Postmortem by Crystal: On the SEARCH Panel's actions regarding Autumn:

Part 1:

The SEARCH Panel Investigation into allegations against Autumn has come to a close and a decision has been made and implemented by a subcommittee assigned to the task.

I am not a member of either group, and they do not plan to make public statements here as far as I am aware, but they have made semi-public statements in a local community group chat explaining the decision so I feel speaking on the subject here will no longer risk interfering with the investigation.

Autumn has been banned from SEARCH events since April and that ban is now of indefinite length. All organizers of SEARCH events and residents of The Territory have been informed of the ban and there are processes in place to remove her and protect local sexual assault victims should she violate the ban. In the event she asks to return through the methods that have been left open for her to do so, certain individuals will be informed and a subcommittee will assess whether it would be safe to allow her back. The subcommittee that made this decision does not expect this to come up, as Autumn has further distanced herself from the community of her own volition, but have nonetheless left detailed instructions and procedures in place to deal with the situation properly if it does.

I have been informed that as of last contact Autumn was doing much better after having received some help from local community members and cutting ties with those interested in hounding her for the worst decisions she's made in her life. She was employed and working toward independence, had found medications that work for her, and was starting to address in therapy the things that led her to abusive behavior.

Part 2:

On those two counts, the ban and Autumn's improvement, things have turned out as good as I could really hope for. I am more than satisfied with the SEARCH Panel subcomittee's decision and do not consider further action necessary with regard to Autumn. I would especially like to discourage any harassment of Autumn over her past actions as counterproductive to her rehabilitation.

The only thing I remain dissatisfied with is the local community's failure to reach out and offer help and support to those directly and negatively affected by Autumn's relocation here. Namely, Ruby and Zylphia.

Whenever I asked for help or support while the panel was forming and after, I received it in spades. However, the uncoordinated and largely uncommunicative response to Zylphia's initial warnings and requests made her distrustful such that on the sole occasion of help being offered that I am aware of she refused it. (Though at the time I had already pledged to help support them financially to help them escape the situation, which I did indeed have to do on several occasions, and had already been providing what other support I could throughout those events, so she may have felt that was enough to get them through.) Ruby's involvement was largely ignored, and she became jaded enough with the local community that I ended up acting at her request as her representative to make sure her experiences were taken into account without her having to interact with the subcommittee directly.
Part 3:

As it is, both of them have suffered mental health lapses over the course of these events, and Ruby's physical health has deteriorated significantly due to overworking herself to make ends meet since they escaped. Our extended polycule has done what we collectively can to ameliorate those effects and get them the help and resources they need to recover.

At least some Panel members have expressed regret to me over that failure, and there is now greater organizational legibility through which to make such requests, and processes in place through which the community can organize to provide it. I am hopeful this will be less of an issue in the future.

All told, I am mostly satisfied with the overall outcome, and very grateful to all the many community members both local and remote who stepped up to help handle this at various points in time, in some cases even despite burnout and ptsd regarding the subject matter.

I myself am quite burned out, do not actually wish to discuss the matter further, and just want to move on at this point. I post this mostly to make sure all interested parties are informed, bring myself closure, and hopefully divest myself of any further social responsibility I may have accumulated regarding the subject.

The above statements have been run by Ruby, Zylphia, and the SEARCH Panel subcommittee that made the decision for accuracy and privacy issues prior to posting. I will stick around more-or-less consistently for the next 4 hours to answer questions and have one of the Panel subcommittee members available to me for that time period as well. After that I intend to put this all behind me.