Thursday, Nov. 05, 2009

Lessons for all in case of coach and autistic boy

By Rick Larson, Herald Managing Editor

It verges on gross understatement even to say that emotions are running high in the case of a well-known former coach who was accused of hitting an autistic boy.

Since the Herald reported the accusation Sept. 10, the story has morphed from an accusation (note that word) to calls for the coach’s head for allegedly hitting a defenseless child, to outrage at the boy’s mother and caregiver after video showed he didn’t hit the boy in the face and the charge was dropped.

News of the charge being dropped has prompted more than 150 comments on the Herald’s website, including a number of anonymous critics who have said the Herald maliciously twisted or ignored the facts.

Sorry, that didn’t happen.

From the first, the Herald made sure to contact former coach Frank Teverbaugh to get his side of the story.

We prominently included his side of what happened in our initial story and in follow-up reports. It wasn’t downplayed in any way.

We did not, as some are claiming, ignore a call from a supposed witness who called our reporter to defend Teverbaugh. The Internet, and anonymity, make it easy to invent such “facts,” but it just didn’t happen.

Herald stories reported what was factual from police statements (note that complete police investigatory reports are not released until after a case is closed) and from statements those involved gave us.

Some seem to think we should have checked into the claims further, apparently thinking newspapers have police powers to grill all witnesses or to gain direct access to videotapes. Even the investigators had to subpoena those.

That’s not how news reporting works. The news media reports on events as they unfold and investigates through whatever avenues we can discover.

So here’s what unfolded, and what we reported: Teverbaugh was accused and charged after the boy’s caregiver and mother said he hit the boy, who was throwing a tantrum. Teverbaugh said he did try to swat the boy on the bottom after the boy hit him, but Teverbaugh adamantly denied hitting the boy in the face.

We subsequently reported Teverbaugh’s appearance in court on Oct. 15. Again, it was a straightforward recounting of the event.

And on Nov. 3, when existence of the video was reported by Teverbaugh’s attorney, the Herald was the first to report the story on its website and post the videos for all to see. And the story was played prominently the next day on our front page.

We are continuing to follow the story as well. As this is being written, a story is being prepared for our Nov. 6 edition detailing why existence of the video wasn’t discovered until so late in the game, and why it took so long for the library to turn it over.

Certainly the whole incident has been embarrassing to Mr. Teverbaugh, as it would be to anyone wrongly accused and thrust into the public spotlight.

Whether he was purposely falsely accused or the whole thing was due to confusion during a fast-moving and stressful incident with a child in mid-tantrum isn’t clear, and probably never will be.

The incident certainly has had some positives, however, including a sharpened awareness of the challenges facing parents of autistic children. It’s reasonable also to suspect that investigators learned a tough lesson with this case.

And there’s a lesson for those who took the facts and jumped to conclusions, and who continue to invent facts.

Here’s the lead sentence of our Sept. 10 story again: “A retired Hall of Fame coach is accused of hitting an autistic boy who was having a temper tantrum at the Richland Public Library.”

Note that word: Accused.

Rick Larson: 582-1522; rlarson@tricityherald.com

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