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
CPS corruption hurts and destroys families worldwide. Please use caution posting about CPS here or anyplace on the internet. For your protection, using your full, real name and precise location is not advised. CPS has eyes everywhere and CPS is notorious for taking what people say, twisting it, embellishing on it and then using it against them in CPS "investigations" and at court proceedings.
Showing posts with label beating death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beating death. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Friday, March 2, 2012
Calista Springer's estate can't sue state workers for her death, court rules
Blogger note:
We hope that these families moves their suits to federal court (section 42 USC 1983) where state workers are less likely to be granted immunity for their lack of action (crimes). Once again, a child who was truly in danger but CPS turns a blind eye. Likely because they were too busy chasing innocent parents and kidnapping their children.
By Emily Monacelli
CENTREVILLE -- The family of Calista Springer cannot sue the state for her death, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled Thursday.
Springer's grandmother, Suzanne Langdon, acting as a representative of Calista's estate, sued the Michigan Department of Human Services and St. Joseph County Child Protective Services in October 2010, asserting that state workers failed to protect Calista from her parents, which resulted in her death.
Calista was 16 when she was found chained to her bed in an upstairs room in her family's Centreville home following a February 2008 house fire.
The appeals court combined Springer's case with that of Nicholas Daniel Braman, whose estate also sued child protective services workers after Braman's father killed Nicholas, himself and his wife in October 2007 in Montcalm County. In both cases, the court ruled that the children's estates could not sue state workers for allegedly improperly acting upon allegations of abuse.
Read the 11-page opinion issued Thursday here.
"Although plaintiffs recited several failures by the employee defendants to comply with their official CPS investigation policies and guidelines, these failures merely prove the state's failure to act, not that it was acting pursuant to a mandatory policy of inaction," the appeals court ruling says.
"Plaintiffs do not point to any official policy or custom that mandated CPS investigators to improperly investigate the abuse allegations against the decedents' parents or to fail to protect the decedents," the opinion reads.
State workers found "insufficient evidence" to substantiate allegations made against Springer's and Braman's parents, and had no basis to remove the children from their homes, according to the court.
"While the facts of these cases are indeed tragic, this is not an appropriate case in which to impose a damage remedy on the state for a state constitutional due process violation, as no violation can be established," the opinion says.
Calista's grandmother filed three separate lawsuits in October 2010, one in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, one in the state Court of Claims in Lansing, and a third in St. Joseph County Circuit Court. Each demand jury trials and seek awards “in excess of $75,000.”
The court filings provided information from Michigan State Police records about abuse and neglect complaints that Langdon said were filed by family members, teachers, a mental-health worker, friends and acquaintances.
The suits claimed St. Joseph County protective services caseworker Patricia Skelding and supervisor Cynthia Bare failed to adequately respond to documented abuse from Calista's parents, Anthony and Marsha Springer. Langdon's federal suit also named as defendants former state DHS director Marianna Udow; her chief deputy, Laura Champagne; and former state manager of DHS Child Protective Services programs Ted Forrest.
A jury in February 2010 found Anthony and Marsha Springer guilty of torture and child abuse in Calista's death. They were each sentenced to prison terms.
Allegations of abuse and neglect against the Springers began in April 1995 and included accusations of lead poisoning, untreated burns, physical and emotional abuse, restraint by ropes, and being locked in her bedroom.
Source http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2012/03/calista_springers_family_cant.html
We hope that these families moves their suits to federal court (section 42 USC 1983) where state workers are less likely to be granted immunity for their lack of action (crimes). Once again, a child who was truly in danger but CPS turns a blind eye. Likely because they were too busy chasing innocent parents and kidnapping their children.
By Emily Monacelli
CENTREVILLE -- The family of Calista Springer cannot sue the state for her death, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled Thursday.
Springer's grandmother, Suzanne Langdon, acting as a representative of Calista's estate, sued the Michigan Department of Human Services and St. Joseph County Child Protective Services in October 2010, asserting that state workers failed to protect Calista from her parents, which resulted in her death.
Calista was 16 when she was found chained to her bed in an upstairs room in her family's Centreville home following a February 2008 house fire.
The appeals court combined Springer's case with that of Nicholas Daniel Braman, whose estate also sued child protective services workers after Braman's father killed Nicholas, himself and his wife in October 2007 in Montcalm County. In both cases, the court ruled that the children's estates could not sue state workers for allegedly improperly acting upon allegations of abuse.
Read the 11-page opinion issued Thursday here.
"Although plaintiffs recited several failures by the employee defendants to comply with their official CPS investigation policies and guidelines, these failures merely prove the state's failure to act, not that it was acting pursuant to a mandatory policy of inaction," the appeals court ruling says.
"Plaintiffs do not point to any official policy or custom that mandated CPS investigators to improperly investigate the abuse allegations against the decedents' parents or to fail to protect the decedents," the opinion reads.
State workers found "insufficient evidence" to substantiate allegations made against Springer's and Braman's parents, and had no basis to remove the children from their homes, according to the court.
"While the facts of these cases are indeed tragic, this is not an appropriate case in which to impose a damage remedy on the state for a state constitutional due process violation, as no violation can be established," the opinion says.
Calista's grandmother filed three separate lawsuits in October 2010, one in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, one in the state Court of Claims in Lansing, and a third in St. Joseph County Circuit Court. Each demand jury trials and seek awards “in excess of $75,000.”
The court filings provided information from Michigan State Police records about abuse and neglect complaints that Langdon said were filed by family members, teachers, a mental-health worker, friends and acquaintances.
The suits claimed St. Joseph County protective services caseworker Patricia Skelding and supervisor Cynthia Bare failed to adequately respond to documented abuse from Calista's parents, Anthony and Marsha Springer. Langdon's federal suit also named as defendants former state DHS director Marianna Udow; her chief deputy, Laura Champagne; and former state manager of DHS Child Protective Services programs Ted Forrest.
A jury in February 2010 found Anthony and Marsha Springer guilty of torture and child abuse in Calista's death. They were each sentenced to prison terms.
Allegations of abuse and neglect against the Springers began in April 1995 and included accusations of lead poisoning, untreated burns, physical and emotional abuse, restraint by ropes, and being locked in her bedroom.
Source http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2012/03/calista_springers_family_cant.html
Friday, February 10, 2012
Child welfare officials saw no red flags from Josh Powell
Blogger Note:
The title of this article is the craziest title possible. It's been known to many of us caught up in the CPS Racket that CPS incapable of seeing REAL trouble when there is REAL reasons to suspect a parent my harm their children, now we have a public statement that they were blind to those very things.
CPS - Here's some hints:
When a suspect moves to another state shortly after his wife disappears, the wife is likely dead!
When a parent is suspected of murdering their wife, the suspects children are likely to be in danger!
When children are in CPS custody, it is your job to make sure that they are safe from harm at anyone's hands - including their father, the suspect in his wife's (the children's mother) disappearance and possible murder!
Questions for CPS:
Why were vistis allowed to take place at this suspected murderers home?
Don't you have supervised and monitored visitation facilities in Washington state?
If not - perhaps you should put some in place.
If you couldn't see the red flags in this case (which were waving high and wildly), how are you able to claim anyone may be abusing or neglecting their children or are a danger to their children in some way?
Whatever happened to your so-called risk assessment garbage?
Are you people blind?
#FAIL!
---
By Brooke Adams
Puyallup, Wash. • As Washington authorities revealed new details about how Josh Powell killed himself and his two young sons in his home, a child welfare spokesman on Monday said there were no red flags that would have barred the visit.
One caseworker from Foster Care Resource Network of Tacoma had supervised all of Powell’s visits with his sons Charlie, 7, and Braden, 5. Those visits initially took place at the network’s office and then, beginning in November, at Powell’s home.
"From the children’s administration point of view, Mr. Powell was not accused of any child abuse or neglect," said Thomas Shapley, senior director of public affairs for the Washington Department of Social and Health Services. "There was no indication of threats to the children or any suicide ideation. This caught everybody by surprise."
Chuck and Judy Cox — who received temporary custody of the boys last September — said Monday the system failed their grandsons and needs to be changed. In light of recent events, it would have been appropriate to suspend Powell’s court-ordered supervised visitation, Chuck Cox said.
Powell learned in a Feb. 1 custody hearing he would not get his boys, back until at least July. The judge also ordered him to submit to a psychosexual evaluation and polygraph test regarding sexually explicit images found on a computer in his West Valley City home in 2009.
"I thought visitation should have stopped until they got that sorted out," Chuck Cox told The Salt Lake Tribune. "We were very afraid something like this could happen, as were the social workers and police. There were too many warning signs that were known, but due to the legal limits [the signs] couldn’t be acted on."
Cox added: "It’s sad that visitation was at his house, which allowed him to set up this whole thing."
The boys were removed from Powell’s care after their paternal grandfather, Steve Powell, was arrested on voyeurism and child pornography charges. Prosecutors said they needed to determine what, if anything, Powell knew about his father’s activities. Powell and his sons had lived in Steve Powell’s Puyallup home since 2010.
Shapley said if his department had received any indication the children were in danger or that Powell was unstable, there are protocols the department could have gone through to postpone visits.
There was nothing, he said.
"We were always on course to have the children returned to him," Shapley said. And while a judge here ordered new tests for Powell, there was no interruption in visitation.
"We were proceeding as per court order," Shapley said.
Police have said Powell planned out a gasoline-fueled fire that took his own life and the lives of his sons Sunday as the boys came to his home for supervised visitation. Shapley said the boys ran into the home and Powell locked out the caseworker, who called 911.
Shapley said he agreed with Washington police that if Powell "was intent on committing this heinous crime, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could have stopped him" no matter who was there or where the visit took place.
One national child welfare expert agrees Washington authorities acted appropriately.
"Unless you expect a caseworker to have 20/20 hindsight or the ability to read minds, no, there was no way to see this coming," said Richard Wexler, director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform based in Virginia. "If they couldn’t imagine it, I don’t know how the court could."
And while the Coxes had fears about what Powell might do, they never imagined he might act during a supervised visit with his sons.
"I had no idea he would be able to get away with dousing the place. Who possibly would do that? Sure, we were concerned about it, but not to go out that way," said Chuck Cox.
The Coxes had felt okay about visits at Powell’s newly rented home for the sake of the boys.
"Anything that would make them feel better, have a better life, we were for it," Chuck Cox said. "We were just doing everything we could to make them happy and have as normal a life as we could with their mom gone."
