City to pay $11 million in sexual abuse case

The City of Seattle, along with Tacoma and the state of Washington, has agreed to pay $11 million to the victims of Ronald Young, a sicko who brutally sexually assaulted his foster kids and posted pictures of the abuse on a pedophile website.

It seems the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children informed SPD of Young's demented postings in September 2003, yet he was not arrested until March of the following year. Seattle cops say they passed the info along to Tacoma police, yet Tacoma says they didn't get it for a while..and, while all of this is happening, Young's victims were still being abused.

I don't even need to comment on how horriblly they botched this one. Knowing for six months and doing nothing because you thought it had been passed along is inexcusable. Now, eight victims suffered another six months of abuse and now the city has to cough up a portion of that $11 million to make everything go away.

I feel like the city slips into these situations far too often. Guess who really pays when the city settles like this? Taxpayers. If the city could just use some of that money they pay out in lawsuits to simply imrpove the way things are run, I can almost guarantee things like this would virtually cease to exist.

People like Young will always be around. An improved system would make it possible to limit the effects of demented mind's like his.