The suit, filed on behalf of Sheri Coleman's family earlier this year, didn’t originally name the Fenton-based ministry as a defendant. Last month, they filed a motion to add the ministry based on information obtained through the discovery process. The family alleged the killings might not have occurred if the ministry had followed its own guidelines and better investigated anonymous threats against Coleman and his family.I've read that the Ministry has pretty strict rules in place, regarding the behaviour of employees, and the SOP for handling threats, etc.
From the ministries' lawyer:
“Joyce Meyer Ministries had no knowledge prior to these tragic deaths of an extra marital affair involving Chris Coleman,” the ministry’s lawyer said in a statement last month. “Neither did the Ministry have prior knowledge that Chris Coleman allegedly was the source of threats against his family.”I don't see that that statement helps them much, as, if they had followed their own guidelines, they would have known, and the suit alleges that they, in fact, failed to follow those guidelines.
I'm sure that such guidelines are honoured more in the breach (as my dad would have said), but getting caught...that's a different story. In this case, the breach involved dire consequences.
The message boards are being haunted by organized supporters of Joyce Meyers Ministries, attacking the family of the deceased. Sheri's relatives are being referred to as "money-grubbers" and "opportunists." The commenters spout the same old arguments about their going after the "deepest pockets" they can find. They seem to forget that the family, in person and through their lawyer, has stated that any money received will be spent on a memorial to their murdered family members.
Methinks there may be an SOP manual with procedures outlined for what to do on the internet when the Mother Ship gets sued...
I agree, if Joyce is as morally upright and conservative about her employees' behavior as all that, she would have fired Chris long ago.
ReplyDeleteThat said, the affair wasn't that far along (less than a year, unless I'm way off) and sometimes those can be hidden.
The threats, no way--Joyce would want to know about anything coming close to her tender flanks, even if it was ostensibly aimed at another person. And the level of the threats was so murderous! Nope. Don't believe that they didn't know where the threats originated.
I could believe that someone in between Joyce and CC might have decided that they would, in typical can-do fashion, handle it themselves with prayer, and hope that the wonder-working power of recited litanies will take care of everything.
Except that when the threats were made, Chris reported ONLY to Joyce. If CC were in charge of 1) reporting the threat 2) handling it "appropriately," then he could have told Joyce just about anything, and told the police just about anything.
There were ways it could have been hidden, and we may never find out if ANYONE was apprised of the so-called threats. "I didn't want to worry Joyce" could be said by Dave or by Coleman.
I also think Justin Barlow figured he'd do an end run around standard police procedure and handle the matter privately, man to man, police officer to security guard. After all, they do that on TV all the time, like on CSI and L&I, and it all works out fine at the end of the hour. It's the manly thing to do, settle it between two Manly Men. No need to get that fussy police-procedure thing started. That's so, like, civil liberties.