Wexler called Sunday’s deaths a tragic anomaly and said the most important lesson to learn is "not to try to learn lessons from horror stories because it will then result in hundreds of kids being kept needlessly away from their parents."
The department is conducting an internal review and will also begin a child fatality review, which must be completed in six months or less, Shapley said.
"We do want to see if there are things that can educate our practice going forward," he said.
Source http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/53458296-78/powell-child-shapley-cox.html.csp?page=1
The title of this article is the craziest title possible. It's been known to many of us caught up in the CPS Racket that CPS incapable of seeing REAL trouble when there is REAL reasons to suspect a parent my harm their children, now we have a public statement that they were blind to those very things.
CPS - Here's some hints:
When a suspect moves to another state shortly after his wife disappears, the wife is likely dead!
When a parent is suspected of murdering their wife, the suspects children are likely to be in danger!
When children are in CPS custody, it is your job to make sure that they are safe from harm at anyone's hands - including their father, the suspect in his wife's (the children's mother) disappearance and possible murder!
Questions for CPS:
Why were vistis allowed to take place at this suspected murderers home?
Don't you have supervised and monitored visitation facilities in Washington state?
If not - perhaps you should put some in place.
If you couldn't see the red flags in this case (which were waving high and wildly), how are you able to claim anyone may be abusing or neglecting their children or are a danger to their children in some way?
Whatever happened to your so-called risk assessment garbage?
Are you people blind?
#FAIL!
---
By Brooke Adams
Puyallup, Wash. • As Washington authorities revealed new details about how Josh Powell killed himself and his two young sons in his home, a child welfare spokesman on Monday said there were no red flags that would have barred the visit.
One caseworker from Foster Care Resource Network of Tacoma had supervised all of Powell’s visits with his sons Charlie, 7, and Braden, 5. Those visits initially took place at the network’s office and then, beginning in November, at Powell’s home.
"From the children’s administration point of view, Mr. Powell was not accused of any child abuse or neglect," said Thomas Shapley, senior director of public affairs for the Washington Department of Social and Health Services. "There was no indication of threats to the children or any suicide ideation. This caught everybody by surprise."
Chuck and Judy Cox — who received temporary custody of the boys last September — said Monday the system failed their grandsons and needs to be changed. In light of recent events, it would have been appropriate to suspend Powell’s court-ordered supervised visitation, Chuck Cox said.
Powell learned in a Feb. 1 custody hearing he would not get his boys, back until at least July. The judge also ordered him to submit to a psychosexual evaluation and polygraph test regarding sexually explicit images found on a computer in his West Valley City home in 2009.
"I thought visitation should have stopped until they got that sorted out," Chuck Cox told The Salt Lake Tribune. "We were very afraid something like this could happen, as were the social workers and police. There were too many warning signs that were known, but due to the legal limits [the signs] couldn’t be acted on."
Cox added: "It’s sad that visitation was at his house, which allowed him to set up this whole thing."
The boys were removed from Powell’s care after their paternal grandfather, Steve Powell, was arrested on voyeurism and child pornography charges. Prosecutors said they needed to determine what, if anything, Powell knew about his father’s activities. Powell and his sons had lived in Steve Powell’s Puyallup home since 2010.
Shapley said if his department had received any indication the children were in danger or that Powell was unstable, there are protocols the department could have gone through to postpone visits.
There was nothing, he said.
"We were always on course to have the children returned to him," Shapley said. And while a judge here ordered new tests for Powell, there was no interruption in visitation.
"We were proceeding as per court order," Shapley said.
Police have said Powell planned out a gasoline-fueled fire that took his own life and the lives of his sons Sunday as the boys came to his home for supervised visitation. Shapley said the boys ran into the home and Powell locked out the caseworker, who called 911.
Shapley said he agreed with Washington police that if Powell "was intent on committing this heinous crime, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could have stopped him" no matter who was there or where the visit took place.
One national child welfare expert agrees Washington authorities acted appropriately.
"Unless you expect a caseworker to have 20/20 hindsight or the ability to read minds, no, there was no way to see this coming," said Richard Wexler, director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform based in Virginia. "If they couldn’t imagine it, I don’t know how the court could."
And while the Coxes had fears about what Powell might do, they never imagined he might act during a supervised visit with his sons.
"I had no idea he would be able to get away with dousing the place. Who possibly would do that? Sure, we were concerned about it, but not to go out that way," said Chuck Cox.
The Coxes had felt okay about visits at Powell’s newly rented home for the sake of the boys.
"Anything that would make them feel better, have a better life, we were for it," Chuck Cox said. "We were just doing everything we could to make them happy and have as normal a life as we could with their mom gone."
Wexler called Sunday’s deaths a tragic anomaly and said the most important lesson to learn is "not to try to learn lessons from horror stories because it will then result in hundreds of kids being kept needlessly away from their parents."
The department is conducting an internal review and will also begin a child fatality review, which must be completed in six months or less, Shapley said.
"We do want to see if there are things that can educate our practice going forward," he said.
Source http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/53458296-78/powell-child-shapley-cox.html.csp?page=1
Monday, December 12, 2011
Social workers fired in Marlboro County CPS case - concerning Edna Hunt
by Tonya Brown
NewsChannel 15 has learned two Marlboro County Department of Social Services employees were fired in connection with the child abuse case of Edna Hunt.
State DSS officials will only say they let the employees go after an evaluation of their work in the Hunt investigation and other cases they've handled.
Last week, we learned DSS was conducting a child protective services investigation prior to Hunt's death.
We have requested more information through the Freedom of Information Act to find out if the employees violated any procedures, according to state and federal policy, for child protective investigations.
In October, Hunt died following cardiac arrest in Bennettsville.
Hunt's mother and her mother's boyfriend are charged with homicide by child abuse.
Police say Hunt had bruises and burns all over her body.
Officers say a post mortem examination showed she had been abused for some time.
DSS officials say the Director of the Marlboro County DSS resigned shortly after the child's death, but they aren't saying if his resignation had anything to do with their internal investigation.
Marlboro County Coroner, Tim Brown, says he's expecting final autopsy results on Hunt to be in sometime this week.
He will release those results when they come in.
Source http://www.carolinalive.com/news/story.aspx?id=696491
NewsChannel 15 has learned two Marlboro County Department of Social Services employees were fired in connection with the child abuse case of Edna Hunt.
State DSS officials will only say they let the employees go after an evaluation of their work in the Hunt investigation and other cases they've handled.
Last week, we learned DSS was conducting a child protective services investigation prior to Hunt's death.
We have requested more information through the Freedom of Information Act to find out if the employees violated any procedures, according to state and federal policy, for child protective investigations.
In October, Hunt died following cardiac arrest in Bennettsville.
Hunt's mother and her mother's boyfriend are charged with homicide by child abuse.
Police say Hunt had bruises and burns all over her body.
Officers say a post mortem examination showed she had been abused for some time.
DSS officials say the Director of the Marlboro County DSS resigned shortly after the child's death, but they aren't saying if his resignation had anything to do with their internal investigation.
Marlboro County Coroner, Tim Brown, says he's expecting final autopsy results on Hunt to be in sometime this week.
He will release those results when they come in.
Source http://www.carolinalive.com/news/story.aspx?id=696491
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Does Foster Care Protect Children?
by Law Journal for Social Justice at Arizona State University
November 16, 2011
by Fatima Badreddine
On Jenna’s eighteenth birthday, she arrived at her home only to discover that her foster parents had taken all of her belongings and placed them in the driveway. She stayed at a friend’s house for a few days, but she soon became homeless. Jenna had been in foster care since she was six years old and was passed around from foster home to foster home. The lack of stability in her life left her traumatized, feeling alone and unwanted. Jenna’s eighteenth birthday should have been a happy day. Instead, it was one of her most hurtful experiences, invoking a renewed sense of anguish and rejection.
Unfortunately, Jenna’s experience illustrates one of many examples of the problems associated with foster care in America. Foster care has been a traumatic experience for children, many of whom are shuffled between different foster homes. Sanda Chipungu and Tricia Bent-Goodley reported in 2004 that after about three months of being placed in a foster home, many children exhibited symptoms of “depression, aggression, or withdrawal.” In severe cases, children exhibited symptoms of “sleep disturbance, hoarding food, excessive eating, self-stimulation, rocking, or failure to thrive.”[1] Like Jenna, more than half of the former-foster children that were surveyed reported that they were not prepared to support themselves after leaving foster care.[2]
However, foster care was created as a temporary injunction to find safe havens for abused and neglected children. Foster care was not designed to be a permanent remedy for abused and neglected children. Rather, the goal was to either return the foster children to their parents, or to place the children for adoption when returning them to their families is inappropriate. However, some children have remained in foster care permanently, being shuffled among different foster homes until they reached the age of majority. This unstable and continuously evolving environment contributes to the psychological problems described by Sandra Chipungu and Tricia Bent-Goodly. Furthermore, some children have been placed in abusive foster homes, meaning that they were shuffled from one abusive or neglectful environment to another. Considering that many children have been negatively impacted by foster care, is it an appropriate method for protecting abused and neglected children?
In Arizona, the statistics for children who have been removed from their home, both temporarily and permanently, are staggering. The number of children in out-of-home care[3] increased monthly from January to June 2011. In January 2011, 10,512 children were in out-of-home care, and by June 2011, 11,082 children were in out-of-home care.[4] These statistics become more significant when compared to the length of time that children remain in out-of-home care. About 22.6% of children remain in out-of-home care for over a year, while 20.7% of children remain in the state’s care for over two years.[5] This means that over twenty percent of foster children in Arizona have not been in a permanent living arrangement for more than two years. Furthermore, the report fails to clarify how long children are in state custody beyond two years, leaving the impression that the Department is attempting to bury this important information.
Likewise, the Arizona Department of Economic Services does not include statistics regarding the mental health and emotional well-being of children under state care. As mentioned above, the longer a child is separated from his/her family and support system, the more likely he/she is to experience emotional distress. Yet, the Department excludes this information from its statistical reports, which prevents the public from reviewing whether the Department adequately meets the needs of foster children.
