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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nIn his Morning Briefing series on TikTok, Polk County, Florida Sheriff Grady Judd posts daily videos about criminals who have been apprehended by his office. The clips are just a taste of the popular Sheriff\u2019s personality. He\u2019s irreverent, often characterizing the arrest of prisoners with aphorisms: \u201cPlay stupid games, win stupid prizes,\u201d or \u201cHe said he wanted to go to heaven. We made the arrangements for him,\u201d about a suspect who died in a gunfight. Video captions are often more succinct: \u201cDon\u2019t do meth, K?\u201d While his office prides itself on being extremely tough on lawbreakers, he has a special vitriol for child predators. \u201cWe will go to the ends of the earth to arrest you if you victimize children,\u201d the five-term Sheriff once said at a press briefing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This content strategy has made Judd a bonafide star on TikTok, where videos are posted daily to his 700,000 followers. But after a now-viral report from the Center for Investigative Journalism (CIR) and PBS Newshour found that detectives in Judd\u2019s office accused a 12-year-old girl of lying about her sexual assault claims \u2014 claims she was forced to collect her own evidence until they were proved true \u2014 citizens off- and online are demanding answers. So far, they\u2019ve been met with silence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taylor Cadle, now 21, was only eight years old when she as adopted from foster care by her great uncle, Henry Cadle, and his wife. But what was meant to be a dream home quickly turned frightening, as Henry began sexually assaulting her. In 2016, Cadle told an adult at her church, who called the police. Melissa Turnage, the detective from the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s office, arrived. And she didn\u2019t believe her.(The Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office did not respond to Rolling Stone\u2019s multiple requests for comment.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the (CIR) and PBS Newshour, which includes audio from Cadle\u2019s 2016 interview, Turnage accused her of making up the story. \u201cIf you\u2019re mad because you got your phone taken away, let\u2019s say that now and be done with it,\u201d she can be heard saying the clip. Cadle was charged with filing a false report and, with encouragement from the adults around her, pleaded guilty. She completed a year of community service and was required to write a letter of apology to both her great-uncle and the police. And she returned to Henry\u2019s home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rachel de Leon is the reporter behind the story and featured in Netflix\u2019s 2023 documentary Victim\/Suspect, which explores cases in the U.S. where women who report sexual assault are criminalized instead by police who believe they were lying. \u201cI had been looking into adults who were being charged with making false reports of sexual assault,\u201d de Leon tells Rolling Stone. \u201cI wasn\u2019t even aware that it was happening to kids.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cadle continued to live in the home for another year. In 2017, she was assaulted again by Henry. This time she had a plan. She took covert photos and videos using her cell phone, taking extra care to note things the detectives couldn\u2019t find evidence for last time, like the time, location of the vehicle, and even a box of condoms Henry had bought. But even when she had concrete proof on her cellphone of her experience, she still considered not calling the police again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEven with the amount of evidence, I still had so much of a hard time trusting that they would believe me. I\u2019m looking at these pictures, and I\u2019m still trying to talk myself out of calling the cops that night,\u201d she tells Rolling Stone. \u201cI figured I had the evidence, and if there was a chance for them to believe me, that it was now or never for me to make that phone call. Henry initially denied the allegations, but was arrested and pleaded no contest. In 2017, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison and is registered as a sexual predator, according to the Lakeland Ledger. Cadle\u2019s original charge was dismissed, but her experience still left her feeling nervous. \u201cThroughout that whole process, I didn\u2019t trust anything that they were saying,\u201d she says. \u201cIt felt like something was around the corner to get me at any minute.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now a mother of two, Cadle decided to reveal her story, and face, with de Leon\u2019s help. \u201cI feel as though being public with my name and having my face shown was a way of me gaining control back over my life, because I was no longer being forced to stay silent and sit back and watch things unfold,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was a way for me to own my story.\u201d Since her segment first ran on PBS NewsHour and posted on TikTok, the video has gotten over 2 million views on the app alone, with thousands of comments sharing their support for Cadle and praise over her bravery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So far, however, Judd has not acknowledged the story. In the past seven days, he has posted on TikTok about Halloween, voting in the presidential election, and even a story of a woman charged with a felony for allegedly trying to steal a chihuahua named Felony. The lack of a response is making Cadle furious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was silenced. And if it wasn\u2019t for my evidence, I would still be sitting here silent today,\u201d she says. \u201cEven though there\u2019s millions of views and thousands of comments, you\u2019re still pretending like nothing ever happened. The fact that [Turnage] is still able to walk around and hold a badge and say that she still works for the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office completely blows my mind. I think it\u2019s absolutely unacceptable.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It has been over eight years since the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office dismissed Cadle\u2019s case, acknowledging that she was telling the truth about her assault. But she\u2019s never heard a single word of apology. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Representatives for the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office declined <\/strong>an interview and did not answer requests to comment on de Leon\u2019s reporting. They also did not respond to multiple requests from\u00a0Rolling Stone\u00a0regarding Cadle\u2019s case, Turnage\u2019s initial treatment of Cadle, or any questions about discipline. For de Leon, whose reporting consistently challenges police departments\u2019 handling of sexual assault, she hopes that the next step in Cadle\u2019s story is some kind of feedback directly from the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office. \u201cI hope for transparency. I hope for answers,\u201d de Leon says. \u201cI want to know if anything in their protocols or processes has changed so that this can\u2019t happen to a child again.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her assault, Cadle says, has forever changed her perspective. She doesn\u2019t trust easily. Now a mother after giving birth at 16, she still doesn\u2019t trust anyone with her children. It\u2019s been frustrating, especially with the outsized response to de Leon\u2019s story, that Judd refuses to acknowledge the department\u2019s mistake. But Cadle says it\u2019s been too long for a half-hearted apology. She wants to be seen. And she wants them to do better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI hope that if there is another victim out there, I just want them to know that you\u2019re not alone,\u201d she says. \u201cI am fighting very hard for some type of change, for some type of acknowledgment, not only for myself, but for any other victim who has been through it, so no one has to encounter such a thing in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Victim Taylor Cadle is asking Sheriff Grady Judd to admit his office denied her credible sexual assault claims. He\u2019s too busy on TikTok By CT Jones Rolling Stone In his Morning Briefing series… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":12668,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Polk_Sheriff-Grady-Judd_2021Web.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[10269],"class_list":["post-51647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-pok-county-sheriff-is-a-star-on-tiktok-why-wont-he-acknowledge-his-offices-mistake"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51648,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51647\/revisions\/51648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}