Misplaced Trust

A basketball coach became a close friend to the guys on the team, taking them out for ice cream and listening to their woes and their triumphs. The parents all loved him and thought he was a great guy. He enticed two of the boys and molested them, threatening terrible consequences if they told anyone.

A minister preached a sermon against committing adultery. Since his wife was out of town, he left the church and drove straight to his secretary’s home, where he had a wonderful dinner and had his secretary for dessert.

Sometimes temptations lead people to do things that they are not supposed to do. It’s always a sad situation when a person has a position of trust and he betrays that trust.

And now, over in Carlisle at the Carlisle Barracks, the director of an Army installations substance-abuse program has been charged with drug distribution, use of a communications facility and conspiracy. Daniel Hocker, the very person who was entrusted with drug education, substance abuse testing, intervention (!) and counseling (!) was running a drug trafficking business behind everyone’s back, selling cocaine around the Carlisle area. He had been there for two years before he lost his security clearance, and no doubt got away with it for a while because of things that he said and did that made it seem that he was on board. There was a one-year investigation before the charges were filed.

Hocker’s employers could no doubt find some empathy from a sheriff down in Arizona who recently discovered that three of his trusted staff members were smuggling drugs and humans across the border. Or with the warden of a Massachusetts prison who found a prison guard sneaking cocaine to the inmates. Or the hospital administrator over in Minnesota who recently discovered that 9 nurses were stealing drugs.

It’s got to be terribly disheartening when you cannot trust your own staff. But this just shows the great lengths that people will go to when they themselves are addicted to drugs. Or perhaps they are only addicted to piles of money.