Who the hell is protecting our children?

• The former sheriff of St. Tammany Parish has been sentenced to four life sentences after being convicted on four counts of aggravated rape, two counts of aggravated incest and one count of sexual battery and indecent behavior with a juvenile.
• A Hammond police officers has been arrested for sex crimes against a juvenile.
• At almost the same time, a St. Tammany deputy sheriff was arrested for possession of kiddie porn and sexual abuse involving animals.
• A former Ascension Parish deputy spent time in jail after his arrest for attempted child pornography possession. Soon after he was paroled, he became a fugitive after becoming wanted on three counts of carnal knowledge of a juvenile, computer-aided solicitation of a minor, and unlawful use of social media in his solicitation of a teenage boy in another parish.

JACK STRAIN, former sheriff of St. Tammany Parish, will die in prison for his actions that spanned four decades.

BRAD CORE’S fate remains to be seen since he has yet to be arraigned. A former Hammond police officer, he was arrested Wednesday night on charges of sexual battery, oral sexual battery, carnal knowledge of a juvenile, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

A deputy with the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office since 2006, CHRISTOPHER CASSIDY faces 28 counts of possession of pornography involving children under the age of 13 and 110 counts of sexual abuse involving animals. Word of Cassidy’s arrest actually popped up in my computer as I was writing this post.

Former Ascension deputy sheriff ERIC TRIPP was fired in 2013 for attempted kiddie porn and indecent behavior with a juvenile. Convicted, he was sent to prison and released on parole in 2019 only to become a fugitive in 2020. The Sorrento native was captured in South Carolina.

And then there is the sordid story of former Livingston Parish deputy sheriff DENNIS PERKINS and his schoolteacher wife Cynthia.

For those who don’t know that sick story, Perkins was head of the LPSO SWAT team who was indicted, along with his wife, on a combined 150 counts, including first-degree rape, attempted rape, sexually battery of a child under the age of thirteen, video voyeurism, mingling harmful substances, obscenity, possession of child pornography, producing child pornography and sexually abusing a dog.

It’s not that there were no red flags before his being hired by the sheriff’s office even though he had resigned from the Walker Police Department after admitting to theft of merchandise from a local store.

Cynthia eventually COPPED A PLEA a plea and received a 41-year sentence.

And if you think Louisiana is unique, think again. Following are a few headlines from around the U.S. You can click on the headline to read the entire stories if you have the stomach for such.

Former Newport school resource officer accused of lewd conduct, sexual abuse of a minor

Chicago Police Officer Charged With Sexual Abuse of a Minor

Togiak Police Officer Arrested for Sexual Abuse of a Minor

There are more, plenty more. You can google “cops sexually abusing minors” yourself if you wish.

These are people we appoint or elect to protect us and our families.

I know, I know, these are the exceptions. The typical law enforcement officer would never think of committing such heinous acts.

But do we know that for certain? How are these people screened and vetted for their positions? Are sufficient background checks run on every applicant? How did Dennis Perkins get hired by the sheriff’s department when he had resigned from a municipal police department in Livingston Parish almost in spitting distance from the sheriff’s office?

It’s bad enough when state troopers, sheriffs’ deputies and city cops beat the living hell out of some poor dude they’ve arrested for possession of a joint, but when you add sexual abuse of children to the equation, that compounds the problem.

Yes, these monsters are exceptions, but we cannot allow these exceptions to worm their way into our law enforcement agencies with such ease. Too much is at stake to let some political friend’s son or brother in just because of who he is.

We have seen the manner in which the sons of state police administrators and the sons of sheriffs are welcomed into the Louisiana State Police Academy and we’ve seen the results of that practice. We’ve seen pals hired as deputy sheriffs and we got Dennis Perkins as a result.

We cannot afford such slipshod methods of hiring cops. Our children are far too valuable to risk their safety and their innocence to such barbaric predators.