Predators in the Classroom: The Hidden School Abuse Crisis | John Manly | Have A Seat

Summary

Podcast Summary: Have A Seat with Chris Hansen

Episode: Predators in the Classroom: The Hidden School Abuse Crisis | John Manly
Date: June 17, 2026
Host: Chris Hansen
Guest: John Manly (Attorney for sexual abuse survivors)

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Episode Overview

This episode confronts the shocking crisis of sexual abuse in American schools, unveiling its scale, secrecy, and the institutions perpetuating its silence. Chris Hansen interviews John Manly, a leading attorney for survivors of institutional abuse, to explore:

• The prevalence of sexual exploitation in schools
• The failure of reporting systems and school accountability
• The role of teachers unions and political barriers
• Real, harrowing case studies and survivor stories
• Recommendations for parental action and systemic reform

The tone is urgent, unflinching, and at times deeply personal, focusing on the need for national outrage, legal action, and cultural change.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Staggering Prevalence of School Sexual Abuse

• 10% of American students experience inappropriate sexual contact from a school employee at some level (from inappropriate comments to rape), per Department of Education and Department of Justice studies.
  • “Let that number sink in for a minute. 10%. That's a shocking number.” — Chris Hansen [00:40]
  • "That means that 5.7 million kids a year are suffering some sort of sexual misconduct by staff at public schools, ranging from inappropriate sexual talk all the way to violent rape and everything in between." — John Manly [03:33]
• Newer research estimates as many as 17% are affected.
  • “She now estimates that it's 17%.” — John Manly, referencing Dr. Carol Shakeshaft [23:59]

2. Institutional Barriers and Lack of Accountability

• Mandatory reporting laws exist but are widely ignored.
  • “Schools... do have that mandatory reporting, they just simply don't comply.” — John Manly [06:24]
  • Out of thousands of abuse cases handled, only 2 convictions for failure to report among school officials.
• Teachers unions, most notably the American Federation of Teachers, have lobbied to reduce or remove the obligation to report suspected abuse.
  • "The American Federation of Teachers actually opposes mandatory reporting and is seeking its removal. What organization... opposes mandatory reporting of sexual abuse? Think about that for a minute." — John Manly [07:39]
• Political influence of unions is immense, spending billions to elect school board and state officials, which leads to resistance to survivor-friendly reforms.
  • “They spent a billion dollars last cycle on politicians. So what you have are politicians... basically taking the position that, hey, we're not going to deal with this.” — John Manly [04:57]

3. Disabled Reporting & Data Opacity

• Schools have no obligation to inform parents if a teacher is credibly accused or removed due to abuse—unlike notifying parents if a student gets lice.
  • “Schools are required to notify parents if a kid gets lice... but you don't get a note when your child's teacher is suspected of abuse.” — John Manly [17:54]
• Districts refuse public records requests; insurers misclassify abuse cases as "general liability," making true statistics deliberately inaccessible.
  • “They don't even call these cases childhood sexual abuse cases. They call them general liability cases, like a slip and fall.” — John Manly [20:31]

4. Culture of Silence, "Passing the Trash," and Real-World Horrors

• Perpetrators are often shuffled between schools rather than reported or fired ("passing the trash").
  • "The actual internal term for it is passing. Passing the trash." — John Manly [24:25]
• Administration is complicit, and even rewarded: Those who ignored or downplayed teacher sexual abuse complaints have advanced to higher positions.
  • “The person who made the decision not to remove him... is now the acting superintendent of the entire district.” — John Manly on the case of Terry Gillard [31:11]
• Law enforcement often fails to intervene; most prosecutions arise from lawsuits or survivor action—not internal investigations.

Case Studies:

• Mark Burndt (Miramonte Elementary, 2012):
  • 30 years of abusing children (feeding students Oreos with his semen, binding and photographing them)
  • Multiple ignored reports from teachers; discovered only when a film developer, a mandatory reporter, saw photos and called police.
  • "There were multiple reports beginning in 1981... report after report after report. Nothing done." — John Manly [24:38]
• Terry Gillard (Wrestling Coach):
  • Exploited his control over a poor, largely Latino high school wrestling team to sexually assault students; orchestrated an "initiation" involving rape; videotaped abuse.
  • Despite multiple complaints, allowed to remain, and those responsible for inaction promoted.
  • “He leveraged that and the wrestling program to basically engage in systemic molestation of kids for years... the person who made the decision not to remove him... is now the acting superintendent.” — John Manly [30:09–31:11]

5. Systemic Obstacles to Justice

• Survivors face immense obstacles reporting abuse; most cases only emerge decades later.
  • "Children rarely report their own abuse... the average age of reporting, according to FBI statistics, is in middle age, 30s, 40s, or 50s." — John Manly [11:37]
• Legal and political machinery is tilted against families; only threats of liability or massive lawsuits effect change.
  • "We've gotten more teachers arrested and convicted by filing lawsuits than by mandatory reporting in the state." — John Manly [21:37]
• The cycle mirrors the Catholic Church’s history of cover-ups, only more entrenched due to the influence of public money and unions.

