Report: Anonymous Ind. hotline caller pleaded 20 minutes for abuse check before boy’s death

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — An anonymous caller to Indiana’s child abuse hotline pleaded for 20 minutes for someone to check on conditions in a South Bend home six months before a boy living there was tortured to death, a newspaper reports.

The South Bend Tribune posted the story online (http://bit.ly/wEQaqe ) Monday, after the Court of Appeals dismissed an attempt by the Department of Child Services to block the story’s publication. The caller last May told the person answering the phone at the hotline about another child’s injuries that day. The caller said the injuries left the boy limping and bleeding in his abdomen.

“Please go tonight. Please go,” the caller says. “I’m not saying this just to be saying this. Please go. Something got to be done. ... If they go there right now, they’ll see how them kids is beat, if they go there right now, because I don’t want it to get on the news and the boy died and then everybody come forward and they gonna say, ‘Well, why did nobody come forward from before?’”

Ten-year-old Tramelle Sturgis was found beaten to death in the house on Nov. 4, months after the May 27 hotline call.

His father, Terry Sturgis, is charged with murder, eight felony counts of battery and one misdemeanor count of battery, two counts of neglect, and two counts of confinement. He contends he was insane.

The Tribune reported a DCS spokeswoman did not respond to the newspaper’s requests to clarify policies on when the agency decides to investigate a call immediately and how urgent hotline calls are communicated to local offices. John Ryan, the agency’s chief of staff, declined comment to The Associated Press on Monday, saying he didn’t know enough about the policies or the case.

The Tribune reported that DCS documents it obtained under the state’s public records law indicate the call center contacted a family case manager the night of the call. The records do not indicate whether any action was taken then.

According to South Bend Police spokesman Capt. Phil Trent, police took a report from an anonymous caller just after midnight. Police records show two officers went to the house, having been told only that 10 children were possibly being abused. Trent said officers went to the home and everything appeared fine. He said unless police have more details to provide probable cause, they cannot enter a house after midnight, pull children aside and ask to look under their shirts for injuries. If an officer saw an injury or blood on a shirt, he would have probable cause.

“If you suspect that (abuse), you can seize the child, but you’d better be able to articulate why you did that,” he said.

The caller to the DCS hotline told the DCS worker the children would likely have marks.

“All you got to do is just raise them shirts up,” the caller replies with concern. “And I think them kids would tell it because them kids so scared.”

The caller said that the week before, some of the children were beaten so badly that their visible injuries kept them from being sent to school.

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller said he asked the state Court of Appeals to dismiss DCS’ attempt to block the South Bend Tribune from publishing a story because prior restraint of the news media is inconsistent with the First Amendment. Ryan, who is with the DCS, said the agency was concerned the media would publish information that would identify the caller.

Source http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/report-anonymous-ind-hotline-caller-pleaded-20-minutes-for-abuse-check-before-boys-death/2012/03/12/gIQAtf847R_story.html

Ohio AG calls for foster care review

Mike DeWine wants to know why kids are not being adopted or reunited with their families.

(Cincinnati) — Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine today called for a complete review of the foster care system in Ohio. DeWine's call for action was made at a Child Safety Summit he hosted in Cincinnati.

"I convened this child safety summit today, the first of many I intend to hold across Ohio, because we need to conduct a comprehensive, holistic review of the entire foster care system in this state," said Attorney General DeWine. "Too many of these children are languishing in foster care with no real hope of ever having a permanent loving home."

About 40 representatives from foster care agencies, law enforcement, advocacy groups, prosecutors' offices, and adoption agencies attended the summit, including Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, Rita Soronen of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, and Moira Weir, director of the Hamilton County Department of Job and Family Services.

The Summit discussed several issues facing the foster care system, including recent deaths of foster children after being reunified with relatives.

According to data from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, 33 children died (not necessarily from abuse or neglect) after being in foster care and being reunified with their biological parents from 2005-2010.

Hamilton County has had three deaths of foster children reunified with their biological parents in 2010. In the U.S. Senate, DeWine authored language in the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act clarifying laws that in issues of family reunification, the best interests of the child always have to come first.

However, DeWine noted today that his call for review is not limited to family reunification.