Unfortunately, some children in Arizona have suffered from abuse while in foster care. Arizona Child Protective Services (“CPS”) does not consistently visit all children in out-of-home care, which is an important element in preventing and reporting foster care abuse. In March 2011, CPS case managers failed to visit 17.5% of children, and licensing case managers failed to visit 11.5% of foster homes.[6] This is a significant amount of children who have not received the minimal monitoring required by the state, thereby increasing the potential for unreported abuse in foster homes and families. In fact, during a mere six month time period, from October 2010 to March 2011, two children in Arizona died while in CPS custody due to “alleged abuse.”[7] The report did not include statistics concerning the number of reported abuses that resulted in harm other than death. Furthermore, the majority of children in out-of-home care are under the age of six[8] and unlikely to have the mental and emotional capacity to understand, let alone report, abuse. Thus, the actual amount abuse inflicted on foster children in Arizona is likely higher than disclosed in the Semi-Annual Child Welfare Report.
Victims of abuse while in state custody may seek restitution through the courts, but this process is complicated by state statutes that grant sovereign immunity to government officials and employees. Although 42 U.S.C. § 1983 permits victims of foster care abuse to overcome sovereign immunity, the burden to overcome it is heavy. As a result, there is minimal litigation in the United States and Arizona involving foster care abuse.
In Weatherford ex rel. Michael v. State (2003), the Supreme Court of Arizona ruled that foster children could establish liability against state employees for abuse under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The Court concluded that a foster child “has a right to reasonable safety while in foster care” and that this right required more than protection just from “known or obvious dangers.”[9] So, the Court expanded the previous Grubbs II test to include a negligence liability for social workers.[10]
However, a foster child still has a difficult burden to overcome. He/she must prove that: 1) the social worker was unjustified in acting “with deliberate indifference” by putting or keeping a child in foster care, when the social worker knew or should have known that the child would be exposed to danger; or, 2) the state worker deliberately ignored or refused to obtain information that placing the child in foster care would expose that child to danger, and the worker had “time to consider the placement for a foster child . . . .”[11] Furthermore, the court must consider “the totality of the circumstances” because the social worker is not liable if he/she cannot find placement for the child or is bound by “financial constraints.”[12] The totality of circumstances rule grants wide deference to social workers because the Court does not clarify what constitutes adequate time to consider or find placement. The Court also fails to specify the extent of reasonable “financial constraints.” So, although the Court expanded the state’s liability under § 1983 to include negligence, it simultaneously granted wide deference to social workers, making the plaintiff’s burden difficult to overcome.
Foster care in the United States and Arizona is in a state of chaos and confusion. Although foster care was created as a temporary tool to protect abused and neglected children, a significant amount of children in Arizona remain in foster care for over a year. A year or longer in an unstable and impermanent home environment is a considerable amount of time for a child, making it more likely that the child will develop psychological or physical harm. Until foster care is reformed to account for these issues, it should be reserved as an emergency solution for extreme cases of abuse and neglect that seriously threaten the safety and/or health of the child.
[1] Douglas Abrams & Sarah Ramsey, Children and the Law: Doctrine, Policy and Practice 439 (West, 4th ed. 2010).
[2] Id. at 440.
[3] Defined by the Arizona Department of Economic Security as the number of children in CPS custody “who require placement in a foster care setting.” Clarence H. Carter, Dep’t of Econ. Sec., Child Protective Service Bi-Annual Financial and Accountability Report, at 3 (Ariz. 2011), http://www.azdes.gov/InternetFiles/Reports/pdf/dcyf_ financial_and_program_accountability_2024_report.pdf.
[4] Id. at 3a, 3f.
[5] Clarence H. Carter, Dep’t of Econ. Sec., Child Welfare Reporting Requirements: Semi-Annual Report, at 44 (Ariz. 2011), http:// www.azdes.gov/InternetFiles/Reports/pdf/semi_annual_child_welfare_report_oct_2010_ mar_2011.pdf.
[6] Id. at 46.
[7] Id. at 58.
[8] Id. at 39.
[9] Weatherford ex rel. Michael v. State, 206 Ariz. 529, 537 (2003).
[10] Id.
[11] Id.
[12] Id. at 538.
Source http://ljsj.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/does-foster-care-protect-children/
November 16, 2011
by Fatima Badreddine
On Jenna’s eighteenth birthday, she arrived at her home only to discover that her foster parents had taken all of her belongings and placed them in the driveway. She stayed at a friend’s house for a few days, but she soon became homeless. Jenna had been in foster care since she was six years old and was passed around from foster home to foster home. The lack of stability in her life left her traumatized, feeling alone and unwanted. Jenna’s eighteenth birthday should have been a happy day. Instead, it was one of her most hurtful experiences, invoking a renewed sense of anguish and rejection.
Unfortunately, Jenna’s experience illustrates one of many examples of the problems associated with foster care in America. Foster care has been a traumatic experience for children, many of whom are shuffled between different foster homes. Sanda Chipungu and Tricia Bent-Goodley reported in 2004 that after about three months of being placed in a foster home, many children exhibited symptoms of “depression, aggression, or withdrawal.” In severe cases, children exhibited symptoms of “sleep disturbance, hoarding food, excessive eating, self-stimulation, rocking, or failure to thrive.”[1] Like Jenna, more than half of the former-foster children that were surveyed reported that they were not prepared to support themselves after leaving foster care.[2]
However, foster care was created as a temporary injunction to find safe havens for abused and neglected children. Foster care was not designed to be a permanent remedy for abused and neglected children. Rather, the goal was to either return the foster children to their parents, or to place the children for adoption when returning them to their families is inappropriate. However, some children have remained in foster care permanently, being shuffled among different foster homes until they reached the age of majority. This unstable and continuously evolving environment contributes to the psychological problems described by Sandra Chipungu and Tricia Bent-Goodly. Furthermore, some children have been placed in abusive foster homes, meaning that they were shuffled from one abusive or neglectful environment to another. Considering that many children have been negatively impacted by foster care, is it an appropriate method for protecting abused and neglected children?
In Arizona, the statistics for children who have been removed from their home, both temporarily and permanently, are staggering. The number of children in out-of-home care[3] increased monthly from January to June 2011. In January 2011, 10,512 children were in out-of-home care, and by June 2011, 11,082 children were in out-of-home care.[4] These statistics become more significant when compared to the length of time that children remain in out-of-home care. About 22.6% of children remain in out-of-home care for over a year, while 20.7% of children remain in the state’s care for over two years.[5] This means that over twenty percent of foster children in Arizona have not been in a permanent living arrangement for more than two years. Furthermore, the report fails to clarify how long children are in state custody beyond two years, leaving the impression that the Department is attempting to bury this important information.
Likewise, the Arizona Department of Economic Services does not include statistics regarding the mental health and emotional well-being of children under state care. As mentioned above, the longer a child is separated from his/her family and support system, the more likely he/she is to experience emotional distress. Yet, the Department excludes this information from its statistical reports, which prevents the public from reviewing whether the Department adequately meets the needs of foster children.
Unfortunately, some children in Arizona have suffered from abuse while in foster care. Arizona Child Protective Services (“CPS”) does not consistently visit all children in out-of-home care, which is an important element in preventing and reporting foster care abuse. In March 2011, CPS case managers failed to visit 17.5% of children, and licensing case managers failed to visit 11.5% of foster homes.[6] This is a significant amount of children who have not received the minimal monitoring required by the state, thereby increasing the potential for unreported abuse in foster homes and families. In fact, during a mere six month time period, from October 2010 to March 2011, two children in Arizona died while in CPS custody due to “alleged abuse.”[7] The report did not include statistics concerning the number of reported abuses that resulted in harm other than death. Furthermore, the majority of children in out-of-home care are under the age of six[8] and unlikely to have the mental and emotional capacity to understand, let alone report, abuse. Thus, the actual amount abuse inflicted on foster children in Arizona is likely higher than disclosed in the Semi-Annual Child Welfare Report.
Victims of abuse while in state custody may seek restitution through the courts, but this process is complicated by state statutes that grant sovereign immunity to government officials and employees. Although 42 U.S.C. § 1983 permits victims of foster care abuse to overcome sovereign immunity, the burden to overcome it is heavy. As a result, there is minimal litigation in the United States and Arizona involving foster care abuse.
In Weatherford ex rel. Michael v. State (2003), the Supreme Court of Arizona ruled that foster children could establish liability against state employees for abuse under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The Court concluded that a foster child “has a right to reasonable safety while in foster care” and that this right required more than protection just from “known or obvious dangers.”[9] So, the Court expanded the previous Grubbs II test to include a negligence liability for social workers.[10]
However, a foster child still has a difficult burden to overcome. He/she must prove that: 1) the social worker was unjustified in acting “with deliberate indifference” by putting or keeping a child in foster care, when the social worker knew or should have known that the child would be exposed to danger; or, 2) the state worker deliberately ignored or refused to obtain information that placing the child in foster care would expose that child to danger, and the worker had “time to consider the placement for a foster child . . . .”[11] Furthermore, the court must consider “the totality of the circumstances” because the social worker is not liable if he/she cannot find placement for the child or is bound by “financial constraints.”[12] The totality of circumstances rule grants wide deference to social workers because the Court does not clarify what constitutes adequate time to consider or find placement. The Court also fails to specify the extent of reasonable “financial constraints.” So, although the Court expanded the state’s liability under § 1983 to include negligence, it simultaneously granted wide deference to social workers, making the plaintiff’s burden difficult to overcome.
Foster care in the United States and Arizona is in a state of chaos and confusion. Although foster care was created as a temporary tool to protect abused and neglected children, a significant amount of children in Arizona remain in foster care for over a year. A year or longer in an unstable and impermanent home environment is a considerable amount of time for a child, making it more likely that the child will develop psychological or physical harm. Until foster care is reformed to account for these issues, it should be reserved as an emergency solution for extreme cases of abuse and neglect that seriously threaten the safety and/or health of the child.
[1] Douglas Abrams & Sarah Ramsey, Children and the Law: Doctrine, Policy and Practice 439 (West, 4th ed. 2010).
[2] Id. at 440.
[3] Defined by the Arizona Department of Economic Security as the number of children in CPS custody “who require placement in a foster care setting.” Clarence H. Carter, Dep’t of Econ. Sec., Child Protective Service Bi-Annual Financial and Accountability Report, at 3 (Ariz. 2011), http://www.azdes.gov/InternetFiles/Reports/pdf/dcyf_ financial_and_program_accountability_2024_report.pdf.
[4] Id. at 3a, 3f.
[5] Clarence H. Carter, Dep’t of Econ. Sec., Child Welfare Reporting Requirements: Semi-Annual Report, at 44 (Ariz. 2011), http:// www.azdes.gov/InternetFiles/Reports/pdf/semi_annual_child_welfare_report_oct_2010_ mar_2011.pdf.
[6] Id. at 46.
[7] Id. at 58.
[8] Id. at 39.
