Thursday, July 14, 2011

Youth pastor Enrique Alcaraz arrested

Former this and former that… I read these words and instantly know I’ve got another pedopastor on my hands. The press are always careful to explain the current state of the accused’s employment. It does not matter if the accused was a youth pastor the day before the story broke. If they were fired or resigned, they are classified as a “former this and former that.” It breaks my heart. The real story is that the accused was dealing with children up until the time of his arrest. Why don’t they write about that?

Take youth pastor EnriqueAlcarazEnrique Alcaraz. When the police came for him on child pornography charges, was he working as a youth pastor? If I read this article, we only know he was a youth minister at an Ovid-area church. This article shows me his photo and tells me Alcaraz was 45 at the time of his arrest. This articles adds info about his church and service on a local school board.

Alcaraz, known by some neighbors as "Rick", was elected to the Ovid-Elsie School Board last year and was a youth minister for the Church of the Living Word in Ovid. He resigned both positions in March. Neighbors also told WILX that Alcaraz appeared to be a foster parent.

Piecing the story together requires a lot of reading. I never get the whole story and I rarely get the story right. For example, police did not arrest Alcaraz, he turned himself in. I would have missed that important piece of information in half the articles I read.

What did Alcaraz do?

…Alcaraz sent nude photographs to one child and received nude photographs from another child. …Alcaraz used fake names on Facebook and Yahoo to contact minors, including Matt James, Mary Parker and Brad Merritt.

Prosecutors filed heavy charges.

…the Clinton County Prosecutor charged him with child sexually abusive activity, distributing or promoting child sexually abusive material and possession of child sexually abusive material, according to a state police news release.

Church of the Living Word is a biker friendly church. I guess that makes them hip and relevant. Bikers do that. The church website has nothing posted on the case.