"There are children in the Ohio child welfare system who are dying, but there are also children dying who have been abused and neglected who have never been in foster care," said Attorney General DeWine. "There are also children in foster care who spend their entire lives in the system, never being adopted into a safe and loving home."

Many of Ohio's foster care children end up "aging out of foster care," DeWine noted. The percentage of children aging out in Ohio is greater than the national average of 11 percent in 2010. In 2009, Ohio emancipated 1,453 foster children, which represented 15 percent of the foster care population.

DeWine also noted the alarming amount of psychiatric medications apparently being prescribed to foster children. A recently released federal Government Accountability Office report said foster children can be prescribed these drugs at doses higher than the maximum levels approved by the FDA, and many foster children received five or more psychiatric drugs at the same time.

Source http://www.wtam.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=122520&article=9493889

IFCAA Fighting State Court-Based Racketeering Announces Advances in Illinois, Georgia, PA and Utah

On June 19, 2006, the Chicago-based grassroots, non-profit organization, Illinois Family Court Accountability Advocates (IFCAA) issued its first press release on BusinessWire announcing that, despite the obstacle of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan representing the judges engaged in alleged racketeering enterprises, they had taken on apparent judicial corruption in the Cook County Circuit Court family court, called "the model for the nation" by Chief Judge Timothy Evans. Today IFCAA announces several major advances by grassroots efforts and the federal government nationally:

An April 2, 2008 Illinois appellate court opinion which, based on her one hour of testimony under oath, stated, "Dr. Sheila Mannix of the IFCAA assisted Lynch in bringing charges and filing complaints against the corrupt judges. Although Mannix did not provide Lynch with any information regarding Judge White, she produced direct evidence regarding several other judges' involvement in the bribery scheme." [382 Ill. App. 3d 960]

An April 10, 2010 certified report produced by the Illinois Family Law Study Committee [formed under the authority of House Resolution (HR1101) on May 19, 2008] was obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request which report stated: "(T)he effect of the present system, in practice, has created cottage industries of GALs/child representatives, custody evaluators and others..."

Mannix attached the report to a grand jury motion in her case against the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (U.S.D.C. Case No. 10 C 3849). On September 14, 2010, Chief Judge William Holderman of the federal court in Chicago deferred alleged "direct evidence of federal funding fraud underlying the 'cottage industries' operating in the State of Illinois' family court system" to District U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, stating in a written order, "The United States Attorney may exercise the full prosecutorial authority of the Executive Branch of the United States Government in bringing the matter to the attention of the grand jury."

An October 28, 2010, Chicago Defender article, "Grand jury demands documents on Ill. Grants," reported that the prior month, August 2010, Holderman had already convened a grand jury and Fitzgerald had issued upwards of 50 subpoenas to Illinois agencies in receipt of public funds in an "official criminal investigation."

A July 30, 2011 press release on Illinois' Republican U.S Senator Mark Kirk's official website states, "WASHINGTON - Just weeks after the conviction of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich on corruption charges, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill which included Senator Mark Kirk's (R-Ill.) "honest services" priority with bipartisan support. The Public Corruption Prosecution Improvements Act, of which Sen. Kirk is a cosponsor, increases penalties for various public corruption crimes and provides additional tools for prosecutors to further crack down on public corruption."

An encouraging August 21, 2011, AP release out of Georgia, "FBI squad to investigate corruption among judges, legislators" reported, "The FBI has assembled a new squad to investigate corruption among judges and legislators in Georgia, though the top federal agent in the state is being tightlipped about what cases are developing." "Brian Lamkin, who heads the FBI office in Georgia," stated ""We don't take this lightly," he said."These are truly the types of investigations that are being done in the back room. And the circle of friends is very small. In order to penetrate that inner circle, you've got to have a strong and tenacious group to develop the intelligence.""

And the August, 11, 2011, 28-year sentence against Pennsylvania Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. in the successful "Kids-for-Cash" investigation by three federal agencies (FBI, IRS, and District U.S. Attorney's Office) could signal a harbinger of more good things to come in line with the words of Chicago's top prosecutor, Fitzgerald, after his second successful conviction of an Illinois governor within five years for "white collar crimes;" that he hopes "the message is heard this time" that the federal government will not tolerate public corruption.