[9] Weatherford ex rel. Michael v. State, 206 Ariz. 529, 537 (2003).
[10] Id.
[11] Id.
[12] Id. at 538.
Source http://ljsj.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/does-foster-care-protect-children/
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Father sues CSB in death of child - Ohio
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Thomas Cross, the biological father of a child who died while in foster care April 2, 2009, has sued the Trumbull County Children Services Board and others.
The suit says officials failed to protect the child despite warning signs.
It says the autopsy conducted after the child’s death showed evidence of abuse pre-dating the abuse that killed her, though the Trumbull County coroner refutes that allegation.
Cross, of Garrettsville, filed the suit in federal court last week, seeking $1.2 million in damages.
Tiffany Banks Cross was 20 months old when her foster mother, Bonnie Pattinson, 30, carried her to a neighbor’s house April 2, 2009, because the girl was not breathing. The girl later was pronounced dead.
Pattinson and her family were living in a duplex on Center Street West in Champion Township at the time of the death. Pattinson later was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death and sentenced to nine years in prison.
In the lawsuit filed by Boardman lawyer David Engler, Cross said he warned children services that the girl might be in danger, telling children services he saw bruising on her and dog hair in her baby formula.
Children services “never responded to the father’s concern,” the suit said.
Cross’ parental rights regarding the girl were terminated, at children services’ request, Nov. 4, 2008, “despite his not being represented at final hearing of that matter, nor was there a record of his knowing and voluntary waiving of such right to representation,” the suit said.
The suit said children services also was “informed of other harmful acts perpetrated against children in the care of Bonnie Pattinson.”
Nick Kerosky, executive director of Trumbull County Children Services, said he has no comment on the lawsuit.
Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk, Trumbull County coroner, said Monday he saw nothing on the girl’s body indicating bruising or any other type of abuse other than the abuse that caused her death.
The coroner ruled that the girl died of asphyxiation, and a county prosecutor said there were marks on the child’s neck consistent with the rings Pattinson was wearing.
In the lawsuit, Cross said the coroner saw “multiple abrasions and contusions upon the infant that were consistent with a pattern of abuse dating before the actual horrific beating that resulted in the child’s death.”
The suit says children services showed “deliberate indifference to [Pattinson’s] abusive nature.”
The suit also names as defendants the Trumbull County commissioners, who appoint members of the children services board of trustees, and Pattinson.
Source http://www.vindy.com/news/2011/nov/08/father-sues-csb-in-death-of-child/
WARREN
Thomas Cross, the biological father of a child who died while in foster care April 2, 2009, has sued the Trumbull County Children Services Board and others.
The suit says officials failed to protect the child despite warning signs.
It says the autopsy conducted after the child’s death showed evidence of abuse pre-dating the abuse that killed her, though the Trumbull County coroner refutes that allegation.
Cross, of Garrettsville, filed the suit in federal court last week, seeking $1.2 million in damages.
Tiffany Banks Cross was 20 months old when her foster mother, Bonnie Pattinson, 30, carried her to a neighbor’s house April 2, 2009, because the girl was not breathing. The girl later was pronounced dead.
Pattinson and her family were living in a duplex on Center Street West in Champion Township at the time of the death. Pattinson later was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death and sentenced to nine years in prison.
In the lawsuit filed by Boardman lawyer David Engler, Cross said he warned children services that the girl might be in danger, telling children services he saw bruising on her and dog hair in her baby formula.
Children services “never responded to the father’s concern,” the suit said.
Cross’ parental rights regarding the girl were terminated, at children services’ request, Nov. 4, 2008, “despite his not being represented at final hearing of that matter, nor was there a record of his knowing and voluntary waiving of such right to representation,” the suit said.
The suit said children services also was “informed of other harmful acts perpetrated against children in the care of Bonnie Pattinson.”
Nick Kerosky, executive director of Trumbull County Children Services, said he has no comment on the lawsuit.
Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk, Trumbull County coroner, said Monday he saw nothing on the girl’s body indicating bruising or any other type of abuse other than the abuse that caused her death.
The coroner ruled that the girl died of asphyxiation, and a county prosecutor said there were marks on the child’s neck consistent with the rings Pattinson was wearing.
In the lawsuit, Cross said the coroner saw “multiple abrasions and contusions upon the infant that were consistent with a pattern of abuse dating before the actual horrific beating that resulted in the child’s death.”
The suit says children services showed “deliberate indifference to [Pattinson’s] abusive nature.”
The suit also names as defendants the Trumbull County commissioners, who appoint members of the children services board of trustees, and Pattinson.
Source http://www.vindy.com/news/2011/nov/08/father-sues-csb-in-death-of-child/
Monday, November 7, 2011
State blasted on Western Kentucky girl's slaying
Judge: Abuse ignored before brutal beating
Written by Deborah Yetter
A Franklin Circuit Court judge blasted state officials Monday for ignoring suspected prior abuse of a 9-year-old Western Kentucky girl beaten to death by her adoptive brother, saying they turned a “blind eye” to repeated reports of her horrific mistreatment.
In his second such order in four days, Judge Phillip Shepherd ordered the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to release records of child abuse death investigations — this time in the case of the Feb. 4 murder of Amythz “Amy” Dye. State officials have repeatedly refused to release such records, citing confidentiality.
“This case presents a tragic example of the potentially deadly consequences of a child welfare system that has completely insulated itself from meaningful public scrutiny,” Shepherd said in his order. “The Open Records Act is the only method available by which the public and the legislature can obtain information regarding the systematic breakdown of our child protective services that contributed so directly to this child’s death.”
The order notes cabinet officials had approved Amy’s adoptive home in Todd County, with Kimberly Dye, after removing her from her birth parents because of “severe neglect and sexual abuse.”
“An innocent, nine-year-old girl was brutally beaten to death after enduring months of physical and emotional abuse in a home approved by the Commonwealth of Kentucky for her adoption,” Shepherd wrote.
Cabinet officials received the order Monday and are reviewing it, said spokeswoman Jill Midkiff.
Garrett Dye, 17, Amy’s adoptive brother, pleaded guilty Oct. 21 in Todd Circuit Court to murdering her on Feb. 4 by beating her in the head with a jack handle. At the time, she was outside on a cold, snowy evening shoveling gravel as punishment for stealing pudding and juice from a friend’s lunch box at school, Shepherd’s order said.
Garrett Dye, who was prosecuted as an adult, will be sentenced Nov. 23.
After Amy’s death, police found the girl’s clothes in a dresser in a trailer outside the house, Shepherd’s order said. It said Amy sometimes soiled her clothes because of poor bowel control, and when she did, her adoptive mother — as punishment — forced her to go outside for clean clothes.
Shepherd’s ruling comes after The Todd County Standard sought records from the cabinet about reports of suspected abuse or neglect involving Amy. The cabinet refused to provide the records to the newspaper, initially claiming it had none; but then, after acknowledging it did have records, it claimed they were exempt from open records law.
In his ruling Monday, the judge ordered the cabinet to release the records to the paper, noting that the issues were “identical” to those raised in his ruling Thursday that the cabinet must release records of child abuse deaths and serious injuries to The Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald Leader.
In that ruling, he excoriated the cabinet as being “so immersed in the culture of secrecy regarding these issues that it is institutionally incapable of recognizing and implementing the clear requirement of the law.”
The Louisville and Lexington newspapers are seeking the records under a law that permits the disclosure of child abuse and neglect records if a child dies or is seriously injured and if the cabinet had prior involvement with the child or family.
Ryan Craig, publisher and owner of the Todd County newspaper, said the details of Amy’s life and death — outlined in Shepherd’s order — are horrifying.
“Her death was horrible, but it seems like her life must have been just as bad,” Craig said.
He called on Gov. Steve Beshear to look into conduct of the cabinet.
“The governor needs to take a long, hard look at the cabinet,” Craig said. “I think there needs to be some housecleaning.”
At a campaign stop in Louisville Monday evening, Beshear said he hadn't read Shepherd's opinion but planned to take it up with cabinet officials.
“Certainly we are going to be reviewing that decision,” he said.
He declined to fault social service officials. “I know the cabinet works hard in the protection of children,” Beshear said.
In the five years before Amy’s death, reports of suspected abuse or neglect “flooded in,” starting the year after she was adopted by Kimberly Dye, Shepherd’s order said. Some of the reports came from school officials, including a school nurse, and some said she was being beaten by other children in the home. Yet state social workers performed cursory inquiries and took no action, his order said.
Kimberly Dye, who shared the home with her ex-husband, Christopher, could not be reached for comment. The family’s phone has been disconnected.
The reports cited by Shepherd included a May 2, 2007, letter from a school nurse detailing six separate reports she made of suspected abuse to Amy. The nurse reported injuries such as severe bruises, thumbprints on the girl’s face and scraped and peeling skin.
The nurse said Amy told her she had been hurt by another child in the home and her mother threatened to spank her if she told anyone. Amy then lived with two adoptive brothers, Garrett Dye, and an older brother not identified in Shepherd’s order.
The order said most of the abuse allegations involved the older brother, not Garrett Dye.
The cabinet dismissed the complaints as “child against child” altercations or accepted Kimberly Dye’s explanation that Amy fell or that the girl “bruises easily and plays rough with her brothers,” the order said.
“It is stunning to believe that the cabinet will refuse to protect a child from repeated acts of physical violence when the parent knows of and tolerates such abuse and does nothing to prevent it,” Shepherd’s order said. “Yet that is exactly what happened here.”
The case also appears to be the second in which the cabinet failed to conduct a fatality review required by law when a child dies or is seriously injured from abuse or neglect and the cabinet had prior involvement with the family.
The Courier-Journal and Herald-Leader filed suit in 2009, seeking the cabinet’s records of its investigation of the death of a Wayne County toddler who died after drinking drain cleaner at an alleged meth lab where he lived with his teenage parents. Both the child and his teen mother had been under the cabinet’s supervision.
The cabinet fought the newspapers’ request, citing confidentiality. After Shepherd ordered the cabinet to release the fatality report, cabinet officials acknowledged they never conducted the investigation required by state law.
In Amy’s case, cabinet officials concluded that they had no obligation to conduct such a review, Shepherd’s order said.
Attorney Jon Fleischaker, who represented the Todd County newspaper along with lawyer Jeremy Rogers, said Monday’s ruling is clear, yet the cabinet continues to litigate a battle it lost in 2010 when Shepherd first ordered it to release such records.
“They are using tax dollars to defend the indefensible,” said Fleischaker, who also represents The Courier-Journal.
