The Imagination Kevin Sutherland - Tribute Testimony Episode Pt 2: Criminalized for Courage & The Fight for Justice
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This week on December 18th, 2024, the world lost an amazing human and friends, and one of my favorite humans of all time, survivor and warrior, Kevin Sutherland. In lieu of Kevin's devastating passing, I am devoted to finish the mission he started by continuing to share his story, continuing to call out every last person who failed him, and continuing to shed a light on the darkness that Kevin and many other survivors face, fight, and overcome their entire lives. Kevin was such a special person - I can't convey this enough. He was a bright light, a brilliant mind and story-teller, a humble soul, and someone who was too good for this world.
The abuse and torment he suffered his entire life is nothing short of horrendous, inexcusable, and just as devastating as his loss. He had a tremendous impact on me personally - he was so loving and appreciative to me for offering a space for him to share his story. I felt and feel extremely honored that Kevin shared his testimony publicly before his departure so that we can continue his mission in his memory. It's all he wanted in his passing was for us to take the torch he was too exhausted to carry anymore and cross the finish line on his behalf.
So, with that being said, here is Part 2 of Kevin's 3-part testimony. Here are the show notes I originally wrote below.
Rest in paradise, angel. I pray you are now basking in the peace you always deserved that was stolen from you.
I love you forever and ever, my sweet Kevin - I still can't believe you are gone... I will never, ever, stop fighting for you.
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Kevin Sutherland is BACK for Part 2 of his journey to be heard and have justice served. In this Part 2, we step into the second part and phase of his story that took place after he was out of the care home system: Discovering pedophiles he found on chat lines, recording their conversations, exposing them, and ultimately serving just under 2 years in the prison system for blackmail. Not only that, but the media wrote his story painting him as a violent and malicious criminal instead of an abuse survivor looking to get retribution after no one would help him.
This episode brings up a couple very important questions and conversations:
What causes a young person to commit crimes and why is the root cause not being investigated the same as the criminal acts?
What flaws exist in our system that allow for a criminal investigation to occur on someone like Kevin who was exposing offending criminals, but no investigation took place looking into his child abuse allegations or into the allegations of the offending ped-ophiles that he was exposing and reporting to authorities?
By not validating the voices of survivors (many of them children when they first start experiencing abuse) we are massively failing our children and young adults. We know trauma and abuse come with many side effects, yet we blame the survivor for making the best choices they know how while not offering guidance into validating their stories and investigating their abusers. We talk in depth about this during the interview and I hope it shines light on your perceptions as much as it did mine.
The root cause of many misguided young adults and adults boils down to child abuse in many cases and yet it's never taken into account when they are going through the abuse system or end up being criminalized for mistakes they didn't know they didn't have to make. If we would only listen to them and validate them and guide them back to love, compassion, empathy, and justice... what difference would that make in the life of someone like Kevin?
CONNECT WI