The FBI's negligence throughout the investigation of U.S. Gymnastics Federation doctor Larry Nassar for abusing female athletes was "not an isolated case," according to Jane Turner, a former agent with more than 25 years of experience. This is something that has been going on for many years and that she said she has personally been condemning since 2003. Since then, she has made it publically known who hasn’t been up to the task and who has demonstrated a lack of patience and interest in children.
In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Turner, who joined the FBI in 1978, pointed out that this has been going on for a very long time. For example, in 1999, on an Indian reservation, the FBI took a father's word that his son's severe rectal injury was caused by a car accident. After reopening the case herself, and undergoing a polygraph, the father acknowledged the rape.
That same year, on a different reservation, a pedophile with child pornography on his computer was not arrested because he claimed he did not watch porn at work. They did not even want to analyze his wife's concern about whether the time the same man spent with children in a Jacuzzi was justified or not.
Mistakes without consequences
Turner says she reported these mistakes to her superior and realized at the time that it was a more serious problem than just occasional negligence in investigations:
I told him that we could not allow this to happen. I was just doing my job because of what I saw. His response was, 'You have your own child to worry about.'
After retiring in 2003, she and the National Whistleblower Center (private) sent a letter to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft condemning these cases and requesting an external investigation into the cases. She never received an answer.
Interest in 'more glamorous' topics
The former agent claims that these oversights are due to the lack of training in handling these types of cases, the absence of supervision when things are mishandled, and the lack of interest by a largely white, male staff who, according to Turner, would rather be working on "more glamorous" tasks, such as shootings. In fact, cases of pedophilia or child abuse ended up being passed over to the few women in the corps, either because they volunteered or because they were assigned the case.
Above all, the main reason why this continues to happen is the lack of consequences for the person who is not diligent in doing their work, Turner explains.
The Larry Nassar case
The FBI's lack of professionalism in these investigations is once again in the news because of a report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz regarding Larry Nassar's abuse cases, who was eventually sentenced to life in prison. The document details the very serious mistakes that were made, with the first complaints dating back to 2015. The lack of interest and gross errors that occurred made it possible for the doctor to abuse athletes on 70 different occasions in various states.
The case gained traction when gymnasts such as world and Olympic champion Simone Biles and her teammates reported it. Turner pointed out that, without the evidence from the victims, they would have gone unnoticed just as their accusations did. "The FBI doesn't give a shit about kids," she pointed out graphically.
FBI Response: 145 words
The FBI's response to the Inspector General's report was a 145-word statement in which they acknowledged that "this should not have happened" and claims that they will take "all necessary steps to ensure that the failture of the employees outlined in the report do not happen again."
