Redemptive Footnote
Dear Editor,
If one were to Google “Zhenya Ogden, Winona Lake,” as a potential employer would be likely to do, they would find a record of arrest on a felony charge. What you will not find is the rest of the story, the fact that no charges were filed, or why no charges were filed.
On behalf of Zhenya, and all that makes me proud to call him my son (and there is plenty), I offer this redemptive footnote, and add an important plea.
On Aug. 11, Zhenya, 18, was arrested on charges of battery against a minor (Class C felony) for a “battery” that never occurred. After bailing him out of jail the next morning, at no small fee, I contacted the prosecutor’s office to see what’s next. I was informed that, according to the police report (public record) they could “see nothing that would fit a charge of battery and that even the ‘victim’ said, according to the police report, that the single point of contact in question was accidental.” (Two kids playing around.)
Therefore, the prosecutor’s office said they were “not going to file charges.” Well that is good news, but not good enough news to have much redemptive impact on the effects of the original news regarding the arrest. The record of the arrest charges do not go away. Felony and battery are forever tattooed on Zhenya’s character profile for all to see, for something he did not do.
In many cases, employers are prohibited to hire those with felony arrest charges, even if the charges were never filed, or were filed and then dropped. Case in point: Last summer Zhenya served faithfully and well as a volunteer at The Meadows. The director wrote him a glowing letter of recommendation and told him that he would be in good standing for a paid position when he turned 18 this past March. These arrest charges changed all of that … and closed many other doors as well, in an adult world, growingly compromised by diminishing opportunities. (Thank you, Mr. President)
There are no hard feelings here, just a plea for greater discernment. The point is that arrests can be made with the assumption that no harm is done if proven innocent. Not so. Unnecessary arrests lead to unnecessary news which leads to unnecessary personal harm. It would be one thing to make a charge of “public nuisance” for instance, but Class C felony is quite another thing. It sticks.
We authority figures often bring an unintended irony to our jobs and our objectives. We complain about the attitudes among our youth. We want respect. Yet we do things like what has happened here to Zhenya, without the slightest apology or compensation for the losses incurred. We imagine that apology, compromises integrity, when it is just the opposite. This all has an accumulative impact on attitude. And then we despise and punish them for the very attitude we help create as if we had nothing to do with it.
Sometimes there aren’t enough mirrors.
Ron Ogden
Winona Lake