that Hawkins had physically abused the oldest son, the judge said in his ruling that was “one instance that does not involve either of the two children at issue.”

Insane. The logic is nonexistent.

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[-] Badeendje@lemmy.world 27 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Ok dad, here is your court ordered hug.

How does stuff like this not end in suicide or patricide?

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[-] thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world 16 points 2 months ago

'deprogram'...'barred from having contact with their protective parent'.

This will be decades of lawsuits and millions of dollars.

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[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 222 points 2 months ago

I really recommend everyone to read the article. Shit somehow only gets worse

Not only is the asshole a rapist, he also tried to drown one of his sons because said son confronted him after catching mr "model citizen" with his hands on one of the daughters' private parts.

Those reunification therapy sessions? The mother has to pay the $370 per week alone when it's just her 2 sons attending. There was also one session:

She said she checked on her children during the session and found one of her sons curled in a fetal position on the ground in Bassett’s office, but Bassett ordered her to stop addressing what the mother termed the serious needs of her children.

She said she fears the reunification therapy is harming her boys, whom she described as crying uncontrollably, having explosive outbursts and expressing thoughts of self-harm after attending Bassett’s reunification sessions with their father.

Ms. Basset, the "reunification therapist", deserves some jail time as well

[-] Theharpyeagle@lemmy.world 75 points 2 months ago

The "faith based therapy" thing make everything make a whole lot more sense...

[-] nickiwest@lemmy.world 64 points 2 months ago

I don't understand how it's legal for a court to order religion-based therapy that costs $1500 per month. That's absolutely insane from every possible angle.

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[-] prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works 51 points 2 months ago

The story reads like a super villain origin story, it just … it boggles the mind that reality could be this fucked

[-] ShareMySims@sh.itjust.works 175 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

his ex-wife is in jail for objecting to court-ordered reunification therapy meant to repair his relationship with two of his sons.

Yeah, because top priority when encountering a piece of shit incestual paedophilic rapist, is to reunite him with the children he set aside while he preyed on the others. 🤯🤬

Be it a system or an individual - abusers defend abusers. It's always projection in self defence, it's why they've constructed an elaborate conspiracy theory about secret paedophile rings run by the rich and powerful, yet when someone rich and powerful (and white and straight), and those who serve them, acts in direct defence of a paedophile, they look the other way.

The judge who made this ruling, along with everyone who enabled it, need to have their hard drives searched and the children in their lives questioned and potentially removed for their safety. I don't have a single doubt in my mind that if they did this, they would find at least one more paedophile.

As for the mother and kids, I hope they sue the state or the court or whoever it is they can, and win millions to pay for the new life they're going to need to build for themselves and therapy they're going to need for the rest of their lives (never mind compensation for the obscene miscarriage of justice of locking her up).

[-] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 55 points 2 months ago

piece of shit incestual paedophilic rapist

Pro tip for concise writing: this can be simplified to the word "cop".

[-] ShareMySims@sh.itjust.works 55 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I mean, ACAB, but there are plenty of piece of shit incestual paedophilic rapists who aren't cops, and I don't see why they should be excluded.

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[-] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 24 points 2 months ago

The judge who made this ruling, along with everyone who enabled it, need to have their hard drives searched and the children in their lives questioned and potentially removed for their safety. I don’t have a single doubt in my mind that if they did this, they would find at least one more paedophile.

I think it's just the legal system protecting cops, like it always does.

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[-] Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 102 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

There is absolutely no place in a modern culture for oppressive ideologies like conservatism. Conservative judges protect oppressive (abusive) fathers while oppressing (abusing) the women and children.

This has always been the way of conservatism. Always.

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[-] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 95 points 2 months ago

Off topic: what radicalised you?

[-] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 69 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Being called a radical for wanting equality for everyone and justice for the marginalized and disadvantaged. The sociopathic, greedy robber barons and their sycophants are the real radicals.

[-] Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone 21 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Most people claim to want to see children succeed.
There are hungry children in many developed countries. This is not treated as an emergency.
Inequality affects children hugely. Education, employment, health (especially mental health). The status quo is preferred, because it benefits a tiny minority of very rich people. Those who shout loudest blame queers, feminists, and immigrants. I grew up in extreme poverty (top 5% of most deprived areas in my country), and a majority of the poor people I live with believe this bullshit to some extent.

 

Acknowledging this is not being 'radicalised'. It's just being objective. People do not want to make the world better for people.

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[-] Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world 21 points 2 months ago

I grew up in Toronto, it was the G20 for me:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_G20_Toronto_summit_protests

Canadian police proved they can be every bit as vicious, and monstrous as American cops the day, and to this day, not a single meaningful consequence was seen in regards to all the human rights violations committed by police.

[-] PriorityMotif@lemmy.world 20 points 2 months ago

They called me un American for not wanting my friends to die in their pointless war.

[-] Silentiea@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 2 months ago

I'm trans, it was basically the only way to survive.

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[-] Clbull@lemmy.world 92 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

If you asked me fifteen years ago if I wanted to live in the United States, I would have jumped on the first ship to Staten Island in a heartbeat.

Nowadays I don't even want to visit the country, and unjust bullshit like this is a big reason why. Y'all have a serious problem with allowing your police forces to do whatever the hell they want and argue "qualified immunity" for things that would land you significant prison time in another developed country.

