COMMENTARY | A step down a bad road doesn’t have to turn into a permanent commitment, as evidenced by some kids who broke into a barn and ended up reporting the home owner for child pornography. CNN reports a 19-year-old and a juvenile broke into Kraig Stockard’s barn to steal what they thought were blank CDs; instead, they discovered child pornography images on more than 30 out of the 50 discs.
Stockard reported the missing CDs to police. Nonetheless, the youngsters contacted authorities and turned over the pornography. Their burglary case is under review by the district attorney, but they have not been charged, reports CNN and KTLA News out of Los Angeles.
Yes, these kids started out doing the wrong thing. You aren’t supposed to break into someone’s barn and take their property, even if that property is only what you think are blank CDs.
But then they found the evidence of a far worse, dark, awful wrongdoing. They knew that they would face consequences for their own actions, yet they saw the consequences of not reporting the child pornography were greater. They stood up, admitted what they did, and because of that a man allegedly downloading child porn since 2004 now faces charges.
It’s a life lesson in one enormous twist, a clear marker that there are bad choices in life and there are good choices, and a bad choice does not have to lead to another bad choice. The kids easily could have destroyed the evidence, vowed never to say anything, and kept their mouths shut. Though the burglary had been reported, there was no indication that they were suspects before they reached out to police. They could have smashed the CDs and then tried to erase what they had seen from their brains, pretending they didn’t know and simply deal with the revulsion if they saw the man on the street.
But that is not what they did.
They turned the evidence over to police and, by owning up to their own bad choice, they stopped this man from allegedly exploiting another child. They followed a bad choice with a very good choice, possibly changing the course of their own lives, certainly changing the course of this man’s life and perhaps even touching the lives of those children in the images and movies whose exploitation and abuse will not spread further.
If charges must be filed, maybe they can be of the kind that don’t leave a permanent mark while sending these kids further down the road of their turnaround, like community service. Maybe they can be introduced to an organization that helps abused children so the impact of the good choice they made stays with them. But frankly, by valuing the anonymous children on the CDs more than their own consequences for taking them, I’d say they’ve already repaid their debt to society.