MISSISSIPPI
The Dispatch
August 28, 2012
Last week, a Lowndes County jury found Columbus businessman Benny Shelton guilty of sexual assault of a minor. The details of the case are — quite naturally — disturbing. And so was the conduct of Junior Eads, pastor of Eastview Baptist Church.
The crime happened during the church’s summer retreat. A few hours after the early-morning assault, the victim told Eads what had happened, identifying Shelton as his molester. Shelton, a Sunday School teacher and camp volunteer, wasn’t approached by Eads until the following afternoon when Eads told Shelton to talk to the victim’s family about the “rumors” the boy was spreading about Shelton.
This event happened in 2008, more than three years before the Jerry Sandusky/Penn State scandal that rocked the university and forever sullied the reputation of its revered football coach, Joe Paterno. Paterno was told that Sandusky had had assaulted a boy in the showers on the Penn State campus. It took 10 more years before law enforcement was able to put an end to Sandusky’s campaign of sexual terror. It was clear that Paterno’s actions, along with those of the school’s athletic director and president, should have been more forceful when that first allegation was made. Their timid response permitted Sandusky to victimize many more children over a 10-year period.
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