6. Cultural Breakdown and Public Response

• American society, including progressive political actors and unions, is failing children, especially the most vulnerable—often Black, Latino, or immigrant families in the poorest schools.
  • “Their target victims are immigrant families... the vast majority of victims we represent are black and Latino people.” — John Manly [09:00]
• Denial and minimization by leadership leads to parents in some cases literally protesting “with pitchforks and torches” to force action.
  • “They actually literally almost with pitchforks and torches, protested outside the school, which is eventually what got him fired.” — John Manly [36:21]
• The crisis threatens the future and legitimacy of public education unless there is transparency, accountability, and a groundswell of public outrage.

7. Recommendations and Call to Action

• Parents: Trust your gut, and if you suspect abuse, contact police first, not the school. Be persistent; escalate to legislators and the press if you hit a wall.
  • “If you think your child's been hurt, the first call you should make is not to the school. The first call you should make is to the police. And don't give up.” — John Manly [42:27]
• Federal government: Calls for Congressional hearings, Department of Education intervention, and hearings with union leadership.
  • "That deserves a Senate hearing... Call the teachers unions, presidents, the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers and ask them the question. Then we're going to have action." — John Manly [34:37]
• Public: Demand accountability from both politicians and unions; refuse to accept complacency.
  • “Until the American public stands up and says, and parents stand up and effectively with torches and pitchforks to their legislators and says, you're going to do something or we're going to vote you out... Enough.” — John Manly [34:52]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If you don't go to school, private or public, your parents go to jail. So we're mandating children attend public schools where there is a clear and present danger.” — John Manly [04:14]
• “When the Catholic bishops in the United States policy on child protection is stronger than public schools, we have a problem.” — John Manly [16:19]
• “Institutions that investigate themselves, they rarely find themselves guilty.” — John Manly [21:51]
• "They look at them [children] as funding devices. And when you dehumanize children, this is the net result." — John Manly [39:52]
• “Nelson Mandela has this quote, and I often use it with juries, which is to say you can judge a society by the way it treats its children. And if we're judging our schools by the way they treat children here, we're failing.” — John Manly [37:12]
• “[Teachers unions] are not acting in the children's best interest. They're acting in what they perceive as their best interest and the leadership has lost their way.” — John Manly [32:14]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:40–05:41 – Scope of the problem: 10% of students abused; political influence and resistance to reform
• 06:24–11:33 – The reality of reporting: Laws ignored, unions lobbying against reporting, obstacles for whistleblowers
• 14:23–18:19 – Lack of notification to parents; legal and district-level secrecy
• 23:28–24:02 – Newer studies, rising prevalence to 17%
• 24:25–26:54 – "Passing the trash" explained; Mark Burndt case detailed
• 30:09–31:23 – Terry Gillard case, systemic cover-ups, and promotion of complicit administrators
• 32:00–35:09 – Systemic corruption, union leadership, and the urgent need for federal intervention
• 37:12 – Judgment of society by how it treats children; Mandela quote
• 42:18–44:17 – Advice for parents: trust instincts, contact police, persist for justice

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a powerful exposé and urgent call to action about predators in the American education system. It spotlights the deadly mix of institutional self-protection, political inertia, and public ignorance, revealing the massive and routine endangerment of children. The discussion between Chris Hansen and John Manly is at once analytical, enraged, and sorrowful—and ultimately a plea for parents, politicians, and all Americans to break the silence, demand transparency, and defend the nation's children.

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If you are a parent, survivor, or advocate, remember: Speak up, insist on accountability, and push for lasting change—and never trust the system by default.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

There are estimates that 10% of the American school population, 10% of the kids who go to school in America today, have had inappropriate sexual contact from an employee of the school district. Now, this can range from an inappropriate contact to full on sexual assault. But let that number sink in for a minute. 10%. That's a shocking number. And what you're going to find out in this episode is that some of the people who should be protecting our children are standing in the way of laws and regulations that would do so. And it doesn't make sense to me either. I've been chasing predators for a long time. We just got back this week from Florida where we caught 50 plus guys in six days. Some shocking cases, things I've never even seen before. And you're going to hear things and see things in this episode you've never seen or thought were possible before. Because my guest is an attorney who represents sexual abuse victims, John Manley. He represented the victims going after the Catholic Church in that sex scandal as well as survivors of Dr. Larry Nassar. You're familiar with that case. He was the Olympic gymnast doctor and he was affiliated with Michigan State University. And the abuse there was shocking and widespread. John Manley has a seat with me now. John, from his office in Orange County, California, thanks for being with me.

