MA: A father did everything he could to protect his son. Until he couldn’t.

Source: bostonglobe.com 2/22/24

BRAINTREE — Kevin Berner hung up the phone and — in a daze — headed toward the kitchen and his 12-year-old son.

Hey buddy, can we talk?

Minutes earlier, Berner had received a phone call from another father in the neighborhood who shared a disturbing story. He said his son had been in a carpool recently when another boy pulled up a cellphone photo of Berner’s son.
The seventh-grader was naked in the photo “from head to toe.”

Berner knew that his son — whose learning disabilities required special education assistance — could be susceptible to bullying, overly trusting and easily coerced. The family had been warned that the differences between the boy and his peers would grow more pronounced as he got older, and that those differences could make him a target.

Still, a nude photo? On this evening in September 2022, Kevin couldn’t reconcile the claim; his son was so guarded that he refused to change into pajamas without first locking his bedroom door.

As he took a seat next to the boy, Kevin hoped there was a reasonable explanation — a cruel kid with Photoshop, maybe.

“It’s true,” his son said softly.

It had happened a month or two earlier, the boy said, over summer vacation. He’d been in the basement of a friend’s home with two neighborhood boys. One began urging him to take off his clothes. He’d refused, he recalled. But the boy kept begging: Please, it will be funny.

Finally, he’d acquiesced, briefly stripping naked, the boy told his father. When he did, one of the other boys snapped a photo with his phone.

Read the full article
[Note: to get past the message that may popup, refresh the page] 

Related posts

Subscribe
Notify of

We welcome a lively discussion with all view points - keeping in mind...

 

  1. Submissions must be in English
  2. Your submission will be reviewed by one of our volunteer moderators. Moderating decisions may be subjective.
  3. Please keep the tone of your comment civil and courteous. This is a public forum.
  4. Swear words should be starred out such as f*k and s*t and a**
  5. Please avoid the use of derogatory labels.  Always use person-first language.
  6. Please stay on topic - both in terms of the organization in general and this post in particular.
  7. Please refrain from general political statements in (dis)favor of one of the major parties or their representatives.
  8. Please take personal conversations off this forum.
  9. We will not publish any comments advocating for violent or any illegal action.
  10. We cannot connect participants privately - feel free to leave your contact info here. You may want to create a new / free, readily available email address that are not personally identifiable.
  11. Please refrain from copying and pasting repetitive and lengthy amounts of text.
  12. Please do not post in all Caps.
  13. If you wish to link to a serious and relevant media article, legitimate advocacy group or other pertinent web site / document, please provide the full link. No abbreviated / obfuscated links. Posts that include a URL may take considerably longer to be approved.
  14. We suggest to compose lengthy comments in a desktop text editor and copy and paste them into the comment form
  15. We will not publish any posts containing any names not mentioned in the original article.
  16. Please choose a short user name that does not contain links to other web sites or identify real people.  Do not use your real name.
  17. Please do not solicit funds
  18. No discussions about weapons
  19. If you use any abbreviation such as Failure To Register (FTR), Person Forced to Register (PFR) or any others, the first time you use it in a thread, please expand it for new people to better understand.
  20. All commenters are required to provide a real email address where we can contact them.  It will not be displayed on the site.
  21. Please send any input regarding moderation or other website issues via email to moderator [at] all4consolaws [dot] org
  22. We no longer post articles about arrests or accusations, only selected convictions. If your comment contains a link to an arrest or accusation article we will not approve your comment.
  23. If addressing another commenter, please address them by exactly their full display name, do not modify their name. 
ACSOL, including but not limited to its board members and agents, does not provide legal advice on this website.  In addition, ACSOL warns that those who provide comments on this website may or may not be legal professionals on whose advice one can reasonably rely.  
 

8 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

So the police did nothing to attempt to stop the spread of the photo. Held no one to account. One day that photo will show up on John or Jane Does phone and they will do five years in prison.

Those numbers on reported reports of suspected csam are staggering.

In a less insular town, the boys who took and shared the photo might be facing serious, life-changing, charges. I don’t think they should be considered “sex offenders,” but I also hope they learn something from this other than that they can take advantage of a vulnerable person and face no consequences.

It would be nice to read the rest of the article without hitting a pay wall

🤔 But was this child a victim of “child sexual abuse materials”?? Apparently, the boy was fully naked….But how is that CSAM?? Is mere nudity the next step in sexual offense laws, prosecutions & penalties?
Is a child with their parents at a naturist/nudist camp also a victim of CSAM? 🤷🏻‍♂️🧐