Hey everyone , sorry to tell you all but, the meeting did not go well at all. I didn't post all of what was said, here because it turned into yelling and insulting eachother. It would have taken more much more time to tell it all. By the time the meeting was over everyone in that congregation was looking at us as if we were the bad guys.
Here's some of it:
Darryl and I arrived at around 7:30am. He didn't wear his uniform.
There were a number of people already there but I noticed others were still coming in. The first thing I did was take notice of the children. They were running around and playing. The teens were in separate groups. Boys on one side girls on the other.
A woman walked up to us and smiled and asked. "Are you just visiting sister" I said, "no I am here for a meeting with a man called Elder Johnson" ( I am only giving out their last names). After a couple of minutes a chubby, man with a smile from ear to ear came up to us. He was so happy to see us. He had us to follow him in an office. He told us the meeting would began as soon as the other Brothers arrived. (Everyone in this place are brothers and sisters lol)..
About 15 minutes later Joe (man I came here to learn about) walked up took one look at me, stood there froze for a moment, said hi and quickly walked away... Darryl and I looked at eahother and laughed.
Two other men came in the office. One was an older African American with red eyes and a lot of stress on his face. Two younger looking ones that were more professional looking. The AAM (african american man) gave us dirty looks. The other two were Elder williams, and Elder parks.
After greetings I began first I wanted to get this over with.
Danni: I want to get straight to the point and ask about children being molested, parents being discoraged from reporting the crimes to the police and women being raped and warned they talk they will be kicked out of the organization. Would you please address those allegations one at time?
Johnson: Well I would like to say first, I don't feel you had any right to trick any member of our congregation into talking about things they have no knowledge of. You went way over the line in your questioning and demanding a list of names, of members of our congregation.
Darryl jumped in before I could defend myself.
Darryl: Let's get one thing straight here before you start quoting the law to us. In the course of a general investigation of a suspected or reported crime, a police officer may stop and question any persons whom he believes may have information about the event. He may also demand their names and their busines in the vicinity. Since memberers of your churuch came to her home unannounced and offered to answer any questions she had, Danni had every right to question them on the subject she saw fit. If your members don't want to answer certian questions my adivce to you is to tell them, not to leave it open next time and to make themselves clear on what subjects they will and will not discuss. Danni is well aware of her rights as law enforcement officer she don't need you telling her how far she can go. Do we understand eachother?
Well they backed off ....I started up again.
Danni: Since you are so well acquainted with the law maybe you can explain why the elders encourage members of your congregations not to come foward and report crimes of rape? What law book has said, the elders are above the law and can take the law into their own hands and rule on cases that only our justice system has the right to do? If you want to say you read this in the Bible I have a bible with me you can tell me what book in the Bible say's this..
Not one of them wanted to answer that but a voice all out of the blue began talking Darryl and I looked around until we noticed the speakerphone.
Speakerphone voice: Officers, the elders have not tried to take the law in their own hands. There has never been any proof of elders discouraging others from coming foward. Now there could have been cases where members asked for the advice of elders on the legal aspects of the law. The elders may have advice them (1) a suspect may never be arrested (2) the officer may be unable to develop enough evidence to support an arrest (3) the evidence, though sufficient enough to support an arrest, may not be sufficient enough to support the formal charge in an indictment or information. And last, if he is indicted, the evidence may be insufficient to support a conviction. Let me add the majuority of charges brought up against the elders are hearsay. Many of these cases have been thrown out of courts around the world and this one little fact is something you won't hear from your sources of information.
Darryl: It's not the elders place to determine what is sufficient evidence and what is not. That's nothing more then a petty excues. And unlike your church system the justice system has many methods of determining what is sufficient and what is not. Just to name a few of our many methods (1) physiological counseling by a qualified psychiatrist, (2) Doctor examinations to gather the evidence,(3) interrogations of suspects and.....
Before he could finished.....
Speakerphone voice: I have no doubt tht the justice system has qualified people to take of the job but let's just be a bit logical here for the moment and say, most sexual predators will not likely leave evidence behind and usually the evidence left behind is nothing more than circumstantial evidence. It's almost impossible to win a conviction on circumstantial evidence alone.