[C]

My pleasure, Chris. Nice to meet you.

[B]

John, the number and you and I discussed this before recording this episode. That number is staggering. That there's that much sexual exploitation, sexual abuse, exposure between school employees and students.

[C]

Yeah, it's shocking.

[B]

Are you as blown away by that as I am? I mean, you deal with these cases every day.

[C]

Well, when I first saw it, I was shocked. You know, when I started doing these cases in 97, they were mostly against Catholic diocese and Catholic bishops who enabled priest predators. And I used to say, you know, if, if this happened to the public schools, there'd be outrage and people would do something about it. As it turns out, I was wrong. The number of 10% is not something generated by some plaintiff's tort lawyer or some crazy, you know, political group. Those numbers, the 10% number was first established by the U.S. department of Education during the Bush administration. It was done on a study based on a study done by the Department of Education. And then in 2017, at the end of the Obama administration, the Justice Department did a study and they came up with the same number. So to give you some perspective, there are 57 million children in K through 12 public schools in this country. And if you believe that number, 10% of them, well, the number, I. E. 10% of them will suffer some sort of sexual misconduct by school employee, teacher staff or otherwise. That means that 5.7 million kids a year are suffering some sort of sexual misconduct by staff at public schools, ranging from inappropriate sexual talk all the way to violent rape and everything in between. That's a staggering number. And people, when I tell people this, they are shocked by it. I think half of them don't believe it, but that's the case. And the thing that makes it worse is in terms of creditors, is that you have to go to school. If you don't go to school, private or public, your parents go to jail. So we're mandating children attend public schools where there is a clear and present danger. Can you imagine if 10% of the flight attendants in the United States were molesting children? What would happen to the airline industry,

[B]

10% of law enforcement, 10% of any other right.

[C]

And nothing is happening to stop it of significance. And I think the reason for that is clear. It's the power of the teachers unions nationally and locally and especially in California, because they elect school boards. They are the most powerful lobby in the country in terms of dollars spent. They spent a billion dollars last cycle on politicians. So what you have are politicians that would otherwise be incredibly pro survivor now basically taking the position that, hey, we're not going to deal with this. In fact, we're going to reverse the rights of survivors in public schools, which is precisely trying to be accomplished by the teachers union in, in California.

[B]

Now, if you're also, if you're an Internet platform, right, if you're Instagram, if you're X, if you're even, even in the case of Roblox, which we've been investigating aggressively for allowing predators on the platform, all those platforms have mandatory reporting when they see something, when they detect inappropriate contact between an adult and a child, inappropriate material being sent, they have to file a report with the national center for Missing and Exploited Children, which refers these cases to law enforcement. So what you're saying is the schools in this country, and especially in California where you are don't have that mandatory reporting, is that right?

[C]

No, they do. They just simply don't comply.

[B]

They don't comply? How is that possible, John?

[C]

Well, it's happening by the bushel. You know, you can't get a, you know, we've settled hundreds of millions of dollars of cases against schools in California. You can't get a verdict or a settlement against a public school unless the school or school officials knew or had reason to know that this perpetrator, this teacher or other, the staff member was molesting a student. And out of the thousands of cases we've handled, there are two convictions of school administrators or teachers that failed to report. The standard operating procedure is to ignore Title 9, which is the federal statute that governs public schools and sexual misconduct, and to ignore mandatory reporting laws. In fact, to give you an idea of how significant the teachers union problem is in this country, the American Federation of Teachers actually opposes mandatory reporting and is seeking its removal. What organization that is supposed to represent people who care for children, that is teachers opposes mandatory reporting of sexual abuse? Think about that for a minute. That one of the largest teachers unions in the country, the American Federation of Teachers, is seeking to eliminate the obligation of school employees, teachers and administrators to report when a child is sexually abused. That's remarkable. And that's a major, I think that

[B]

reporting not mandatory, John I mean, what, what do they get out of that? Is it just protection? Are there false allegations being made that they're concerned about? I mean, I mean, who would not want to report a colleague who's abusing a child? That's a no brainer.