Source http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20111107/NEWS01/311070081/State-blasted-Western-Kentucky-girl-s-slaying?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CHome
Written by Deborah Yetter
A Franklin Circuit Court judge blasted state officials Monday for ignoring suspected prior abuse of a 9-year-old Western Kentucky girl beaten to death by her adoptive brother, saying they turned a “blind eye” to repeated reports of her horrific mistreatment.
In his second such order in four days, Judge Phillip Shepherd ordered the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to release records of child abuse death investigations — this time in the case of the Feb. 4 murder of Amythz “Amy” Dye. State officials have repeatedly refused to release such records, citing confidentiality.
“This case presents a tragic example of the potentially deadly consequences of a child welfare system that has completely insulated itself from meaningful public scrutiny,” Shepherd said in his order. “The Open Records Act is the only method available by which the public and the legislature can obtain information regarding the systematic breakdown of our child protective services that contributed so directly to this child’s death.”
The order notes cabinet officials had approved Amy’s adoptive home in Todd County, with Kimberly Dye, after removing her from her birth parents because of “severe neglect and sexual abuse.”
“An innocent, nine-year-old girl was brutally beaten to death after enduring months of physical and emotional abuse in a home approved by the Commonwealth of Kentucky for her adoption,” Shepherd wrote.
Cabinet officials received the order Monday and are reviewing it, said spokeswoman Jill Midkiff.
Garrett Dye, 17, Amy’s adoptive brother, pleaded guilty Oct. 21 in Todd Circuit Court to murdering her on Feb. 4 by beating her in the head with a jack handle. At the time, she was outside on a cold, snowy evening shoveling gravel as punishment for stealing pudding and juice from a friend’s lunch box at school, Shepherd’s order said.
Garrett Dye, who was prosecuted as an adult, will be sentenced Nov. 23.
After Amy’s death, police found the girl’s clothes in a dresser in a trailer outside the house, Shepherd’s order said. It said Amy sometimes soiled her clothes because of poor bowel control, and when she did, her adoptive mother — as punishment — forced her to go outside for clean clothes.
Shepherd’s ruling comes after The Todd County Standard sought records from the cabinet about reports of suspected abuse or neglect involving Amy. The cabinet refused to provide the records to the newspaper, initially claiming it had none; but then, after acknowledging it did have records, it claimed they were exempt from open records law.
In his ruling Monday, the judge ordered the cabinet to release the records to the paper, noting that the issues were “identical” to those raised in his ruling Thursday that the cabinet must release records of child abuse deaths and serious injuries to The Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald Leader.
In that ruling, he excoriated the cabinet as being “so immersed in the culture of secrecy regarding these issues that it is institutionally incapable of recognizing and implementing the clear requirement of the law.”
The Louisville and Lexington newspapers are seeking the records under a law that permits the disclosure of child abuse and neglect records if a child dies or is seriously injured and if the cabinet had prior involvement with the child or family.
Ryan Craig, publisher and owner of the Todd County newspaper, said the details of Amy’s life and death — outlined in Shepherd’s order — are horrifying.
“Her death was horrible, but it seems like her life must have been just as bad,” Craig said.
He called on Gov. Steve Beshear to look into conduct of the cabinet.
“The governor needs to take a long, hard look at the cabinet,” Craig said. “I think there needs to be some housecleaning.”
At a campaign stop in Louisville Monday evening, Beshear said he hadn't read Shepherd's opinion but planned to take it up with cabinet officials.
“Certainly we are going to be reviewing that decision,” he said.
He declined to fault social service officials. “I know the cabinet works hard in the protection of children,” Beshear said.
In the five years before Amy’s death, reports of suspected abuse or neglect “flooded in,” starting the year after she was adopted by Kimberly Dye, Shepherd’s order said. Some of the reports came from school officials, including a school nurse, and some said she was being beaten by other children in the home. Yet state social workers performed cursory inquiries and took no action, his order said.
Kimberly Dye, who shared the home with her ex-husband, Christopher, could not be reached for comment. The family’s phone has been disconnected.
The reports cited by Shepherd included a May 2, 2007, letter from a school nurse detailing six separate reports she made of suspected abuse to Amy. The nurse reported injuries such as severe bruises, thumbprints on the girl’s face and scraped and peeling skin.
The nurse said Amy told her she had been hurt by another child in the home and her mother threatened to spank her if she told anyone. Amy then lived with two adoptive brothers, Garrett Dye, and an older brother not identified in Shepherd’s order.
The order said most of the abuse allegations involved the older brother, not Garrett Dye.
The cabinet dismissed the complaints as “child against child” altercations or accepted Kimberly Dye’s explanation that Amy fell or that the girl “bruises easily and plays rough with her brothers,” the order said.
“It is stunning to believe that the cabinet will refuse to protect a child from repeated acts of physical violence when the parent knows of and tolerates such abuse and does nothing to prevent it,” Shepherd’s order said. “Yet that is exactly what happened here.”
The case also appears to be the second in which the cabinet failed to conduct a fatality review required by law when a child dies or is seriously injured from abuse or neglect and the cabinet had prior involvement with the family.
The Courier-Journal and Herald-Leader filed suit in 2009, seeking the cabinet’s records of its investigation of the death of a Wayne County toddler who died after drinking drain cleaner at an alleged meth lab where he lived with his teenage parents. Both the child and his teen mother had been under the cabinet’s supervision.
The cabinet fought the newspapers’ request, citing confidentiality. After Shepherd ordered the cabinet to release the fatality report, cabinet officials acknowledged they never conducted the investigation required by state law.
In Amy’s case, cabinet officials concluded that they had no obligation to conduct such a review, Shepherd’s order said.
Attorney Jon Fleischaker, who represented the Todd County newspaper along with lawyer Jeremy Rogers, said Monday’s ruling is clear, yet the cabinet continues to litigate a battle it lost in 2010 when Shepherd first ordered it to release such records.
“They are using tax dollars to defend the indefensible,” said Fleischaker, who also represents The Courier-Journal.
Source http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20111107/NEWS01/311070081/State-blasted-Western-Kentucky-girl-s-slaying?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CHome
Monday, October 31, 2011
Report - More Indiana Children Die From Abuse, Neglect, Report Says
Child Advocates Chide Backslide In Children's Services
INDIANAPOLIS -- Federal statistics show that Indiana has one of the highest rates of child abuse and neglect in the nation, though Department of Child Services officials claim their statistics show progress.
Recent cases of child abuse deaths are indicative of how some Indiana children fall through the cracks, and federal reports obtained by Call 6 Investigator Joanna Massee are counter to DCS claims that the child welfare system is improving.
Some child advocates said they've seen some progress recently, but others said they are gravely concerned about recent abuse and neglect deaths and what they consider backsliding services.
Deaths Of Children Spur Concern
The cases of Devin Parsons and Christian Choate highlight what many consider to be the failings of DCS.
Greensburg police found Parsons, 12, fatally beaten in June. His mother, Tasha Parsons, and her boyfriend, Waldo Jones, were subsequently charged with murder.
Randy Parsons, Devin's great-uncle, said he wasn't aware of the extent of abuse that police said went on in the boy's home.
"You just never expect anything like that," Parsons said, adding that he didn't realize a DCS employee visited the boy's home days before his death. "I think the job wasn't finished."
Christian Choate, 13, also had a long history with DCS before his death earlier this year. According to the agency's records, Christian lived in a cage and received regular beatings during the last months of his life.
In May, investigators pulled Christian's body from a shallow grave in Gary. His father, Riley Choate, and his stepmother, Kimberly Kubina, were charged with murder.
Records obtained by the Call 6 Investigators showed that the families of both children had a long history with DCS.
DCS Director James Payne said he thinks his agency is better at protecting children than ever before, and he cautioned against using child fatalities as a measuring stick.
" First of all, nobody in the system looks at fatalities as a measure of whether or not the system itself is doing a good job in helping protect children," Payne said. "Often the fatalities occur without any contact before. Often they happen in circumstances that were unpredictable."
Child Welfare Tracking Systems Inconsistent
Nationwide, child safety workers criticized an inconsistent tracking system for child deaths.
Because federal and state reports cover different time periods, the numbers don't match, and that means the number of deaths can look like it's going up in one report and down in another.
For example, the most recent Child Maltreatment Report released by the Department of Health and Human Services showed an increase in the number of child deaths from 2008 to 2009. The federal government counted 34 deaths in 2008 and 50 deaths in 2009. The federal year runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.
The state's most recent Child Abuse and Neglect Report of Child Fatalities showed a decrease in the number of child deaths from 2008 to 2009. The state government counted 46 deaths in 2008 and 38 deaths in 2009. The state year runs from July 1 through June 30.
Payne said a better way to evaluate the system is to look at statistics, such as fewer children being placed in residential treatment.
"The system is much better now," Payne said.
DCS is focused on helping children thrive in the home because taking them out is very traumatic, Payne said.
But the cases that involved Devin and Christian indicate that leaving abused and neglected children in a home can also be devastating.
Child Advocates' Opinion Mixed
Privately, leading child advocates and service providers told Massee they disagree with Payne’s claims that the system is improving. Publicly, they choose their words carefully if they say anything at all, fearing retaliation.
Massee asked Payne if the culture at DCS discourages criticism within the agency.
"I suspect there is at some level," but not at the executive level, Payne responded.
David Sklar, who leads the Children’s Coalition of Indiana, an organization that works to support and lobby for children and families, said child advocates and service providers fear retaliation for voicing concerns about DCS.
"They're afraid to advocate for those clients because they're afraid that the state might look somewhere else to provide those contracts," Sklar said.
Sklar added that advocates are also concerned that the state is spending fewer dollars on therapeutic services that help address and prevent child abuse and neglect.
"We are starting to see a backslide," he said.
Last year, DCS gave back nearly $104 million to the state general fund, money that could have been used for children. Payne said the agency did not need the cash.
When Massee asked Payne about these spending decisions, he granted RTV6 unprecedented access to the agency, adamant that his system is working.
During a roundtable discussion with DCS employees, Massee asked case workers about the difficulties they face on the job.
Supervisor Melissa Clark said she has seen positive changes during her 17 years with DCS, but she also said the work comes with challenges.
"It can be a life and death decision that we're making," Clark said. "We do see some turnover. It is a stressful job. It's emotional. We deal with the crying child that's being removed from their parent."
Denise Brightman said she has spent 21 years working with families and worries about making a mistake "every day."
