Repeated efforts by the newspaper to schedule a second in-depth interview with Semple were unsuccessful. Her administrative assistant said Semple was either in meetings or involved in preparing or giving testimony for legislative committees. The people in the department are people, doing the best they can under sometimes difficult circumstances. People scream at you, spit at you, curse at you. It's a very highly charged, highly emotional field.
People get angry.
They get cranked up. Some child protective cases can be terrifying, if not sickening, Semple said. We're not talking about people who spank their kids. We're talking about broken bones, cigarette burns. About people who kill their kids' pets in front of them so they won't talk about sexual abuse.