[C]

I think most teachers do want to report. The problem is, is that is in many districts, not all, in many districts, if you do report, you're viewed as a traitor and you get run over. And the other thing is that law enforcement isn't enforcing mandatory reporting laws. But I think in terms of the American Federation of Teachers, I believe, and this is just my personal opinion, that they recognize how many victims there are. And I think they understand that if the American public grasps the magnitude of this scandal, the number of children affected, the damage done to these boys and girls in our schools, the education system as we know it will cease to exist. It reminds me a lot of the Catholic bishops cover up in the late 90s when they were denying the scope of the scandal. And then it came roaring back. And in many states, teachers don't have a choice until recently didn't even have a choice as to whether they wanted to be a member of the union. And if you're not a member of the union, there's kind of rough financial treatment. Your assignments are not good. And, you know, the irony is that, you know, if you look at who's on the front line of trying to assist black and brown people in this country, they will say they are. The vast majority of victims we represent are black and Latino people. And they're being. These perpetrators aren't being assigned to Pacific Palisades or Malibu or Newport Beach. They're being assigned to Title 1 schools, which are the poorest schools in the United States. And their target audience, their target victims, are immigrant families. And yet you have these supposedly progressive folks, and not all of them for certain, because there are many Democrats and many Republicans who absolutely support victims, support survivors and their rights. But there is a cadre of folks who are beholden to the teachers union politically, and they happen to be Democrats. And I want to be clear, I'm not a partisan here. Clearly not maga. This is. But this is a fact. Like in California, the Speaker of the assembly is actively trying to eliminate the ability, effectively eliminate the ability of children to sue schools when they're raped, even when the school knows and there's a cadre of politicians that are helping him.

[B]

What happens if this mandatory reporting goes away? Now, already we're in a situation, John, where it's pretty clear that the mandatory reporting isn't always followed. And that's why we see some of these outrageous cases go on for so long. But what happens if the mandatory reporting is eliminated, if the American Federation of Teachers Union gets its way?

[C]

Well, I think what happens is, is that most cases will go unreported. You know, children rarely report their own abuse. It's. It's very rare. And, you know, the average age of Reporting, according to FBI statistics, is in middle age, 30s, 40s, or 50s. Most perpetrators get caught because an adult reports. And if you. I think what would happen is, is that most cases would go unreported and that, you know, the average abuser, according to the federal government's own statistics, has 75 victims. So you're going to see, you know, just massive abuse. And they go unreported for years. And, you know, thousands upon thousands of children getting raped, sodomized, molested, and untold horrors on them. And I just don't understand why teachers unions would do this other than they want to hide it. And there needs to be federal intervention here if the states can't do it.

[B]

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[A]

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[B]

It would seem that there's a very close parallel, John, between what was going on in the Catholic Church in the late 90s and what's happening in many school districts, including California right now. It seems like all the lawsuits brought attention to law enforcement which finally took action against Catholic bishops. And there were prosecutions and people were convicted and people went to prison. It would seem that that's what's gotta happen here. And we see teachers go to prison for this. But I have to tell you, every week it seems, John, there's a high profile case and it can be a female teacher exploiting a male student, a young male student, or the opposite. But we can't go a week without a case like this being reported in the press. And to me, it seems like it happens because it's allowed to happen in some cases.

[C]

Oh, you're right. I mean, it seems like it's every other day you see this. And what happened in the Catholic Church is that the scandal began and it was really the Boston archdiocese and the LA archdiocese that kind of blew it up in 2001 and 2002. And in 2002, the bishops had a meeting in Dallas, and they created something called the Dallas Charter. And they were actually laws that diocese were supposed to follow. And it involved notification of parents, notification of law enforcement, and a variety of other steps to stop it. Now, the church didn't. The bishops. I'm not talking about the faith. The bishops didn't do this because they were good guys. They did it at the point of a legal gut. And I think most people assume that the reason this stopped is because of liability. That was part of it. But really what stopped it, the case that really ended it, is the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was sentenced to five years in prison for child endangerment for knowingly concealing a priest who was an abuser. Until that happens, until we begin to send administrators to jail for. For willful. For willfully concealing this, this is going to continue. And I got to tell you, when. When the Catholic bishops in the United States policy on child protection is stronger than public schools, we have a problem. I mean, most parents would be shocked to learn that in no state in the country is a school obliged to notify you when your child's teacher is removed for credible allegations of child molestation. Let me say that again. In no state does the law require a school to notify parents when a teacher is removed because the school believes a little boy or a little girl is molested.