Darryl: Men have been put in the chair on less evidence than circumstantial. We have many more methods of determining what is evidence and what is not. And again you are trying to make excuese for not reporting these crimes to the police. Everyone has a legal duty to report any crime told to them to the police .Not to do so is a felony.
Speakerphone voice: No sir, I am afriad the any confession told to a church preist in private that preist is not bond by law to report it.
Johnson: We obey the laws of God. We don't know interfer with the way the state runs their political matters we are neutrual in thoese issues. Many of us don't know what the state requires of us. We go by the law in the scriptures that says " if there are two eye witnesses the person will be removed or reproved by the congregations elders"
Danni: Can we also say that no sexual predator will wait for two eye witnesses to come around before he rapes children and that's another reason why you should send them to the police and not take the law into your own hands. I have read heard that, over 90% of Jehovah's Witnesses have never gone to college where are they receiving their qualifications from?
Darryl: So in other words you use the laws of the state to suit your needs when it's convenient, but other times you dismiss them. You are choosing which laws you will and will not obey.
Parks: That's not what we are saying..
Darryl That's exactly what you are saying.
Danni: Do you call the police when someone other than a Jehovah's Witnesses have commited an crime against one of your memebers? Please don't lie I know if the witnesses have called the police before or not...Do you ask your members if there was more than one witness to the crime? No you don't , the law is now convenient for you to use and obey.
Parks : you are mixing apples with oranges.
Darryl : The hell we are.
Speakerphone voice: None of these elders or any elder I have ever spoken with said, someone came to them with a crime being commited against them. If they did the first thing we would tell them is to call the police and report the crime. Would you give me one good reason why the Elders of the congregations would not report this and other serious crimes to the police?
Danni: I will give you two. (1) Physiological coercion, and (2) they are more worried about the way it will look on the congregations than they are about getting justice for the victims.
Speakerphone voice: Psysicological coercion? Give me an example..
Danni: How about telling the women if they don't scream durning rape they will be kicked out of your organization. This also falls under abuse of power wouldn't you say.?
Parks: we have never told women we would kick them out of the congregation if they did not scream durning rape..this is nothing more than our enemies out to make us look bad.
I pulled out the information I collected from online. I handed it to him (thanks dung & silentlambs) :)........They became very quiet and looked surprised.
Danni: I guess you can say your own organization is out to make you look bad. Tell me do any of you read those books before you just pass them out? It seems to me you don't know what the hell is going on in here.I also read but for got to bring it , an elders manual on how to control people..
Now for the first time since the meeting began he (aam) opened his mouth.
AAM: how convenient you forgot the book. I would love to have read that..
Johnson: HA-HA I too would have loved to have read it.
Darryl: There's a way we all can check, how about you pull one of those elder books out and we all can read it together.. Do you remember where you read it Danni?
Danni: Yes i will show them the subject.
funny how all those smiles left their faces.
Speakerphone voice: We are getting a little off the subject here. I can assure you that at no time have any elder said, not to go to the police over a crime such as this. You have been misinformed.
Someone told me they would say that. I forget who.
I decided to throw dung's little question at them It wasn't a hard question to answer . Well atleast I thought.
Danni: Let's address this: I have learned it does not matter if a woman had a college degree she would still not be allowed to give talks in the congregation but on the other hand a 13yr boy is considered to be above her and can give talks in the congregation. Is there any truth to this.?
Johnson: our female army is a large army, they do much work for Jehovah they go around daily teaching others who would never have the opportunity to learn about about Jehovah and his Son Christ Jesus. The women do indeed have a strong voice.
Darryl: so they can give talks in the congregation? If we were to go out and ask all the ladies that give talks in the congregation a number of them would raise their hands?
AAM: Why do you keep on insisting on talking with members of our congregation? YOu are talking with us now. Anything you want to know you can ask us , they will not tell you anything differently!!!
Darryl keeping his cool "Is that a yes"?
Speakerphone voice: What the brother is trying to tell you is, the women give demonstrations weelky they are not left to do nothing..
Darryl: So there is a certian amount of control you have over your memebrs?
