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Kapler expresses regret about handling of 2015 minor-league assault

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Newly hired San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler said Wednesday that he doesn't think he did enough to help a 17-year-old girl who contacted him about an assault witnessed by Los Angeles Dodgers minor-leaguers in 2015. She later accused one of the players of sexual assault.

Kapler, who was the farm director of the Dodgers at the time, elected not to contact the police - a decision he now regrets. He issued an apology during his introductory press conference as Giants skipper.

"I think this is the right time to say that I’m sorry that I didn’t make all the right moves," Kapler said, according to Janie McCauley of The Associated Press. "Everything that I did I acted on from a place of goodness and from my heart and wanting to do the right thing, but I was naive. I was in over my skis and trying to do things on my own when it was very clear that I needed counsel."

Earlier in 2019, Kapler maintained that he was unaware about the sexual assault, but now says he should have done more to uncover the truth.

"I don’t think that I did enough, and we’ve talked about some of the ways that I could have been better in those situations," Kapler said. "I have a lot of remorse for that. I wish I would have been more informed. I wish I would have gotten more informed and I take responsibility for not taking those steps."

Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi was also a member of the Dodgers organization at the time, and he also took responsibility for the club's failings.

"We need to do better in this area. We’re talking incident management and not really talking about why these incidents happen in the first place," Zaidi said. "As I think back to not just the past year but my 15 years in baseball, I realize I haven’t done enough. I haven’t done enough on the side of preventing those things from happening at all rather than what the right thing is and what the right protocol is for how to handle them. And that’s something that I pledge, and we as an organization pledge, to be much more proactive and aggressive about going forward."

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