[B]

How is that possible? Now keep tabs on all these different laws, and obviously we're out doing investigations every month and reporting on these types of issues. But how in 2026, is it possible that there's no law, no legal mandate that forces schools to tell parents if there's a credible allegation or any kind of allegation, any. I don't know, or a hint of inappropriate impropriety between a teacher and a student?

[C]

At this point, it's unbelievable. Schools are required to notify parents if a kid gets lice.

[B]

Right.

[C]

You get a note from your school. Gets light. But. But you don't. You don't get a note when. That. Your. Your child's teacher is suspected of abuse. That's the law. For example, in Los Angeles County. I'm sorry, in Los Angeles. Yeah. Los Angeles Unified School District, the. The policy is the associate superintendent or the assistant superintendent may notify parents. May.

[B]

May.

[C]

The only time. May. The only time they notify parents is when there's a public arrest. All of these cases we've handled where there was evidence after, you know, indication after indication, complaint after complaint after complaint, the district never notified parents. In Some instances, they don't even notify parents after the arrest. Now why is that? Because they know if they notify parents, parents are going to go to their kids and go, are you okay, sweetie? Did this happen to you, buddy? You know, and, and they're going to find out. And they don't want the liability and they don't want the attention. So the institutional folks that run school districts, you know, let me, let me explain. In California, most states, the people that give money in school district races, the biggest player are almost always the unions. So overwhelmingly, you have pro union school boards who run these schools. California has 1300 different school districts, all elected by local people. And in every, almost every one of these races, you have teachers unions participating. So you have a system that's closed, that cannot fix itself. And worse, you have part of the legislature in California, you have the assembly leadership who is absolutely in the pocket of teachers union, who uniformly refuse any type of meaning before parental notification, any of that kind of stuff. It won't make it out of committee. So what we need, in my opinion, is the Department of Education to take action for the US Senate to hold hearings and call these people up and say, how many children are abused in California in schools? You can't get that answer. I actually did a Public Records act request to every school district in the state saying, identify the, identify the perpetrators in your district. No one will, they won't do it. They won't do it and no one will tell you. You could call a superintendent of public instruction in California how many children are molested in California, have been molested in the last five years. Can't get it.

[B]

You can't get it because they don't want to give it to you or because they make sure it doesn't get collected and exists as a matter of record.

[C]

Oath. So, for example, the insurance companies that insure schools, they're called joint powers authorities or quasi public entities. They issue reports every year even though they don't really answer to anybody. And they have the answer to these questions. And many of these reports, they don't even call these cases childhood sexual abuse cases. They call them general liability cases, like a slip and fall. So as to the scope of the problem, at least in California, it's completely opaque. It's hidden, and it's hidden on purpose. And when you have to hire a plaintiff lawyer to prevent your kid from being abused, the system's broken. It's broken.

[B]

Is that what it's come down to? If you don't have the wherewithal or the guile to hire a qualified plaintiff's lawyer or to blow the whistle and get this in the press? Is that what it takes now to get one of these cases properly investigated? To seek some sort of justice here? Because the system's not doing it? Because the teachers unions have so much clout and power over the process.

[C]

I would venture to say that we've gotten more teachers arrested and convicted by filing lawsuits than by mandatory reporting in the state. Our firm has, because we filed lawsuits, caused dozens of perpetrators to be arrested in California schools. We did it in Larry Nassar. Larry Nassar wasn't arrested because Michigan State University was doing her job. Larry Nassar got arrested because Jamie Dancer filed a lawsuit, an Olympian. So it's the same here. They don't, you know, when, when institutions investigate themselves, they rarely find themselves guilty. That's my experience. So that's precisely what we have here. We have, you know, institutions that are utterly corrupt in terms of this issue. We, by the way, because of school shootings, we've hardened schools. So there's. They're essentially gated. And when a child goes in, no one else can get in. Well, if there's a perpetrator in the school, you've essentially put it, put the child in a school environment with a sexual tiger in a cage. And, you know, school shootings have gotten, and rightfully so, gotten, you know, huge attention. 200 children shot dead.

[B]

Well, you can't cover that up. You can't cover up a school shooting. It's out there. Everybody responds. 200 sexual predator case, you know.

[C]

Yeah, well, 200 versus 5.7 million a year, if you believe the federal government statistics. What the hell is going on?

[B]

5.7 million children a year according to two different studies, one by the Department of Education, one by the Department of Justice in two different administrations. Right. One that's pro union teachers union and one that's less so. And that's where this number comes from. That's a staggering, staggering number.