Danni: Speaking of having things to do. One of the many privileges they have are little girls cleaning the toliets. They can not carry a microphone around but they are allowed to go and wipe the pubic hairs off the toliets in the men's room . Isn't that correct.?
Parks: That's an unfair statement. You didn't have to say that. You know exactly what we are talking about.
AAM: JEHOVAH OF ARMIES WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO DESTROY HIS GOOD NAME. YOU WILL NOT GO UNNOTICED. YOU HAVE TEAMED UP WITH THE APOSTATES TO BRING JEHOVAH'S PEOPLE DOWN . WE KNOW THAT IS WHY YOU ARE HERE!!
Darryl: Teamed up with who? what are the apostates?
LOL
Danni: They are those they consider bad because of leaving the way they were taught.
Darryl began to use his police skills .Darryl has told me a million times when people become upset it's because you hit on something true.
Now Darryl stood up and walked over to the AAM invading his space he said,
Darryl. Do you show them where it comes from when they ask how did hair get on the toliets? Do you tell the little boys tampons are something the women put between their legs?
I was laughing hard inside. I didn't like him doing that but there was nothign to stop him now. The AAM: was pissed.
AAM: I WILL NOT LET YOU TALK THAT KIND OF FILTH TO ME. YOU GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME. JEHOVHA OF ARMIES HAS SAID, HE WILL DESTROY ALL OUR ENEMIES INCLUDING YOU!!
Darryl: Has jehovah told you that? Have you been tested for schizophrenia?
He gave Darryl a evil look. If looks could kill Darryl would have been on the floor with his neck slit.
This is where I will cut out other things being said, between them because it almost led to fights. There was a lot of yelling. Infact so much yelling and insults going back and fourth, someone knocked on the door of the office and asked us to keep it down because the children was listening. The whole congregations was listening.
Let me get to the last part.
Speakerphone man: why have you really come to ask questions.
Danni: I am speaking for people who are afriad to talk. They are suffering from all sorts of crimes against them . The Jehovah's Witnesses are covering over most of them The people are unaware of what is going on. I would like for you to go to silentlambs webpage and read some of the stories.
Speakerphone voice: I see , Bill Bowen is behind this visit. Bill is a liar. What you see coming from Bill is a self-serving attitude. Bill will slide on his belly to have his way. It has nothing to do with children being molested. We have tried to reason with Bill but, he will have no part of it. What you are witnesseing is public blackmail.He has had absolute power over others his decisions were never questioned. Now he has come up with these stories of trying to be a lone champion of children being raped. Proof of his true intentions can be seen in the fact that he has teamed up with those who hate jehovah's witnesses to bring us down. That is his goal if we do not bow to him he will see us in hell. Please don't be misled by Bill Bowen. You have no idea who you are dealing with. If he had been a Jehovah's Witnesses in his heart he would never have done the things he did to destroy them. You don't know the whole story of Bill Bowen.
Danni: so you know him?
Speakerphone Voice: Yes I know Bill.
Danni: What is your name?
Speakerphone voice: That's not important. Let me give you this number I want you to call this number they will be waiting for your call. it's (xxx)xxx-xxxx. Please call this number. We are vey busy here in the Eastcost. But there will be someone there waitnign to tell you the whole truth about Bill. This number is especially for explaining Bill's true intentions.
Darryl: so you are calling long distances? that means this is another bill we the taxpayers will pay?
Speakerphone man: No we will pay for this call.
More yelling and screaming occured between Darryl and the AAM man. It fell out side of the office door. Everyone was watching us. After getting everything in order again. I decided to end the meeting and leave. But before I could leave I was invited to visit a family home in there, this week or next to see how a true family of witnesses conduct themselves I was told. I didn't say I would do that. I just told them I would call.
I wanted to tell you more but it's so long and I just wanted to let some of you what happened in there. I can't put out everything because of the bad lanuage and other things that transpried, but, I am sending the whole coversation to you Dave If you want to share it with the others that's fine. Sorry about this but nohting was accomplished with all the fighting. I have to run now. I will be back later to correct the spelling and other grammar mistakes.
All have a good day. Besafe.