Witch Hunt (2008)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

To give everyone a little background of what was happening before Jagels was elected, there were many named city and government officials, as well as business owners and campaign managers, who were involved in a loosely knit society of abusing 10-14 year old boys. These children were being used as sex slaves, and many other completely horrendous acts that these men forced upon these kids. The most famous (or infamous) of these children was Robert Mistriel, who was accused of killing a high official, Edwin Buck. Apparently Mistriel was a hustler (male prostitute) when he was referred to Buck from another molester, who at the time was a co-owner of the newspaper. Mistriel was needless to say treated as a sex slave, among other things, and eventually could not take the abuse any longer and apparently conspired to kill Buck with an acquaintance. Mistriel was put on trial in 1983 and was sentenced to 31 years to life in prison, and has adamantly stated he was not the one who killed buck. Here's the kicker... all those officials who molested these children were well- known by law enforcement for doing these acts; they were never reprimanded for their actions, and never denied they had taken part in these actions.Here's my take on WHY they concocted the entire child molestation ring; to deflect the fact that Bakersfield had molesters in the highest positions of city government.

Who originally accused the parents? We have the right to face our accusers. Surely we aren't considering the children to be the accusers; they weren't brought in for questioning out of nowhere. Even if the accusers were (wrongly) granted anonymity, all bets should be off after their accusations have been proved maliciously false. Send -those- people to prison for 300 years. ( My God, don't tell me these charges were brought on the basis of anonymous phone calls!)/// OK, the existence of the children's medical records was denied, but why didn't the - defense- DEMAND medical examinations?/// How much ignorance, incompetence, collusion, deception, careerism, and presumption of guilt can we tolerate while these political hacks continue to claim that there was no evil intent. How evil does evil have to be before we call it by its name?

You will have read other comments, obviously this was a travesty on every front for each family and everyone affected.I was disappointed that it did not go in to any detail as to WHY the police just knocked on their doors with warrants and took their children away.Who made the decision to just arrest these people and on what grounds - I think that's a question anyone would ask after watching it. People somewhere should have been bought to justice, surely!? You would certainly hope so.Regardless this takes nothing away from a very interesting and shocking insight in to so called justice - replicated all around the world of course. I would highly recommend watching Witch Hunt. I can only hope these poor people were given millions in compensation and can find some forgiveness.Bless your souls!

America can only remain a free nation if the judicial process is fair, untainted, and subject to review. During the early 1980's, it seems that the residents of Bakersfield, CA sacrificed their judicial rights for the illusion of Law And Order. WITCH HUNT is a riveting documentary about a group of citizens who became the target of a joint task force of Law Enforcement and Social Services that illegally and immorally usurped their power. The State's position was that this police and social service unit provided an opportunity for sexually abused children to be heard, and allow the law to apprehend and punish their abusers. However, as the the film clearly demonstrates, Child And Family Services, with the aid of an overzealous police force, were able to orchestrate children's testimony, and allowed the local government to create a non-existing threat to the community. Bakersfield became a city under siege by pedophiles-perverted by "Sexual Weapons Of Mass Destruction". WITCH HUNT shows that these 'dedicated and thoughtful public servants' invented a phony threat to the community, and then rode it for all it was worth. This 'Response To Evil' allowed them to parade before the media and appear to be 'Tough On Crime', when really they did nothing but railroad innocent citizens by using Child And Family Services to badger and bully innocent children until they gave them the 'sexual horror' that they craved. In no way should this film be viewed as a fair and balanced treatment of child molesters, but what this documentary shows us is that Law Enforcement and Social Service Agencies are able to foster a climate of hysteria which might allow citizens to give up an unbiased legal system for the illusion of Safety. In the commentary to the film, we find that when Child and Family Service personnel were told by the children that 'nothing happened', the impressionable children were badgered and bullied and told that they were 'in denial'. What is truly alarming is that, given these conditions, this gross travesty of justice could happen to any of us.