I do find it strange that with so many people around him not one of them either rang the police as soon as the saw him do something even just inappropriate to a child or even physically stopped him doing it.
The great Richard Roeper said it very well:
Chicago Sun-Times
April 14, 2005 Thursday
How could Jackson employees keep quiet?
BYLINE: Richard Roeper
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 11
LENGTH: 802 words
'[Michael Jackson] was licking my son's head." -- Testimony Wednesday from the mother of the alleged victim in the Michael Jackson trial.
Every time I hear about a witness in the Michael Jackson trial testifying that he or she saw Jackson molesting a child or engaging in seriously weird behavior with a child, one thing is clear: The witness is an unconscionable liar -- or an unforgivable coward.
Earlier this week, we heard from one of the idiot parents who allowed their children to spend far too much time with Jackson simply because of his fame. The mother of the boy who received a huge cash settlement from Jackson in the early 1990s testified that after initially refusing to allow her boy to share a bed with Jackson, she relented.
Why? Because on a trip the family made with Jackson to see Cirque du Soleil in Vegas (talk about a funky family field trip), Jackson "was sobbing and crying, shaking and trembling," the mother testified. "He said . . . 'Why can't [the boy] sleep in my bed? There's nothing wrong. There's nothing going on.' "
Imagine a man in his 30s weeping and pleading with you to let your son share his bed, all the while assuring you there's "nothing going on." Would you:
A. Call the police.
B. Tell him that if he ever so much as looked at your child again, you'd kill him.
C. Agree to let your child spend two nights in the man's bed.
If you answered "A" or "B," congratulations, you're a citizen of Planet Sanity.
If you answered "C," I only hope you don't have custody of anything beyond a goldfish, and I pity the goldfish.
Wacko witnesses
Also this week, Jackson's former publicist testified about whether or not Jackson licked a boy's head -- and just typing those words again gave me the creeps.
Bob Jones first testified that contrary to prosecutor's claims, "I don't recall ever seeing any head licking" by Jackson on a flight from L.A. to Paris. But when the prosecutor produced an e-mail in which Jones talks about Jackson performing the beyond-strange act, Jones reversed his stance. Jones also said he saw Jackson and this particular boy in a cuddle-type position as they slept on the flight back from Paris.
Last week, the witness testimony against Jackson was even more blood-curdling.
Michael Chacon, a former security guard at the Neverland ranch, testified that in late 1992 or early 1993, he looked through the window of Jackson's pool house and saw Jackson performing oral sex on a 10-year-old boy -- the same boy whose mom OKd the sleepovers with Jackson.
To call that deeply disturbing is a gross understatement, but try to imagine if you were that security guard and you saw what he swore he saw. What's your next move?
A. Smash the window and scream at Jackson to stop.
B. Get into that bedroom by any means possible, beat the living daylights out of Jackson and call the police.
C. Wait more than a dozen years before letting the world know what you saw.
Check that. Chacon didn't wait quite that long to take action. He and some other former employees of Jackson's filed a multimillion- dollar lawsuit against Jackson, but lost -- and in fact were ordered to pay Jackson more than $1.4 million when Jackson countersued.
Under oath in this latest trial, Chacon described other incidents of Jackson allegedly kissing and fondling the boy -- but apparently Chacon did nothing about it.
And so it has gone with other former employees, including a one-time maid who signed deals with the tabloids and joined Chacon in the unsuccessful lawsuit against Jackson. She claimed to have witnessed multiple incidents of inappropriate behavior.
Then there's the elderly ex-employee who said he was delivering an order of French fries to the Neverland arcade late one night when he saw Jackson fondling then-child star Macaulay Culkin.
"I was shocked," said the former employee. "I almost dropped the French fries."
Yeah? And then?
And then he exited the room and loudly announced his presence before re-entering. How courteous and considerate of him.
I'm no Michael Jackson apologist. The creepy behavior he has tried to rationalize in TV interviews, the statements he has made about the beauty of sharing one's bed with a child -- that's enough right there to shut down the Neverland ranch and to make sure the man is never alone with any kid.
Whether he's a child molester, I don't know. This freak show of a trial seems to be filled with enough inconsistencies and questionable rulings that there's a strong chance Jackson will be acquitted or will win on appeal.
What I do know is that these witnesses are alleging some of the most heinous behavior imaginable -- and not a one of them seems to have done a damn thing about it while the acts were being committed. Who are these people?
Liars. Or cowards. There's no in-between.
To be totally fair, one of the ex-employees says that she was in debt and her husband had lost his job and she couldn't afford to be chucked out by her boss. If you depend upon someone's goodwill for your bread and your rent, you might be willing to look the other way.
Still, this is the
rape of a
child we are talking about. You have a responsibility to at least try to warn the potential victims. Even in a very tight spot, one could
at least have pulled aside a parent and had a few discreet words with them.
Also- they all behaved very unwisely by making trouble with Jackson and testifying against him years later- when their stories were full of holes and half-remembered and they all came off as not only fraudsters but fraudsters with a chip on their shoulders. They made themselves very uncredible and unreliable witnesses by appearing to be disgruntled employees making stuff up.
If they had
just come forward to the authorities at the time it allegedly happened, that wouldn't have happened.
Let this be a lesson to us all. If you see something, say something, no matter what the cost. It's your responsibility. And make sure you behave honestly in everything you do because if you don't, people will think you are lying when you (ironically enough) finally decide to start telling the truth. And if you are ever called to testify as a witness in a trial, be sure to have a closet free of all skeletons.
