Safety of children not always a priority for state in domestic violence cases - Kentucky

By Valarie Honeycutt Spears

There were warning signs that Michael Utley was a danger to his toddler son.

Utley had been charged with assaulting the mother of his child 18 months before the Gallatin County man attacked his live-in girlfriend and then shot and killed their 3-year-old son and himself in February 2009.

When the mother attempted to drive her "trashed" partner home from a local bar in September 2007, Utley slapped her hard enough to give her a black eye as 17-month-old Owen James Utley sat in the back seat.

A state adult-protection worker substantiated "partner abuse." But social workers never considered Owen's safety, according to an internal review of the boy's death conducted by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, which handles child and adult protection in Kentucky.

Social workers should have formally assessed the "risk of harm" to Owen after the domestic violence episode, according to the internal review that focused on the handling of the case before the deaths.

That oversight was one of several problems related to domestic violence documented in internal reviews completed after children with whom the cabinet had previous contact died or were seriously harmed in 2009 and 2010.

A Lexington Herald-Leader analysis of the 85 reviews found that domestic violence in the family was mentioned in 48 of them and that an episode of domestic violence played a direct role in the injury or death of a child in five instances, including the death of Owen, who was killed shortly after his father had beaten his mother.
Among the shortcomings identified in the reviews:

■ Social workers don't always emphasize the safety of the child when domestic violence is discovered in a family.

■ Social workers sometimes fail to thoroughly assess whether domestic violence has occurred.

■ People living in some rural areas don't have convenient access to domestic violence shelters.

According to a 2011 report on deaths and near-deaths from child abuse and neglect in Kentucky, domestic violence was identified as a risk factor in 68 percent of cases from 2007 to 2011.

Another report released in January 2011 said studies have shown that there is an overlap of 30 percent to 60 percent between violence against children and violence against women in the same families.

In Kentucky, police must send the state a report of all incidents of domestic violence, and adult-protection workers are supposed to investigate those cases, although people are not required to accept the workers' help. Additionally, state regulations say that the cabinet must conduct an assessment to see whether a child is at risk of harm from domestic violence.

According to Jim Grace, assistant director of the cabinet's Division of Protection and Permanency, simultaneous child protection and domestic violence investigations are launched under a variety of circumstances, including if the child has been harmed, is prevented from leaving the premises by an abuser or is considered at risk of being harmed.

But cabinet officials conducting the fatality reviews said workers sometimes missed opportunities to protect children whose families experienced domestic violence.

For example, the cabinet's review of one 3-year-old's death raised questions about why the state found in a case involving the child's family that "there are no child-protection issues" even though a female relative told authorities, "I'm scared for my life and my child's life." The woman said she was being physically abused on a regular basis.

The review of Jeffrey B. Fields' death also questions whether a child-protection investigation should have been initiated after a report said, "Child has seen mother's paramour beat mommy up."

In the end, Jeffrey died in a traffic accident in 2010 when he was thrown from a car driven by a woman who was not his parent and who allegedly could not pass a drug test after the crash, according to the review of his death. There were previous reports of domestic violence in the child's family and the driver's family.

In an April 2009 case in Larue County, a child was taken to Hardin Memorial Hospital with 16 fractures and "multiple brain bleeds" and nearly died. A man in the child's home — his relationship to the mother was not made clear in documents — was criminally charged, and the cabinet found that the mother was neglectful for not protecting her child.

The review in that case noted that another child in the family was injured in 2007 during a domestic violence case involving the mother's previous boyfriend. That boyfriend assaulted the mother when she had an infant in her arms, cutting and bruising her and leaving a bruise and swelling on the baby's head.

The cabinet's review said staff should "continue to emphasize child safety and assessment" when conducting concurrent child-protection and adult-protection cases.
Grace said the cabinet is conducting training "on the dynamics of domestic violence and how it relates to a child's protection."

Once cabinet officials identify a systemic problem as a result of a fatality review, "there's the expectation that we would correct it," he said.

Shelters not always close

The death of Owen Utley also highlighted a lack of domestic violence shelters in rural portions of Kentucky.

After the initial 2007 report of domestic violence against Owen's mother, a social worker spoke with her about financial resources and alternative living arrangements that were available to her. But going to a shelter in her own community was not an option.

Ultimately, the cabinet's review said Michael Utley beat Owen's mother in February 2009 until she had two black eyes and cuts to her ear, and was missing chunks hair. When she ran to a neighbor's home for help, he killed the child and himself.
The "lack of shelter options in rural counties could be a deterrent to victims utilizing ... services," the review said.

