Between reporting a crime and a defendant being convicted are many steps of a legal process that aims to be fair both to defendants and to victims.
The defendant has the right to enter a plea of not guilty, and if he does, the jury cannot convict him unless the prosecution convinces them, beyond a reasonable doubt, that its allegations against the defendant are true. In cases related to sexual assault and other sex-related crimes, it is very difficult to do this without testimony from the victims. It can be difficult for survivors of sexual assault and abuse to speak about the incidents even to people they know and trust, let alone to strangers who will make their trauma public.
He was one of the four officers present during the Taser attack on Calvon Reid, who died as a result of the electric shocks. Rush is a member of Church of Christ in Pompano Beach, where he led a group called Men of Virtue and Ethics, which mentors troubled adolescent boys.
It was at church that he met the boys who would accuse him of sexual molestation. The victims described similar situations in which, after taking a group of teens to the movies, Rush would drop them off at home one by one but then take the last remaining boy to a park and molest him in his car. The abuse allegedly took place between and In , a year-old man who had known Rush since childhood also made accusations against him.
He said that he had told Rush that he was applying to join the police department and asked Rush for advice. Rush took him to Tradewinds park in his police cruiser and promised to help him practice for a training exercise.