While workers such as Brightman and Clark can only control the cases assigned to them, State Rep. Bill Crawford, D-Indianapolis, said he is concerned with decisions being made at the top.
Crawford criticized the state’s decision to spend less on services for abused and neglected children in need.
"There are too many child advocates from around the state of Indiana who are crying foul," Crawford said.
Child advocates said the unspent funds could be used for services such as counseling for young abuse victims, clothing and food for foster kids and toward other services for families, such as those in which Christian and Devin once belonged.
Speaking privately, one leading child advocate told Massee, "This needs to be a call to action. The system will succeed when the private sector and public sector work together."
Source http://www.theindychannel.com/news/29636918/detail.html
INDIANAPOLIS -- Federal statistics show that Indiana has one of the highest rates of child abuse and neglect in the nation, though Department of Child Services officials claim their statistics show progress.
Recent cases of child abuse deaths are indicative of how some Indiana children fall through the cracks, and federal reports obtained by Call 6 Investigator Joanna Massee are counter to DCS claims that the child welfare system is improving.
Some child advocates said they've seen some progress recently, but others said they are gravely concerned about recent abuse and neglect deaths and what they consider backsliding services.
Deaths Of Children Spur Concern
The cases of Devin Parsons and Christian Choate highlight what many consider to be the failings of DCS.
Greensburg police found Parsons, 12, fatally beaten in June. His mother, Tasha Parsons, and her boyfriend, Waldo Jones, were subsequently charged with murder.
Randy Parsons, Devin's great-uncle, said he wasn't aware of the extent of abuse that police said went on in the boy's home.
"You just never expect anything like that," Parsons said, adding that he didn't realize a DCS employee visited the boy's home days before his death. "I think the job wasn't finished."
Christian Choate, 13, also had a long history with DCS before his death earlier this year. According to the agency's records, Christian lived in a cage and received regular beatings during the last months of his life.
In May, investigators pulled Christian's body from a shallow grave in Gary. His father, Riley Choate, and his stepmother, Kimberly Kubina, were charged with murder.
Records obtained by the Call 6 Investigators showed that the families of both children had a long history with DCS.
DCS Director James Payne said he thinks his agency is better at protecting children than ever before, and he cautioned against using child fatalities as a measuring stick.
" First of all, nobody in the system looks at fatalities as a measure of whether or not the system itself is doing a good job in helping protect children," Payne said. "Often the fatalities occur without any contact before. Often they happen in circumstances that were unpredictable."
Child Welfare Tracking Systems Inconsistent
Nationwide, child safety workers criticized an inconsistent tracking system for child deaths.
Because federal and state reports cover different time periods, the numbers don't match, and that means the number of deaths can look like it's going up in one report and down in another.
For example, the most recent Child Maltreatment Report released by the Department of Health and Human Services showed an increase in the number of child deaths from 2008 to 2009. The federal government counted 34 deaths in 2008 and 50 deaths in 2009. The federal year runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.
The state's most recent Child Abuse and Neglect Report of Child Fatalities showed a decrease in the number of child deaths from 2008 to 2009. The state government counted 46 deaths in 2008 and 38 deaths in 2009. The state year runs from July 1 through June 30.
Payne said a better way to evaluate the system is to look at statistics, such as fewer children being placed in residential treatment.
"The system is much better now," Payne said.
DCS is focused on helping children thrive in the home because taking them out is very traumatic, Payne said.
But the cases that involved Devin and Christian indicate that leaving abused and neglected children in a home can also be devastating.
Child Advocates' Opinion Mixed
Privately, leading child advocates and service providers told Massee they disagree with Payne’s claims that the system is improving. Publicly, they choose their words carefully if they say anything at all, fearing retaliation.
Massee asked Payne if the culture at DCS discourages criticism within the agency.
"I suspect there is at some level," but not at the executive level, Payne responded.
David Sklar, who leads the Children’s Coalition of Indiana, an organization that works to support and lobby for children and families, said child advocates and service providers fear retaliation for voicing concerns about DCS.
"They're afraid to advocate for those clients because they're afraid that the state might look somewhere else to provide those contracts," Sklar said.
Sklar added that advocates are also concerned that the state is spending fewer dollars on therapeutic services that help address and prevent child abuse and neglect.
"We are starting to see a backslide," he said.
Last year, DCS gave back nearly $104 million to the state general fund, money that could have been used for children. Payne said the agency did not need the cash.
When Massee asked Payne about these spending decisions, he granted RTV6 unprecedented access to the agency, adamant that his system is working.
During a roundtable discussion with DCS employees, Massee asked case workers about the difficulties they face on the job.
Supervisor Melissa Clark said she has seen positive changes during her 17 years with DCS, but she also said the work comes with challenges.
"It can be a life and death decision that we're making," Clark said. "We do see some turnover. It is a stressful job. It's emotional. We deal with the crying child that's being removed from their parent."
Denise Brightman said she has spent 21 years working with families and worries about making a mistake "every day."
While workers such as Brightman and Clark can only control the cases assigned to them, State Rep. Bill Crawford, D-Indianapolis, said he is concerned with decisions being made at the top.
Crawford criticized the state’s decision to spend less on services for abused and neglected children in need.
"There are too many child advocates from around the state of Indiana who are crying foul," Crawford said.
Child advocates said the unspent funds could be used for services such as counseling for young abuse victims, clothing and food for foster kids and toward other services for families, such as those in which Christian and Devin once belonged.
Speaking privately, one leading child advocate told Massee, "This needs to be a call to action. The system will succeed when the private sector and public sector work together."
Source http://www.theindychannel.com/news/29636918/detail.html
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Oklahoma - DHS finds funding for benefits, legal defense
By GINNIE GRAHAM World Staff Writer
OKLAHOMA CITY - About $10 million in one-time funding has been found in the budget for the Oklahoma Department of Human Services to avoid cutting benefits in two low-income programs and to add $1 million to defend a class-action lawsuit.
On Tuesday, the commission overseeing the agency approved the expenditures, which include avoiding proposed hikes in child-care subsidy co-payments and avoiding lowering monthly assistance to a program for families with developmentally disabled children.
Commissioners also voted to use the money toward the class-action lawsuit filed by New York-based Children's Rights alleging abuse in the foster care system. Trial is set for February in the U.S. Northern District Court in Tulsa.
This brings the total cost of litigation to at least $9 million for private attorneys - $6 million already spent and $2 million previously planned for next year.
DHS Director Howard Hendrick said the funds are from amounts carried over from previous years. He said a new process allows officials to identify carryover funds earlier.
Hendrick said without new funding in the 2013 budget, these cuts may still need to be made.
"We would have found it eventually in January, February or March," Hendrick said. "We have a lot of one-time funds paying for recurring costs, and that's the biggest pause I have about the recommendation. But it's the right thing to do to push on through."
During discussion, Commissioner Jay Dee Chase cut off Commissioner Steven Dow from asking questions and called for a vote on the changes and monthly financial report, which had not been presented.
Procedure allows for further discussion and Dow asked for a "friendly amendment" for a separate vote on the service programs and legal fees.
"I don't accept that," Chase said. "My motion is made and seconded and I don't want to change it."
Dow said he wanted to explore if the $1 million could be used toward increasing foster-care subsidies or in the field offices.
"I'd like to have a conversation and discussion on where else we could spend $1 million before it goes to litigation costs," Dow said.
Commissioner Brad Yarbrough asked Chase to amend the motion so the board could hear the monthly financial report before making an approval.
Commissioners passed the changes by a 7-1 vote, with Dow dissenting.
The meeting ended with a vote to settle a 2007 lawsuit filed by a former foster child, who was subjected to "horrific acts of sexual abuse" by his foster father and his live-in boyfriend.
DHS commissioners and agency attorney Charles Waters refused to state the amount of the settlement or how it is being paid.
Terms were discussed in executive session, and the 7-1 approval was taken in open session.
According to the Oklahoman, the commissioners voted to pay a share of the $1.1 million settlement. The attorneys blacked out the settlement amount in the court papers, but The Oklahoman was able to calculate the amount of the overall settlement because attorneys asked for $308.90 in daily interest until it is paid.
Dow was the lone vote against the settlement and said he has not seen a proposed settlement agreement document.
"I personally did not feel I had enough advance knowledge or notice to make an informed decision," Dow said. "I was uncomfortable being brought in at the last minute."
The victim was a 15-year-old boy in Cleveland County who was placed in the home of Paul Stephen Hull in December 2005, the court records state. Shadow Mountain Behavioral Health System was named in the lawsuit as a contractor with DHS and had a hand in the boy's foster placement.
Hull's live-in lover, Erwin Charles Swender, started molesting the victim, and Hull joined in after the third or fourth assault, records state.
Swender had spent time in an Iowa juvenile facility as a 16-year-old after causing the death of a 22-month-old by hitting the toddler three to four times, according to court records and Iowa media reports.
He had a history with DHS, resulting in the termination of his parental rights to at least seven of his children.
DHS removed him for a few days in February 2006 because of concerns about conditions there. He was returned to the home after Hull agreed to a safety plan, which included keeping Swender away.
The lawsuit alleges Hull ignored the plan, with Swender continuing to live in the home and the two continuing to abuse the boy. DHS removed him for good when he finally told a counselor about the abuse.
The victim said he was abused for several weeks and was exposed to drugs and pornography.
Hull - a former teacher at Oklahoma City's Capitol Hill High School - pleaded guilty in 2007 to attempted rape, forcible sodomy, second-degree rape, lewd molestation and meth possession. He agreed to eight years in prison and to testify against Swender.
Swender pleaded guilty as jury selection began in 2007 to lewd acts with a child, forcible sodomy and meth possession. He was sentenced to 20 years.
The lawsuit alleges DHS left the victim in the home despite suspicions that Hull was ignoring the safety plan.
Since 2005, DHS has paid at least $3.4 million to settle child-welfare lawsuits, according to a Tulsa World investigation. That is in addition to the defense of the class-action lawsuit.
Source http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20111026_11_A1_CUTLIN294857
OKLAHOMA CITY - About $10 million in one-time funding has been found in the budget for the Oklahoma Department of Human Services to avoid cutting benefits in two low-income programs and to add $1 million to defend a class-action lawsuit.
On Tuesday, the commission overseeing the agency approved the expenditures, which include avoiding proposed hikes in child-care subsidy co-payments and avoiding lowering monthly assistance to a program for families with developmentally disabled children.
Commissioners also voted to use the money toward the class-action lawsuit filed by New York-based Children's Rights alleging abuse in the foster care system. Trial is set for February in the U.S. Northern District Court in Tulsa.