Sherry Currens, executive director of the Kentucky Domestic Violence Association, said there are 15 regional shelters with a total of 466 beds, which are nearly always full. All 120 counties are served by a shelter, but some residents have to travel farther than others, Currens said.

It's unlikely that shelters could expand their services without additional funding, she said, and domestic violence shelters in Kentucky got less state funding per resident in 2011 than in 1996.

Coordination lacking

Beyond the problems noted in the fatality reviews, there are other gaps, domestic violence victim advocates said.

Currens said she knows of instances when adult-protection workers have dropped a case after child-protection workers got involved. But both kinds of workers are needed to help the non-offending parent figure out "how to deal with the threat to the children," she said.

Coordination between advocates and cabinet workers has at times been lacking, advocates said.

Darlene Thomas, executive director of the Lexington-based Bluegrass Domestic Violence Program, said advocates are sometimes not told by cabinet workers about domestic violence incidents. In other cases, advocates who contract with the cabinet to provide victim services don't have enough staff to attend team meetings about the family.

Lisa Holmes, the director of a domestic violence shelter in Elizabethtown, was concerned recently that she couldn't immediately get an answer at an intake line for the local child-protection office.

Holmes said she was "scared to death" for the safety of a child whose mother decided to leave the shelter.

Police had brought the mother to the SpringHaven shelter after "her boyfriend told her that the best way to handle his anger was to beat her 3-year-old child. So he picked her up and threw her, and she has a bruise on her face," Holmes said, referring to the child.

Holmes was trying to confirm that the boyfriend was in jail and that the mother and child would be safe if they returned home.

Holmes said she thought it would help "if we were quicker and better at adjudicating domestic violence cases and women had the support of CPS (child protection workers) instead of being afraid of them."

Removing children

Advocates and child-protection workers are sometimes at odds about the best way to keep safe a child who has been exposed to domestic violence.

Members of Currens' group are concerned that the cabinet sometimes unfairly recommends that judges remove children from a domestic violence victim's custody under the theory that the victim is failing to protect the child.

As a matter of policy, the cabinet does not recommend removal of any child from a parent's home unless there is risk to the child's physical safety or well-being, cabinet spokeswoman Anya Weber said. Recommendations are presented to the court, where the ultimate decision is made related to removal of the child, Weber said.

Thomas, the Lexington-based domestic violence advocate, said children should be protected from a parent who is a batterer. But she and other advocates said every attempt should be made to allow the child to remain with the non-offending parent.

The 2009 near-death of a 2-month-old girl demonstrates the difficult decisions that child-protection workers must sometimes make in cases of domestic violence.

A state review of the case noted that the cabinet substantiated neglect by the child's mother due to a "history of engaging in abusive relationships," not following through once she was granted domestic violence protection orders, and not being cooperative in previous law enforcement interventions involving domestic violence with the child's alleged abuser.

According to the review, the unidentified child was taken to the University of Kentucky Hospital in 2009 with a traumatic brain injury after her mother's paramour admitted to shaking her and handling her roughly.

Solutions

There are at least two legislative proposals this year to create task forces that would study the effect of domestic violence on Kentucky's children and come up with proposed laws for the 2013 General Assembly.

The sponsor of one proposal, Democratic state Rep. Joni Jenkins of Shively, said she worked in a domestic violence shelter for 10 years. She said expanding the services of domestic violence shelters would be beneficial.

"No kid gets beat in shelters. No kid gets neglected in shelters," she said.
Meanwhile, Sen. Mike Wilson, R-Bowling Green, and Rep. Johnny Bell, D-Glasgow, have introduced bills that would require the cabinet to assess the needs of children and custodial parents who have been exposed to domestic violence and to provide prevention services to help the child live at home. So far, neither bill has been considered by a legislative committee.

Other states have found success in having police, child-protection workers and domestic violence advocates working together on a team.

In Fresno, Calif., police Sgt. Daniel Macias is a member of the Children Exposed to Domestic Violence Team, which operates with a $200,000-a-year federal grant. The team's social workers and advocates, along with police detectives, investigate and provide services after domestic violence cases in which children are present, Macias said.

The team follows up with adult victims, Macias said, and "with the children, which are really the key to trying to stop the cycle of violence."

In Kentucky, Thomas said she would like to see collaborative efforts between the cabinet, which investigates allegations of abuse, and agencies that provide services for spouse-abuse victims to make sure families "have all available supports."

Having domestic violence advocates attend cabinet team meetings about individual families would help, she said.

But, Thomas said, "it all comes down to resources."

Source http://www.kentucky.com/2012/02/26/2084442/safety-of-children-not-always.html

Critics: ‘Tough’ sheriff botched sex-crime cases - Arizona

Jacques Billeaud, Associated Press

The 13-year-old girl opened the door of her home in this small city on the edge of Phoenix to encounter a man who said that his car had broken down and he needed to use the phone. Once inside, the man pummeled the teen from behind, knocking her unconscious and sexually assaulting her.

