A Georgia megachurch is facing allegations it failed to warn congregants about a former youth volunteer who’s been charged with trying to traffic a 16-year-old on the dark web.
Records obtained by The Roys Report (TRR) show that on June 30, authorities arrested Kelly Garrett Ivey—a former youth volunteer at Rock Springs Church in Milner, Ga.—and charged him with child cruelty and kidnapping. And last Monday, a grand jury indicted Ivey, 41, on first and second-degree charges of cruelty to children, trafficking, and three counts of criminal attempt to commit a felony, including kidnapping.
The congregants seems to be jumping to the conclusion that the church was formally notified of Ivey’s status, somehow, and sat on the information while Ivey was still a threat. But it’s not clear this was the case.
It doesn’t excuse church leaderships’ tone-deaf response to the arrest, though.
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But this is an educated guess; there is nothing in the article to support this timeline of events.
Depending on who you believe, Ivey’s formal association with the church ended 20 months previous, or maybe he was seen at the church in an unofficial capacity as recently as June. Either way, there’s nothing here to suggest police had contacted the church or notified them. It would certainly be reasonable diligence for them to do so, but then police are not known for diligence. They may have also been concerned that someone would tip off Ivey and he would become a flight risk.
Agreed. It is disappointing (if not surprising) that the church leadership did not IMMEDIATELY assess potential impact to the children of the church and school where Ivey volunteered.
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These statements:
are educated guesses at what could have happened in this case. The article doesn’t make these claims.
The article says nothing about police contacting the church.
As for the news, here is the timeline that I could reconstruct:
Monroe County Reporter published Aug 16. They do not mention Ivey’s employment history or affiliation with the church or school in their article.
Shortly after that (Aug 17), the parent FB group broke the news among the parents.
Aug 20, Atlanta News First say that they spoke to a pastor at the church, but elected not to mention the name of the church “for the purposes of ensuring anonymity for the victim”.
I don’t know when or if the church tried to reach out to the parents, all we do know is that as of Aug 17 they had not done so. But it’s possible that they – like the parents – didn’t actually find out about this until the newspaper article of Aug 16.
I’m not defending the church at all, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to make claims about what the church leadership knew, and when they knew it, without evidence.