This brings the total cost of litigation to at least $9 million for private attorneys - $6 million already spent and $2 million previously planned for next year.
DHS Director Howard Hendrick said the funds are from amounts carried over from previous years. He said a new process allows officials to identify carryover funds earlier.
Hendrick said without new funding in the 2013 budget, these cuts may still need to be made.
"We would have found it eventually in January, February or March," Hendrick said. "We have a lot of one-time funds paying for recurring costs, and that's the biggest pause I have about the recommendation. But it's the right thing to do to push on through."
During discussion, Commissioner Jay Dee Chase cut off Commissioner Steven Dow from asking questions and called for a vote on the changes and monthly financial report, which had not been presented.
Procedure allows for further discussion and Dow asked for a "friendly amendment" for a separate vote on the service programs and legal fees.
"I don't accept that," Chase said. "My motion is made and seconded and I don't want to change it."
Dow said he wanted to explore if the $1 million could be used toward increasing foster-care subsidies or in the field offices.
"I'd like to have a conversation and discussion on where else we could spend $1 million before it goes to litigation costs," Dow said.
Commissioner Brad Yarbrough asked Chase to amend the motion so the board could hear the monthly financial report before making an approval.
Commissioners passed the changes by a 7-1 vote, with Dow dissenting.
The meeting ended with a vote to settle a 2007 lawsuit filed by a former foster child, who was subjected to "horrific acts of sexual abuse" by his foster father and his live-in boyfriend.
DHS commissioners and agency attorney Charles Waters refused to state the amount of the settlement or how it is being paid.
Terms were discussed in executive session, and the 7-1 approval was taken in open session.
According to the Oklahoman, the commissioners voted to pay a share of the $1.1 million settlement. The attorneys blacked out the settlement amount in the court papers, but The Oklahoman was able to calculate the amount of the overall settlement because attorneys asked for $308.90 in daily interest until it is paid.
Dow was the lone vote against the settlement and said he has not seen a proposed settlement agreement document.
"I personally did not feel I had enough advance knowledge or notice to make an informed decision," Dow said. "I was uncomfortable being brought in at the last minute."
The victim was a 15-year-old boy in Cleveland County who was placed in the home of Paul Stephen Hull in December 2005, the court records state. Shadow Mountain Behavioral Health System was named in the lawsuit as a contractor with DHS and had a hand in the boy's foster placement.
Hull's live-in lover, Erwin Charles Swender, started molesting the victim, and Hull joined in after the third or fourth assault, records state.
Swender had spent time in an Iowa juvenile facility as a 16-year-old after causing the death of a 22-month-old by hitting the toddler three to four times, according to court records and Iowa media reports.
He had a history with DHS, resulting in the termination of his parental rights to at least seven of his children.
DHS removed him for a few days in February 2006 because of concerns about conditions there. He was returned to the home after Hull agreed to a safety plan, which included keeping Swender away.
The lawsuit alleges Hull ignored the plan, with Swender continuing to live in the home and the two continuing to abuse the boy. DHS removed him for good when he finally told a counselor about the abuse.
The victim said he was abused for several weeks and was exposed to drugs and pornography.
Hull - a former teacher at Oklahoma City's Capitol Hill High School - pleaded guilty in 2007 to attempted rape, forcible sodomy, second-degree rape, lewd molestation and meth possession. He agreed to eight years in prison and to testify against Swender.
Swender pleaded guilty as jury selection began in 2007 to lewd acts with a child, forcible sodomy and meth possession. He was sentenced to 20 years.
The lawsuit alleges DHS left the victim in the home despite suspicions that Hull was ignoring the safety plan.
Since 2005, DHS has paid at least $3.4 million to settle child-welfare lawsuits, according to a Tulsa World investigation. That is in addition to the defense of the class-action lawsuit.
Source http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20111026_11_A1_CUTLIN294857
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Oklahoma Department of Human Services worker testifies in trial concerning foster child's death
Edmond foster parent has been charged in the death of a child she was caring for in 2009.
BY TIFFANY GIBSON
Published: September 23, 2011
GUTHRIE — Attorneys cross-examined a state child welfare worker Thursday in the child abuse trial of Amy Holder. Holder is accused of abusing Naomi Whitecrow, 2, who died after four months in foster care with Holder, of Edmond.
Holder has been charged with felony child abuse in connection with the death. Investigators said Naomi had been living with Holder for four months before her death on January 20, 2009, at 7751 Prairie View Road in Edmond.
The Oklahoma medical examiner's office found recent scrapes and bruises on Naomi's face, chest, back legs, right buttock and head, as well as old and new scabs.
Her death was first ruled undetermined, but an Indiana pathologist was able to review the evidence and reported the girl died of blunt-force injury to the head, abdomen and extremities.
The trial for Holder began this week with jury selection Tuesday and opening statements Wednesday.
Prosecutors called Lashelle Humphreys, a Department of Human Services worker, to the stand Thursday to talk about her interaction with the child and her foster parents.
Humphreys said she became involved in the case in 2008 when DHS was asked to intervene when a baby boy tested positive for cocaine at a hospital.
She said the mother, Kayla Whitecrow, also had cocaine and marijuana in her system, according to medical staff.
As the primary worker on the case, Humphreys said Kayla Whitecrow's two children, including Naomi, were removed from the household in February 2008. They were placed with foster parent Alicia Taylor in Garfield County, she said.
When Kayla Whitecrow checked into the Chi Hullo Li Rehabilitation Center, a Choctaw Nation substance abuse facility, to receive treatment, her two children were placed there with her, Humphreys testified.
A facility worker testified Thursday that Naomi seemed healthy when she was placed there. With only two incident reports of her smashing her finger and hitting her head on a water fountain, the woman said she seemed like a normal child.
Another worker who used to interact with Naomi said she didn't have a problem eating or walking.
“She would play with her little brother and put her face on his,” the worker said. “She was a sweet little girl.”
Humphreys told the jury many times that DHS has a policy to try to reunite families; therefore, she made a plan to help the parents receive treatment.
Scott Adams, Holder's attorney, said that his client began fostering Naomi in September 2008 after Kayla Whitecrow left the facility and abandoned her children.
He said Holder believed the girl might have been abused because she would shake and act distant. Adams said this was made known to DHS, however, they proceeded to try and reunite the girl with their birth mother.
Humphreys testified that dealing with Holder was often difficult because of her demands. She said she tried to organize visits between Naomi and her biological mother, but Holder would always cancel the plans.
Adams said that Holder was caring for three other children at the time and needed more notice to plan visits.
He questioned Humphreys' concern for Naomi, asking why she never visited them.
She testified that she only spent five minutes with Naomi at a Christmas party in December 2008, but noticed that her body language seemed distant.
“She kind of looked through me,” Humphreys said. “Her eyes looked hollow. She looked sad.”
Source http://newsok.com/oklahoma-department-of-human-services-worker-testifies-in-trial-concerning-foster-childs-death/article/3606733?custom_click=lead_story_title
BY TIFFANY GIBSON
Published: September 23, 2011
GUTHRIE — Attorneys cross-examined a state child welfare worker Thursday in the child abuse trial of Amy Holder. Holder is accused of abusing Naomi Whitecrow, 2, who died after four months in foster care with Holder, of Edmond.
Holder has been charged with felony child abuse in connection with the death. Investigators said Naomi had been living with Holder for four months before her death on January 20, 2009, at 7751 Prairie View Road in Edmond.
The Oklahoma medical examiner's office found recent scrapes and bruises on Naomi's face, chest, back legs, right buttock and head, as well as old and new scabs.
Her death was first ruled undetermined, but an Indiana pathologist was able to review the evidence and reported the girl died of blunt-force injury to the head, abdomen and extremities.
The trial for Holder began this week with jury selection Tuesday and opening statements Wednesday.
Prosecutors called Lashelle Humphreys, a Department of Human Services worker, to the stand Thursday to talk about her interaction with the child and her foster parents.
Humphreys said she became involved in the case in 2008 when DHS was asked to intervene when a baby boy tested positive for cocaine at a hospital.
She said the mother, Kayla Whitecrow, also had cocaine and marijuana in her system, according to medical staff.
As the primary worker on the case, Humphreys said Kayla Whitecrow's two children, including Naomi, were removed from the household in February 2008. They were placed with foster parent Alicia Taylor in Garfield County, she said.
When Kayla Whitecrow checked into the Chi Hullo Li Rehabilitation Center, a Choctaw Nation substance abuse facility, to receive treatment, her two children were placed there with her, Humphreys testified.
A facility worker testified Thursday that Naomi seemed healthy when she was placed there. With only two incident reports of her smashing her finger and hitting her head on a water fountain, the woman said she seemed like a normal child.
Another worker who used to interact with Naomi said she didn't have a problem eating or walking.
“She would play with her little brother and put her face on his,” the worker said. “She was a sweet little girl.”
Humphreys told the jury many times that DHS has a policy to try to reunite families; therefore, she made a plan to help the parents receive treatment.
Scott Adams, Holder's attorney, said that his client began fostering Naomi in September 2008 after Kayla Whitecrow left the facility and abandoned her children.
He said Holder believed the girl might have been abused because she would shake and act distant. Adams said this was made known to DHS, however, they proceeded to try and reunite the girl with their birth mother.
Humphreys testified that dealing with Holder was often difficult because of her demands. She said she tried to organize visits between Naomi and her biological mother, but Holder would always cancel the plans.
Adams said that Holder was caring for three other children at the time and needed more notice to plan visits.
He questioned Humphreys' concern for Naomi, asking why she never visited them.
She testified that she only spent five minutes with Naomi at a Christmas party in December 2008, but noticed that her body language seemed distant.
“She kind of looked through me,” Humphreys said. “Her eyes looked hollow. She looked sad.”
Source http://newsok.com/oklahoma-department-of-human-services-worker-testifies-in-trial-concerning-foster-childs-death/article/3606733?custom_click=lead_story_title
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Second Oklahoma DHS worker fired in Serenity Deal case
Randy J. Lack, 58, a Pottawatomie County child-welfare specialist, has denied doing anything wrong. He worked for the Department of Human Services for 11 years.
The principal DHS worker on the Serenity Deal case was fired Tuesday.
Randy J. Lack, 58, a Pottawatomie County child-welfare specialist, has denied doing anything wrong. He worked for the Department of Human Services for 11 years.
Serenity Deal, 5, died in June from an assault after she began living full time with her father in Oklahoma City at the recommendation of Lack and other DHS workers.