Seven months before, in an apartment two miles away, another 13-year-old girl was fondled in the middle of the night by her mother’s live-in boyfriend. She woke up in her room at least twice a week to find him standing over her, claiming to be looking for her mother’s cell phone.

Both cases were among more than 400 sex-crimes reported to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office during a three-year period ending in 2007 — including dozens of alleged child molestations — that were inadequately investigated and in some instances were not worked at all, according to current and former police officers familiar with the cases.

In El Mirage alone, where Arpaio’s office was providing contract police services, officials discovered at least 32 reported child molestations — with victims as young as 2 years old — where the sheriff’s office failed to follow through, even though suspects were known in all but six cases.

Many of the victims, said a retired El Mirage police official who reviewed the files, were children of illegal immigrants.

The botched sex-crimes investigations have served as an embarrassment to a department whose sheriff is the self-described “America’s Toughest Sheriff’’ and a national hero to conservatives on the immigration issue.

Arpaio’s office refused several requests over a period of months to answer questions about the investigations and declined a public records request for an internal affairs report, citing potential disciplinary actions.

Brian Sands, a top sheriff’s official who is in charge of the potential discipline of any responsible employees, was later made available to talk about the cases. He declined to say why they weren’t investigated. “There are policy violations that have occurred here,’’ Sands said. “It’s obvious, but I can’t comment on who or what.’’

Sands said officers had subsequently moved to clear up inadequately investigated sex-crimes in El Mirage and elsewhere in the county. He said leads were worked if they existed and cases were closed if there was no further evidence to pursue.

Arpaio’s office was under contract to provide police services in El Mirage as the city struggled with its then dysfunctional department. After the contract ended and El Mirage was re-establishing its own police operation, the city spent a year sifting through layers of disturbingly incomplete casework.

El Mirage Detective Jerry Laird, who reviewed some the investigations, learned from a sheriff’s summary of 50 to 75 cases files he picked up from Arpaio’s office that an overwhelming majority of them hadn’t been worked.

That meant there were no follow-up reports, no collection of additional forensic evidence and zero effort made after the initial report of the crime was taken.

“I think that at some point prior to the contract (for police services) running out, they put their feet on the desk, and that was that,’’ Laird said.

Arpaio acknowledged his office had completed an internal probe into the inadequate investigations, but said, “I don’t think it’s right to get into it until we get to the bottom of this and see if there’s disciplinary action against any employees.’’

A small number of cases from El Mirage were handed over to prosecutors, but the El Mirage Police Department said most were no longer viable — evidence dating as far back as 2006 had grown cold or wasn’t collected in the first place, victims had either moved away or otherwise moved on.

Bill Louis, then-assistant El Mirage police chief who reviewed the files after the sheriff’s contract ended, believes the decision to ignore the cases was made deliberately by supervisors in Arpaio’s office — and not by individual investigators.

“I know the investigators. I just cannot believe they would wholesale discount these cases. No way,’’ Louis said. “The direction had to come (from) up the food chain.’’

Louis said he believes whoever made the decision knew that illegal immigrants — who are often transient and fear the police — were unlikely to complain about the quality of investigations. He said some cases also involved families here legally.

El Mirage paid the sheriff’s office $2.7 million for a wide range of police protection from 2005 through mid-October 2007, after the city’s police department had been criticized in an audit as poorly organized, loosely supervised and mismanaged.

Although a small number of El Mirage officers continued working there during the period, Arpaio brought in patrol officers and detectives and managers who ran the department.

El Mirage police files obtained by The Associated Press through public records requests establish a pattern of sex-crimes not actually being investigated after the crimes were reported to Arpaio’s office.

In April 2007, a 3-year-old girl was reported molested by her father, an illegal immigrant who cared for the child while her mother was at work. When the mother confronted her husband about the abuse, he cried and swore he’d never do it again.

Yet a few days later, the mother noticed more signs of sexual abuse on her daughter and called for help. After the initial report, that help didn’t come.

The string of unresolved cases left Elizabeth Ditlevson, deputy director for the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence, shaking her head. “My impressions were anger at the system and concern for the people whose cases weren’t addressed,’’ she said.

According to both Sands and Scott Freeman, a sheriff’s official who heard complaints from then-El Mirage Police Chief Mike Frazier about the quality of the sex-crimes investigations, more than 400 cases countywide had to be reopened. Freeman told outside investigators examining alleged managerial misconduct at Arpaio’s office that a number of arrests were made in the reopened cases.