Similarly, Utah citizens, who have alerted their state and federal authorities for over eight years to evidence of alleged criminal acts and due process violations in cases involving alleged "judicial kidnapping and child trafficking" as exemplified in the August 19, 2011 NBC Dateline report of the "adoption" of "Baby Emma" from her father involving the Utah and Virginia courts, are encouraged by the nomination of David Barlow for their District U.S. Attorney in hopes that he is appointed and, along with their new FBI Special Agent in Charge David Johnson, will follow the lead of Chicago's Fitzgerald and FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Grant.

David Barlow, is the general counsel to U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) who, in June 2011, received a binder of direct evidence of alleged federal crimes hand delivered to his district office by Utah child advocate, Connie Fielding. Ms. Fielding also hand delivered the binder of evidence to the district office of Senate Judiciary Committee senior member, Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), on November 30, 2010 upon the direct request of his aide (a former agent of the Secret Service according to Hatch) with whom Mannix met in D.C. on November 16, 2010.

Dr. Mannix comments, "After working these past six years to help stop the apparent State-court based crimes which literally exploit the nation's children as "commodities" in judicial system "profit centers," I've found that an essential factor is differentiating between, on the one hand, the behaviors of traumatized parents being forced to watch their children irreparably harmed while being retaliated against, defamed, and impoverished and, on the other hand, the irrefutable sociopathic behaviors observed in public officials who have fiduciary obligations to stop that which they are participating in and enabling. I believe Mr. Fitzgerald summed it up best on June 27, 2011 after the solid conviction of ex-governor Blagojevich on 17 counts of federal crimes; he said, "There is legitimate politics. There are gray areas. Selling a Senate seat, shaking down a children's hospital and squeezing a person to give money before you sign a bill that benefits them is not a gray area. It's a crime." Likewise, the evidence indicates that what is going on in the venue provided by the nation's State courts in which private assets and federal funds can be unlawfully accessed are not "legitimate judicial proceedings" but crime, specifically, apparent violations of Federal funding laws and other Federal civil and criminal laws including alleged racketeering activity among public officials and State court actors."

In addition to helping provide evidence to state and federal authorities in pursuit of indictments of allegedly corrupt public officials including Mormon judges, Mannix has networked with Virginia citizens as well as Utah citizens, the latter of which have specifically called upon their Mormon GOP state legislators to launch an independent forensic audit of all Federal taxpayers' dollars coming into the State's family court-related programs.

Dr. Mannix concludes, "No one will be able to balance any government budget until the public corruption involving hundreds of billions of the nation's taxpayers' hard-earned income, which, in part, is literally being using to perpetrate that which the U.S. Congress voted it is to prevent, specifically, child and elder abuse, domestic violence, parental deprivation, and child support avoidance, is stopped once and for all by more criminal investigations, forensic audits, and tough new laws which result in the loss of pensions in entirety and deterrent-based, long-term prison sentences for involved officials acting in positions of public trust. Onward for the children."=

About IFCAA:

Illinois Family Court Accountability Advocates (IFCAA) is a volunteer, non-profit organization which was co-founded in June 2005 by licensed mental health practitioners, educators, and victims of the alleged fraudulently-concealed racketeering activity in the Cook County family court involving domestic violence cases. IFCAA is operating under said assumed name for the non-profit organization, In All Our Best Interest, which Dr. Sheila Mannix founded in 1995 when she was engaged in her pre-family court racket professional activities and whose mission is to stop child abuse and other social dysfunction through education, activism, and advocacy.

Media Contact:
Dr. Sheila Mannix, Co-Founder
Illinois Family Court Accountability Advocates (IFCAA)
sheilamannix@yahoo.com
(847) 971-6679

Source: Illinois Family Court Accountability Advocates (IFCAA)

Oregon DHS And Attorney General Delay Releasing Info On Oleander Labier Death

Here is another interesting story about CPS failure to protect a child. Where are they when there is real child abuse going on? How is it that they can take children away from parents who are not abusing their kids but CPS has gotten an anonymous phone call, false allegations and etc? CPS failed 5 year old Oleander Labier who died after years of abuse and torture. Now CPS and the attorney general are playing games regarding the release of records in the case. Sounds like a case of CYA which goes on at all CPS offices across the nation. People want the truth in this case but all they will get is a diluted mix of info and the real truth will likely never be released.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/steve_duin/index.ssf/2011/08/day_478_oleander_labier_case_h.html