[C]

Yeah. The really scary part is the academic who authored the 2004 study is a woman named Dr. Carol Shakeshaft. And she wrote a book that was published in December of 2024 about this topic. And she has an amazing TED Talk on it if you search it. But in any event, she actually argues. And the book, by the way, was published by Harvard University Press, so hardly a bastion of anti union thinking. She now estimates that it's 17%.

[B]

And what happens when there are allegations surrounding a teacher or a coach in a school? There's supposed to Be mandatory reporting. As we've seen many times, there isn't. Are these teachers shuffled off to another assignment to get them out of the school? Is that an issue here as well?

[C]

Yeah, the actual internal term for it is passing. Passing the trash.

[B]

Casting the trash.

[C]

Yeah. So I'll give you an example.

[B]

Trash. How about that? Maybe that's the better way.

[C]

That doesn't, that doesn't happen. I mean to give you an example of how broken the system is, there's a, and I want to give a warning here. I'm about to be tell you what happened. And it's very, it's very graphic, but you need to hear it. So there was a teacher in 2012 in Los Angeles named Mark Byrne. Mark Burndt had been a teacher at Miramonte elementary school for 30 years from 81 to 2012. And what he had been doing for the better part of 30 years is bringing his semen to school and putting it in Oreo cookies, feeding it to his students who were third graders, Photographing it. Also putting roaches on them, tying them up, putting duck or packing tape on their mouths. Taking these photos by the thousands. And what he was doing is he was very smart. He wasn't taking digital images. He was using the old style Instamatic camera and taking those photos to a CVS to have them developed. There were multiple reports beginning in 1981 when he dropped his pants on a field trip when he was a brand new teacher. Reports from teachers. He was showing his denitalia. Report after report after report after report. Nothing done. What finally got him caught is this young woman who was an 18 year old disabled woman working at CVS saw some of the photos. And the reason he was using an Instamatic camera is not because he was stupid, it's because he was smart. Because a digital camera has a GPS imprint of where the photo was taken. You know, analog film does it. So anyway, she saw these photos. California, in California, film developers are mandatory reporters. She made a mandatory report in Manhattan Beach. Manhattan beach called LAPD. LAPD investigated and basically he was sentenced to, you know, 40 or 50 years in prison. But yet you have this horrendous thing done to these kids and no one did anything.

[B]

So every drugstore developing the film to report them because nobody at the school figured it out.

[C]

Right. The point of mandatory reporting is that look, legislators understood and professionals understood, criminologists understood that institutions that investigate themselves aren't going to find themselves guilty. You want to bring in child protective services and the police to do an independent Investigation not just for the benefit of the, of the victim, but also for the benefit of the accused perpetrator. Right. You want to have a third party come in and investigate it. What's happening here for the most part is that's not happening. The principal or other administrators are saying, oh, they'll, in some instances they'll actually try to convince the victim that this didn't happen. We have a case in Southern California where we had a child report and two, two administrators took them in a classroom for three hours and berated them into withdrawing the allegation. So if you, if you saw our files, which you're welcome to look at unless they're confidential, it's just the same over and over and over. Teachers intentionally getting. Female teachers intentionally getting themselves pregnant by 16 year olds. You know, it's insanity.

[B]

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18 plus.

[B]

Talk about the case of Terry Gilliard there. This is one that is truly shocking.

[C]

Terry Gillard was a wrestling coach at a high school in North LA county, another Los Angeles Unified School District case. The school in question was in the north San Fernando Valley, very poor, overwhelmingly Latino. And he was well known and liked because he was a wrestling coach. And he managed to get some of his kids scholarships to schools, to college. And, you know, it's a way out. You know, most of these kids parents are working two or three jobs, they don't have money. The idea of college for kids seemed out of reach. So. And he leveraged that and the wrestling program to basically engage in systemic molestation of kids for years, including in order to join the wrestling team, you had to initiate an initiation, which was to have intercourse with the female wrestlers while he watched and masturbated. There's actually video of him abusing a little girl in a car. She was smart enough to get him to videotape it. And then at trial he tried to argue, oh, I was making a movie and all kinds of other bullshit. But the bottom line is, is that the district had multiple complaints about him engaging in sexual misconduct with adults, et cetera. And the person who made the decision not to remove him after the complaint about the adult is now the acting superintendent of the entire district.

[B]

That's shocking.

[C]

That's what we're dealing with.

[B]

The unions have too much power in this case. Again, this isn't a political statement, but clearly, if they're able to buy legislators in the way you suggest, in the way the evidence suggests, this has gone beyond the protection of somebody who's got a very important job in society, this goes to a systemic corruption that is allowing this predatory behavior to continue. I mean, it's criminal at some point.