The April 2011 report on alleged managerial misconduct said the sheriff’s internal effort to determine what had gone wrong with the sex-crimes investigations was twice derailed.

One delay occurred when the male sheriff’s official leading the inquiry was accused of sexual harassment — this by a female supervisor whose portfolio included some of the mishandled cases, according to the report.

Another internal affairs investigation, launched in May 2008, was stopped after the investigator was pulled away at the direction of David Hendershott, then the top aide to Arpaio, to help with another matter. The internal probe was reopened in December 2010 while Hendershott was on medical leave, according to the 2011 summary.

Hendershott’s account conflicted with others.

Hendershott, who has since resigned amid separate misconduct allegations and declined a request by the AP to comment, told investigators the internal affairs inquiry was still in progress when he went on medical leave in 2010.

Still, Hendershott told investigators that the El Mirage Police Department had good reason to be upset about the sex-crimes handled by the sheriff’s office.

The report of the 13-year-old who had been inappropriately touched by her mother’s live-in boyfriend had been faxed to one of Arpaio’s investigators. El Mirage police, who were given back the case about 11 months later, learned that it hadn’t been worked.

When El Mirage police finally tracked down the mother, she said her boyfriend had moved out and that she no longer had contact with him. She and her daughter were in counseling and didn’t want to bring the case to court.

In their follow-up on the case of the 13-year-old attacked by the man claiming to have a broken car, El Mirage police discovered Arpaio’s office hadn’t interviewed the victim.

An El Mirage detective went to the girl’s home just off the city’s main drag. The girl’s uncle said she and her mother weren’t around and took the investigator’s card with a promise to ask them to call.

The mother never called back. She and her daughter’s whereabouts are unknown.

The case of the molested 3-year-old was returned to El Mirage police unworked five months after the initial report. The family’s beige tract home was deserted, the phone disconnected.

Source http://articles.boston.com/2011-12-04/news/30475413_1_child-molestations-crimes-police-officers

Fla. court says 1 spank isn't domestic violence

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A single spank doesn't qualify as domestic violence, an appellate court ruled Friday.

A three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal unanimously reversed an injunction for protection against domestic violence.

It cited common law and a 2002 Florida Supreme Court ruling that says reasonable or non-excessive corporal punishment can be used as a defense against child abuse charges.

Circuit Judge Karen Gievers of Tallahassee had issued the injunction against a father identified in the ruling only as "G.C."

He had been accused by his former wife of spanking their 14-year-old daughter once on the buttocks with his hand.

The father said the teen had been disrespectful and defiant. The girl said she was only being sarcastic.

"We hold that under established Florida law this single spank constituted reasonable and non-excessive parental corporal discipline and, as a matter of law, was not domestic violence," the appeal judges wrote in an unsigned opinion.

That's even though the domestic violence law doesn't explicitly say so.

The judges, though, wrote "neither does it exclude the common law defense" that parents can administer reasonable and non-excessive corporal punishment.

Source http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/16/2410229/fla-court-says-1-spank-isnt-domestic.html

Another CPS Failure - CPS: Custody of 1-Year-Old Is "Temporary"

By Randy McIlwain | Tuesday, Aug 23, 2011 | Updated 8:23 PM CDT

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Child Protective Services has taken custody of a 1-year-old whose father is accused of killing the boy's siblings, but the agency said called the move a "temporary measure."

Naim Muhammad is charged with counts of capital murder in the drowning deaths of 3-year-old Elijah and 5-year-old Naim. Police said Muhammad killed his sons hours after abducting them while they and Kametra Sampson, his estranged girlfriend, were walking to school Monday morning.

Muhammad allegedly tried to break into his Sampson's home to kidnap 1-year-old Jeremiah after kidnapping the older children.

Sampson's brother, Brandon Turner, and his girlfriend Keosha Smith fought to keep Jeremiah away from him.

CPS said it had concerns about the safety of the children.

"We have been involved with the family before, and most recently starting in January, because of the domestic violence that was going on between the parents that was putting the children at risk," CPS spokeswoman Marissa Gonzalez said.

She said the children were not abused in the prior domestic disputes, but Jeremiah will remain in state custody until CPS can be certain Sampson's home is physically and emotionally safe for his return.

"There's so many questions about what led up to this very tragic incident, what's been going on with the family the last several days," Gonzalez said. "This is a temporary measure at this point and not something that's uncommon when this type of situation develops."

Gonzalez said CPS is working with Sampson to reunite her with her son. She said the agency would allow a family member to take custody of Jeremiah if he or she does not have a criminal record or prior history with CPS.

Source http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/CPS-Custody-of-1-Year-Old-Is-Temporary-128284723.html