A Louisiana grand jury has charged 91-year-old priest Lawrence Hecker with sexually assaulting a teenage boy in 1975, a significant step forward in the effort to hold church leaders accountable for their failure to protect children from sexual abuse. Hecker has been at the center of investigations into clergy sex abuse and the scandal of why church leaders failed to report his admissions to law enforcement. The case is expected to be closely watched by victims of abuse and their advocates, as it could provide insight into the church’s handling of the abuse crisis and the extent of its knowledge of the abuse.
Posts tagged as “James B. Hecker”
US-Russia tensions have risen following the release of a US military video showing a Russian Su-27 fighter jet conducting an "unsafe/unprofessional intercept" of a US Air Force MQ-9 drone over the Black Sea. The footage shows the Russian jet making two passes by the drone and dumping fuel on it, and US Air Force Gen. James B. Hecker has accused the jet of nearly causing the two aircraft to crash. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has warned that the incident has damaged relations between the two countries.
On Tuesday, a Russian fighter jet struck a U.S. surveillance drone over the Black Sea, resulting in the U.S. bringing down the unmanned aerial vehicle. This incident has raised tensions between the two countries and appears to mark the first time since the height of the Cold War that a U.S. aircraft was brought down after being hit by a Russian warplane. U.S. Air Force Gen. Hecker called the incident a “brazen violation of international law” and the U.S. is currently investigating the matter.