[C]

It is criminal. And in fact, I think you can make an argument there's a criminal conspiracy in many instances. So, look, I want to say this. As a young man, I was a member of two unions, the Retail clerks and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. I think unions have a very important place in our society and continue to have. However, when you are a union that represents people who, parents by law entrust the care of their children to you, walk your little boy or little girl by the hand in that school, you have a right to trust that not only the school district is acting in your child's best interest, but the union and the teachers are. And the fact is that most teachers unions in the United States, most administrators unions, are not acting in the children's best interest. They're acting in what they perceive as their best interest and the leadership has lost their way. Not teachers. I can tell you that in most every one of our cases, the heroes are actually a teacher that finally says, I'm not putting up with this. I don't care if it cost me my job, my livelihood. There are superintendents that say the same thing. No more. But when leadership, when the teachers union is priority right now in California is eliminating the ability of little boys and little girls who are violently raped from getting justice, there's something wrong. There's something wrong in a system where 10% of the employees, by the US government's estimation, not my estimation, not somebody else, the government, in a liberal administration and a conservative administration say, we got 5.7 million victims. I think that deserves a Senate hearing. The Justice Department and the attorney general was fired because they're handling of the Epstein files. Probably rightfully so. Epstein had over 200 victims. We have hearings on it. We have people there. And I know some of these women. Good. Good for them. Where's the hearings on this? Where's the hearings on why isn't every US Senator in the United States standing up and saying, we're going to hold a hearing. We're going to call the superintendent from LAUSD and other school districts and you're going to answer questions on their own. Sir. You know, you got tobacco executives. They call tobacco executives up, call the superintendent of New York, Chicago and LA and ask the question, how many children have been molested in your districts? How many superintendents, I'm sorry, how many teachers have you removed from molestation? Make them answer the questions. It's not going to be pretty. Call the teachers unions, presidents, the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers and ask them the question. Then we're going to have action. But until this, until the American public stands up and says, and parents stand up and effectively with torches and pitchforks to their legislators and says, you're going to do something or we're going to vote you out. Whether you were Republican, Democrat, purple, gay, straight, whatever. Enough.

[B]

Well, you know, obviously I feel strongly about this as well. This is not an anti union issue. I get it. I was a Teamster. The president of the Teamsters has been on this show to talk about various issues. They've gone out on predator stings because they want the members of their union to be alert and vigilant when they're out doing their jobs to see things, to protect children. And you would think that the teachers unions would be the same way, John. But I mean, the fact that they're engaging in some respects in a systematic pattern to not report crimes, to shift teachers to different schools. When crimes are reported, that's a criminal conspiracy in and of itself.

[C]

It is.

[B]

I mean, that is so alarming and so disturbing to me. I never had instant going to school. I had great teachers. It was very fortunate. But to know that this is going on and to see the anecdotal reporting that I know is reliable and to look at these numbers that are not partisan, they're not anti union, it's just shocking. It seems like everybody should be shouting about this from the highest mountaintops and demand some sort of government investigation, congressional action to at least have a dialogue about this.

[C]

Yeah, I'm just grateful you're talking about it because I think what happened in the Catholic scandal, what really did them in is ordinary Catholics stopped giving and people went to jail. And when parents really figure this out, and we've seen this at a school level, they do something. There was a teacher in the LA harbor area who was molesting little girls. And these parents, most of whom were first generation immigrants actually literally almost with pitchforks and torches, protested outside the school, which is eventually what got him fired. Not because the district did anything or the administrator did anything, the parents did it. And I think what we need on a national level is for parents to demand, especially if they're U.S. senators and U.S. members of Congress, to act and to demand an investigation. And what's going to end up happening when people figure this out, that public education as we know it is going to be dismantled, which is not what any of what we want or our clients want. America's public education school system was one of the best in the world. But the culture and the, what I'll call the educational establishment has lost their way. You know, Nelson Mandela has this quote, and I often use it with juries, which is to say you can judge a society by the way it treats its children. And if we're judging our schools by the way they treat children here, we're failing. There's nothing more evil or vile than hurting a little boy or a little girl sexually. It's profoundly evil. But it's happening on a industrial level in our schools.