I really question why there's still a lifelong waiting list to apply for a visa to work in the US, when the state of the country is actually quite bleak...

[-] whoisearth@lemmy.ca 29 points 2 months ago

I know a lot of Africans. I question why any of them would want to move to America as opposed to Canada (where I am) and like me they don't understand when someone they know does make the decision to move south.

Yes the money is better but no one is going to care if you're from Zimbabwe. A black person is a black person is a black person down there and by and large America is hostile AF to black people.

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[-] prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works 24 points 2 months ago

The reason is because this fucked up shit doesn’t happen to the majority of people and the USA does actually offer a substantially better quality of life compared to many other places.

THAT SAID, yeah we have a lot of fucked up institutions in place that are authoritarian in nature (police) to uphold the status quo and ensure the money keeps making money.

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[-] ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 82 points 2 months ago

Every person in a position of authority here is an absolute monster. I can only assume that all this is religiously motivated, with a keen focus on obeying your husband and respecting your father.

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[-] asteriskeverything@lemmy.world 70 points 2 months ago

This article has sooo much being said between the lines.

The mother, Rachel Pickrel-Hawkins, said the reunification therapy by Christine Bassett, a licensed marriage and family therapist, has been harmful, abusive and counterproductive

When the other party is there perpetrator of abuse and the one with power, it very often is detrimental to have some sort of mediation or therapy/counseling. Because the abusers very often are able to manipulate the story so they are the victims in need of most support/compromise/thoughtfulness/time/money/basically ANY conceivable resource in life and relationships they will exploit.

Now I admit I am more familiar with the medical side of things but this entire dynamic gives me pause because it is so psych 101.

[-] asteriskeverything@lemmy.world 46 points 2 months ago

To be clear, I mean the courts are absolutely failing this child and caretaker by allowing the abuser to have have access to the victim(s)

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[-] roguetrick@lemmy.world 61 points 2 months ago

Aurora makes a lot of national news, and usually it's because of some absolute monster. What's in the water over there.

[-] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago

is AuroraMan the new FloridaMan?

[-] Entertainmeonly@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

It's been that way for years too. Twenty five years ago my friends and I referred to the area as Sadia Aurora cause it always felt like a war zone.

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[-] Damage@feddit.it 56 points 2 months ago

Christopher Estoll, the lawyer representing him in the divorce and the criminal case, claimed in an Aug. 1 court filing that the mother was “not a credible witness and is highly manipulative.”

I mean, whatever, but facts are he is a rapist and "reunification therapy" in this case is an absurd torture.

Fuck all of this.

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[-] norimee@lemmy.world 56 points 2 months ago

What the actual fuck America?! How can you JUSTICE SYSTEM do this to people. To children?!

Kudos to the mother. I hope her sacrifice is successful in keeping these kids out of these so called "therapy sessions".

[-] glitchdx@lemmy.world 34 points 2 months ago

we don't have a justice system, we have a legal system. Similar in structure, but different in purpose.

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[-] leftzero@lemmynsfw.com 17 points 2 months ago

To children?!

Well, the USA is the only United Nations member who hasn't ratified the UN convention on rights of the child (since it would prevent children from being executed or imprisoned for life and give them guaranteed access to safe medical care, standing in court, the right to divorce their rapist spouses, protections from physical and sexual abuse, and so on, all of which go against the country's core principle of maximising suffering), so no surprise there, really.

As always, the suffering is the point.

[-] Sharkwellington@lemmy.one 49 points 2 months ago

This just hurts. A whole loving family being thrown under the bus to protect one cop. Therapist sounds like a piece of work too, there should never be unwanted physical contact during therapy. Evil.

[-] jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world 40 points 2 months ago

Anybody who says they can't understand how somebody would become violent can understand instantly by reading this story.

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[-] Jimmycakes@lemmy.world 36 points 2 months ago

Where is the fbi this needs an investigation

[-] Atlas_@lemmy.world 31 points 2 months ago

Fuck the law, just run. This is insane.

[-] krakenfury 30 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

To be effective as a cop, you have to operate close to the edge.

🤮

[-] subignition@fedia.io 27 points 2 months ago

I'm not religious, but this situation really makes me yearn for Hell's fiery maw to open up and claim the cop, the judge, and the "therapist".

May they end up spending eternity as a human centipede. Or better yet, make it a closed loop.

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[-] Pandantic@midwest.social 20 points 2 months ago

A year ago, the Colorado legislature put new restrictions on the use of reunification therapy. The new law barred courts from restricting the custody of a parent who is competent, protective and not abusive solely to improve a relationship with the other parent. It prohibits reunification treatment that is predicated on cutting off the relationship between a child and a protective parent the child has a bond with.

State lawmakers acted after The Denver Gazette published investigations into Colorado’s troubled family court system, which has been plagued by accusations of bias, usually from mothers who say they are punished and can have their parenting time restricted during divorces when they seek to protect their children from abusive fathers.

During one troubled two-month stretch, four children were murdered in December 2022 and January 2023 by a parent embroiled in a high-conflict court custody battle. Police classified all four deaths as murder-suicides, in which fathers killed their children and then themselves.

Sounds like, even besides her own eye-witness accounts, she has good reason to be concerned. He already tried to kill his son once, and the son is probably going to testify in the child molestation case against him. This case, and reunification therapy, seem really fucked up.

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this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2024
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