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Roxbury school aide charged with molesting child

Boston Police report arresting Charles Ramsey, 85, on a charge of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 for an incident at the Higginson/Lewis School earlier this month.

Police say Ramsey has resigned from his position at the school. He's scheduled for arraignment on Monday in Roxbury Municipal Court.

Police had initially responded to the school on Nov. 13 on a report of "an alleged indecent assault between a student and an employee of the Boston Public Schools." Ramsey was arrested today after an investigation by the BPD sexual assault unit.

Earlier this month, an aide at the Mission Hill K-8 School in Jamaica Plain was also charged with indecent assault and battery, for an incident in a local hospital.

In a statement today, interim School Superintendent John McDonough said:

Both cases are extraordinarily difficult and distressing and our full focus is on supporting the families who may be involved. In both cases the Boston Police and our school teams reacted quickly to keep students and families safe. The individual arrested today had passed several background checks, like all employees, first upon hire and then at regular intervals during his employment. On Monday of this week I gathered all of our school leaders together on a conference call to reinforce our expectations and protocols around vigilance, rapid reporting to proper authorities, and student and family support whenever there are concerns about student safety.

Innocent, etc.

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Comments

Please don't insult our intelligence by telling us he starting molesting kids at 85.

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As you say, he certainly didn't start at 85. Sadly, he may not have been arrested before, in which case it wouldn't show up on his record.

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Most people misunderstand what a Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) check will do. At best it is a "feel good" system.

All people working with children, elderly, mentally challenged, or in hospitals must have a check done, so this person is likely to have had a CORI done. In most all instances, volunteers must also be checked. Even teens that are junior summer camp counselors have to have a check done these days.

What CORI does and does not do:

1) Will only find an offender up to 5-years from the last day of parole served, meaning if the person's last day of parole served was Nov 22, 2009, after Nov 22, 2014 they scroll off the system. This assumes of course there were no other offenses for which the person served a prison sentence. Note a "sentence" may not mean the person was behind bars. A sentence may also involved other confinement or extended parole. People only show up on CORI if there is a formal "conviction" by a court of law.

2) Usually only gets data from inside Massachusetts. Meaning if the person had a record in another state, especially if that state had privacy laws limiting certain kinds of disclosure (they exist) then those persons do not show up in the system. People that don't show up are deemed to not have a record and are "clean."

3) CORI only shows people who have a conviction. If the person was charged and the charges were dropped, there was no conviction so they are not in the system. If the person made a plea agreement and plead guilty to a lesser charge (a misdemeanor) they are not in the system. CORI only lists people convicted of felony crimes.

A CORI check is not the same as a SORI check. SORI for sexual offenders is usually run at the same time but while it shows more, it also has limitations as with CORI.

A CORI check is much like getting a driver's license. You pass the test and you get to operate a motor vehicle. It does not determine that you are a budding mad-man behind the wheel, and it does not asses risk as to whether you may crack up the car or wipe out a crowd on a street corner.

Far too many people blame the system for not doing a check. Such checks are mandatory and have to be done as a condition of employment at the time of hire in the professions noted above. Sadly, as with the drivers license, it is no guarantee.

State Legislatures and Congress have been wrestling with this problem for decades since a person's individual rights are also at stake.

If this guy didn't have a check done, then someone dropped the ball. If a check was done, see the comments on the drivers license analogy above.

Age 85? Dementia setting in?

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Good info. Thanks

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