[B]

You know, when we go out and do a sting for takedown our predator investigations, we expect to find people. You know, I've gotten used to that. As I mentioned last week in Florida, 50 plus guys showed up, all kinds of scenarios. Parents exploiting their children or guys thinking that a parent's going to exploit the children to their satisfaction. But when you send a kid to school, John, a parent should believe that for those eight hours that kid is going to be safe, healthy, cared for and educated. And to think that five plus million kids are facing some sort of sexual exploitation in our schools every year, it's just mind boggling. And as you said, it goes to the power of people who have lost touch with their mission. The average teacher doesn't want to see this happen. The average principal doesn't want to see this happen. But the system has gotten so broken that it's not just protecting good people, it's protecting bad people Now.

[C]

Yeah, unfortunately the educational establishment, and I'm not talking about individual teachers and administrators, I think most people are in that system because they care. But the educational establishment has lost its way. They don't look at these children, these boys and girls, as God's little beings, as beings that are deserving of protection. They look at them as funding devices. And when you dehumanize children, this is the net result. And that's what's happened.

[B]

And that's what we see in our investigations as well. That's, it's the same thing across the board.

[C]

The thing that this is personal, but the first case I ever did that filed in 1997 was against my high school principal, who it turns out is one of the most prolific molesters in the history of the church, Father Michael Harris. I went to modern day high school and he was a high school principal from 1976 to 1994. And I've seen he molested many of my friends and many of my classmates. And I'm 61 and I've seen them over their lives and what it does, it's devastating. It's devastating. And the notion that, you know, that right now there's a little child, third grader, fifth grader, 16 year old, that that is being subject to this as we speak. And that's what's happening. We need to stop it. If we don't, we're failing as adults. Our job is to stand between those who would hurt our kids and protect that children, that child. And that's the job of educators, the standard of care for schools. It's a Latin phrase called in loco parentis. It means in the place of the parents. What parent is going to suspect, for example, their next door neighbor hurt their child sexually and not do anything? Nobody. But yet in America, schools, in California schools, right now, they're not protecting kids, they're just letting it happen. And then when it happens, they're trying to Cover it up. What's going to happen with teachers unions if this gets out, and I think they know it, is that anybody who receives a contribution from them is going to be politically radioactive. It's going to be viewed eventually as receiving a contribution from Mr. Epstein.

[B]

So, well, we're going to make sure this gets out.

[A]

What do you.

[C]

What do you.

[B]

What do you say to parents, John, who. Who may suspect something's going on? And they come up against this wall of silence on the part of some teachers officials and some teachers unions.

[C]

Number one, trust your gut. If it seems off, it probably is. I mean, you know this better than most people, but I'll just say it. Perpetrators are not usually not some guy in a trench coat running around a school with no pants. It's the nice teacher. It's the teacher that goes. Takes the effort. Can I take your child home? Can I do this? And they target the vulnerable single moms, dads who work three jobs, vulnerable kids. They're very, very good at grooming and discerning their victims. And so what I would say is that if you think your child's been hurt, the first call you should make is not to the school. The first call you should make is to the police. And don't give up. Some police departments are awesome at this and others suck. Some police departments are effectively the DMV with guns on this, not because police officers are bad, but because they're overwhelmed. Louisiana City, the LA cops, they're completely underserved. Twenty years ago, LAPD was one of the best agencies to deal with this. Now they're one of the worst. Not because they're bad officers. On the contrary, they're great officers. They just don't have the manpower to investigate it. Don't let up. Call your legislator, call everybody. And you stand in between that child and that person who's going to hurt them. And believe me, if you raise your voice and there's something there, it'll happen. But the squeaky wheel, unfortunately gets the grease.

[B]

Well, I think there are going to be some people who see this, John, who are going to be shocked by the volume of this, even though we see these cases reported on a weekly basis. And I think we're going to get a lot of people reaching out. This happened. I know somebody this happened to. But I can promise you this, we will continue to talk about this and expose this here and elsewhere. And I appreciate you getting in here and joining me in this dialogue and. And sharing all this important information.

[C]

I can't thank you enough for bringing attention to it. These are real children. This is real people. And it's really happening on a massive scale. And I just hope that our elected officials will listen because now the ball's in their court.

[B]

John Manley, thank you very much for having a seat with me. I appreciate it. We will talk to you again soon, I promise.

[C]

Thank you, sir.

[B]

And thank you for having a seat with me once again. We will see you next Wednesday. Monday is the day that predators I've caught will drop, always drops. Join me on my streaming network, True Blue. Watch TrueBlue.com for our Predator investigative series, Takedown with Chris Hansen. Every Thursday, another episode drops. And as I mentioned earlier, just back from Marion County, Florida, and saw some things that. But, I mean, they're hard to put into words. We have it all and we'll share it with you there. Until then, I'll be watching and listening.

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