Convicted Rapist Working at Your Local Department Store: Is It Possible?

Tonight, our local news announced that a man who is a current employee of Kohl’s, in St. Louis, Missouri, had exposed himself to a 5 year old little girl; in the children’s department. If that’s not shocking enough, add in the element that this same man was convicted of raping a 7 year old, an 8 year old and a 9 year old; 20 years ago.

I was literally irate when I read this. I went to the local news website and stated my opinion, submitted it to Digg & StumbleUpon; shared it on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. I wanted people to know.

I want people to ask other important questions here:

1. Was this an individual store hire? Or was corporate responsible for hiring him?
2. Was it mandatory to do a background check?
    2a. If no; why not?
    2b: If yes; why was he hired?

According to Glassdoor.com, Kohl’s does background checks. So if this be the case… why the epic failure?

Those questions are waying on my mind; heavily. And I truly believe that we, as their consumers, have a right to know the answers to these questions. Whether they be, or not be, the answers that we want to hear.

I don’t believe his background wasn’t checked. That’s pretty standard procedure with any major company. So herein lies the problem:

1. They did a background check and over-looked his 3 counts of rape; completely unacceptable
2. They didn’t do a background check and should be held accountable fo hiring someone convincted of 3 counts of rape; particularly against a 7, 8 and 9 year old. I’m not concerned with whether it was 20 years ago or not.

In my humble opinion, Kohl’s has a lot of explaning to do and from this view point, I truly don’t forsee how they are going to rectify this situation to be acceptable. With that being said, I have no intentions of being a customer there any longer and I know of several who are following suit. I quite expect this to work it’s way around the city, and possibly around the country, and Kohl’s to face a lot of customer revenue loss & backlash.

I don’t feel I’m over-reacting & I’m not trying to ‘punish’ Kohl’s. However, someone dropped a very large ball and put a lot of childrens safety at risk. This could have been my child; your child; your neice; your granddaughter, etc. Was she physically harmed? No. Mentally? Yes.

I’m a child advocate and every child deserves to be protected. I personally refuse to contribute, financially, to a store who did not keep our children safe from harm and made a profit from it. There’s certainly more than enough people out there who desperately need jobs who are much more qualified…and a lot less disturbed.

Source: http://www.kmov.com/topstories/stories/kmov-stlouis-news-091102-man-exposes-self-girl.27b60e987.html