By Mike | AuxBeacon News Contributor

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The Civil Air Patrol has finally amended its Cadet Protection Policy regulation to require reports of cadet/child abuse to state agencies.

However, one source says that CAP’s national commander, Maj Gen Antonio J. Pineda, Jr, repeatedly resisted calls for that to be implemented.

“It is reassuring that reasoned decisions resulted after I spent a full day of pleading with Maj Gen Pineda for him to instruct this information be included in Cadet Protection Program training, and having him repeatedly say ‘no,’ ending our conversations with the statement: “That is the end, there is no more,” says Phil Blansett, Ph.D.

America’s Air Force Auxiliary published an “emergency change” requiring such reports to be made to state authorities following the publication of the NOTF investigative report, The CAP’s Tennessee Wing: A wing without a prayer.

“After a detailed conversation with Civil Air Patrol General Counsel Stanley Liebowitz, after my failed pleas to Pineda, and Liebowitz’s follow-up conversations with Pineda, Liebowitz assured me that Gen Pineda, after substantial conversations with him, had agreed with my assertion that simply reporting suspected child abuse up the Civil Air Patrol chain of command may not, and in states requiring civil reporting will not, relieve the reporting person of other obligations to report to the appropriate state authorities concurrently.

“At no point can CAP’s Regulation 52-10 grant, nor does it imply that it does or ever did grant, any “grand-fathering in” for those who have refused to follow established and settled public city, county, state, or national laws regarding obligations to report suspected, reported or known child abuse. CAP simply has no authority to say that since this emergency revision just was just published, wing commanders, wing chiefs of staff and other commanders are given a pass on their statutory obligation to report suspected, reported or known child abuse that they, for whatever reason failed to report.

Indeed, the revision is clear that if you live in a state where such reporting is required of all citizens (as in Tennessee and 17 other states), [CAP members] may now be exposed to civil and criminal consequences if [they] do not report within the child’s protection by statutes of limitations, and the statute of limitations may well be, involving a minor child to 2 years beyond the child reaching the age of majority, or when the child reaches the age of 20.

“It is the disinterest by leadership at every CAP level, until when in engaged in conversation with CAP’s general counsel, that caused me to invoke the wisdom of an ancient who cautioned: ‘Do not keep the company of fools and to resign my membership. But I never resigned my obligations as a citizen, and while not keeping the company of fools, I continue to crusade against the bullying of the powerful and the dismissal of the just,” Blansett said.