The father, Sean Devon Brooks, now is charged with first-degree murder. She was placed with her father from foster care even though she was injured twice in January during overnight visits with him.
“I don't have a crystal ball. I couldn't possibly have known any of this was going to happen,” Lack said last week.
Lack said he thought Serenity's injuries in January were from accidents.
His supervisor, Jennifer Shawn, was fired Thursday.
Lack was fired on grounds of unsatisfactory performance, misconduct, willful failure, dishonesty in reports and neglect of duty.
Lack of background check cited
In the termination papers, the agency specifically said Lack failed to fully check the father's background, often taking the father's word for things. Lack, for instance, once reported Brooks had no history of family violence. Brooks' ex-girlfriend actually had obtained a protective order against him after an angry confrontation in 2003.
The agency also said Lack never interviewed that ex-girlfriend, who had three children with Brooks. The ex-girlfriend later told police she considered Brooks too violent to be around his children.
The agency said Lack failed to notify the judge and the district attorney when Serenity needed medical treatment for black eyes and a swollen face the second time she was injured in January.
The agency said Lack failed to report to a judge that Serenity had reacted negatively to hearing her father's name while in foster care. Both of Serenity's foster mothers had reported this concern, according to the termination records.
Lack and Shawn have hired an attorney, Pete Serrata, to appeal their firings.
Serrata on Tuesday again criticized DHS, saying the agency did an incomplete and haphazard investigation into what happened in Serenity's case. Lack last week said he was personally invested in his cases.
“When you go home at night you still think about those kids,” he said then. “It's the first time in my life I've ever been fired. ... I've always done a good job in whatever capacity I've worked. Now, at this late stage in life, having to start all over again, it's a pretty scary thing.”
Source http://newsok.com/second-oklahoma-dhs-worker-fired-in-serenity-deal-case/article/3606070
The principal DHS worker on the Serenity Deal case was fired Tuesday.
Randy J. Lack, 58, a Pottawatomie County child-welfare specialist, has denied doing anything wrong. He worked for the Department of Human Services for 11 years.
Serenity Deal, 5, died in June from an assault after she began living full time with her father in Oklahoma City at the recommendation of Lack and other DHS workers.
The father, Sean Devon Brooks, now is charged with first-degree murder. She was placed with her father from foster care even though she was injured twice in January during overnight visits with him.
“I don't have a crystal ball. I couldn't possibly have known any of this was going to happen,” Lack said last week.
Lack said he thought Serenity's injuries in January were from accidents.
His supervisor, Jennifer Shawn, was fired Thursday.
Lack was fired on grounds of unsatisfactory performance, misconduct, willful failure, dishonesty in reports and neglect of duty.
Lack of background check cited
In the termination papers, the agency specifically said Lack failed to fully check the father's background, often taking the father's word for things. Lack, for instance, once reported Brooks had no history of family violence. Brooks' ex-girlfriend actually had obtained a protective order against him after an angry confrontation in 2003.
The agency also said Lack never interviewed that ex-girlfriend, who had three children with Brooks. The ex-girlfriend later told police she considered Brooks too violent to be around his children.
The agency said Lack failed to notify the judge and the district attorney when Serenity needed medical treatment for black eyes and a swollen face the second time she was injured in January.
The agency said Lack failed to report to a judge that Serenity had reacted negatively to hearing her father's name while in foster care. Both of Serenity's foster mothers had reported this concern, according to the termination records.
Lack and Shawn have hired an attorney, Pete Serrata, to appeal their firings.
Serrata on Tuesday again criticized DHS, saying the agency did an incomplete and haphazard investigation into what happened in Serenity's case. Lack last week said he was personally invested in his cases.
“When you go home at night you still think about those kids,” he said then. “It's the first time in my life I've ever been fired. ... I've always done a good job in whatever capacity I've worked. Now, at this late stage in life, having to start all over again, it's a pretty scary thing.”
Source http://newsok.com/second-oklahoma-dhs-worker-fired-in-serenity-deal-case/article/3606070
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Lawmakers express continued frustration with DCF response in Barahona case
By Dara Kam
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 6:16 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2011
Posted: 6:12 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2011
TALLAHASSEE — Frustrated lawmakers grilled the head of Florida's Department of Children and Families Tuesday and expressed doubt about whether he's doing enough to make the state's children safer in the aftermath of the alleged Barahona child abuse case.
DCF Secretary David Wilkins' appearance Tuesday morning before the Senate Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee was his first since the July 25 release of a Miami-Dade County grand jury report that found that child welfare workers failed to properly monitor Nubia Barahona's adoptive parents as highlighted by her alleged torture and slaying this winter.
Wilkins was appointed by Gov. Rick Scott shortly before 10-year-old Nubia's body was discovered in a plastic bag in the back of her adopted father Jorge Barahona's truck alongside Interstate 95 in West Palm Beach on Valentine's Day. Her twin brother, Victor, was found drenched in chemicals and convulsing in the front seat.
Jorge Barahona and his wife Carmen, the children's foster parents for five years before adopting them, have been charged with first-degree murder and child abuse in Nubia's death.
Since then, the agency hired 100 child protection investigators, conducted additional training session for caseworkers and increased the number of foster children who are getting regular medical and dental care, Wilkins said. The department has also stopped measuring how long hot line operators spend on the phone with tipsters, he said. The abuse hot line received at least two calls in the days preceding Nubia's death.
"But we've still got a long way to go," Wilkins told the committee, acknowledging there was a "big breakdown" in the Barahona case.
The non-binding grand jury report recommended that child welfare workers have full access to databases containing reports of allegations about at-risk children, something that Wilkins said he was still trying to put into effect.
But he drew fire from Committee Chairwoman Ronda Storms, R-Valrico, when he blamed the tragedy on Andrea Fleary, the DCF child abuse investigator fired in March who allegedly repeatedly signed off on the children's welfare without making contact with them.
"Our assessment is that the number one symptom of the problem was the case manager was not owning the case," he said.
To which Storm said, "I don't know what the heck that means. What the blankety-blank does that mean? The little girl was practically peeling paint off the wall to eat and they were afraid of these people and everybody at the school was saying it and the most we can come up with was the case manager was not owning the case?
"I think you should be more direct to say this was a human failure for humanity for this person. That's a human failure. I don't know how else to say it."
Wilkins also said that all foster children are now being seen by caseworkers every 30 days but that he wanted an extra $25 million for additional visits "any time a major event" occurs in the child's life.
Caseworkers should already have been visiting the children monthly, Sen. Nan Rich said, because lawmakers initiated that requirement after the disappearance a decade ago of Rilya Wilson, a 4-year-old foster child who has never been found.
"We're going right back to the same kind of situation," Rich, D-Weston, said.
The disconnection of the Barahonas' telephone, the children's problems at school, hot line reports and an inability to make physical contact with the twins apparently went ignored, Rich said.
"Normally I would say we don't need legislation. But to me something is dramatically and drastically wrong if all of these red flags are not seen. This to me is just crying out for us to do something," she said.
Wilkins suggested that the agency keep tabs on adopted children for up to one year, especially in the case of special needs children.
But Storms, a lawyer, said she believed that would be unconstitutional.
After Wilkins' hour-long testimony, lawmakers appeared uncertain what, if anything, they could do.
"It's a source of enormous frustration. It can be very discouraging to continue to hear some of the same things," Storms said after Wilkins testified. "All I can do is keep trying and keep hoping that we get a different result. But we can make all the laws that we want to make and pass all the statutes and if people will not do what they're supposed to do then I don't know how you fix that."
Source http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/lawmakers-express-continued-frustration-with-dcf-response-in-1869405.html
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 6:16 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2011
Posted: 6:12 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2011
TALLAHASSEE — Frustrated lawmakers grilled the head of Florida's Department of Children and Families Tuesday and expressed doubt about whether he's doing enough to make the state's children safer in the aftermath of the alleged Barahona child abuse case.
DCF Secretary David Wilkins' appearance Tuesday morning before the Senate Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee was his first since the July 25 release of a Miami-Dade County grand jury report that found that child welfare workers failed to properly monitor Nubia Barahona's adoptive parents as highlighted by her alleged torture and slaying this winter.
Wilkins was appointed by Gov. Rick Scott shortly before 10-year-old Nubia's body was discovered in a plastic bag in the back of her adopted father Jorge Barahona's truck alongside Interstate 95 in West Palm Beach on Valentine's Day. Her twin brother, Victor, was found drenched in chemicals and convulsing in the front seat.
Jorge Barahona and his wife Carmen, the children's foster parents for five years before adopting them, have been charged with first-degree murder and child abuse in Nubia's death.
Since then, the agency hired 100 child protection investigators, conducted additional training session for caseworkers and increased the number of foster children who are getting regular medical and dental care, Wilkins said. The department has also stopped measuring how long hot line operators spend on the phone with tipsters, he said. The abuse hot line received at least two calls in the days preceding Nubia's death.
"But we've still got a long way to go," Wilkins told the committee, acknowledging there was a "big breakdown" in the Barahona case.
The non-binding grand jury report recommended that child welfare workers have full access to databases containing reports of allegations about at-risk children, something that Wilkins said he was still trying to put into effect.
But he drew fire from Committee Chairwoman Ronda Storms, R-Valrico, when he blamed the tragedy on Andrea Fleary, the DCF child abuse investigator fired in March who allegedly repeatedly signed off on the children's welfare without making contact with them.
"Our assessment is that the number one symptom of the problem was the case manager was not owning the case," he said.
To which Storm said, "I don't know what the heck that means. What the blankety-blank does that mean? The little girl was practically peeling paint off the wall to eat and they were afraid of these people and everybody at the school was saying it and the most we can come up with was the case manager was not owning the case?
"I think you should be more direct to say this was a human failure for humanity for this person. That's a human failure. I don't know how else to say it."
Wilkins also said that all foster children are now being seen by caseworkers every 30 days but that he wanted an extra $25 million for additional visits "any time a major event" occurs in the child's life.
Caseworkers should already have been visiting the children monthly, Sen. Nan Rich said, because lawmakers initiated that requirement after the disappearance a decade ago of Rilya Wilson, a 4-year-old foster child who has never been found.
"We're going right back to the same kind of situation," Rich, D-Weston, said.
The disconnection of the Barahonas' telephone, the children's problems at school, hot line reports and an inability to make physical contact with the twins apparently went ignored, Rich said.
"Normally I would say we don't need legislation. But to me something is dramatically and drastically wrong if all of these red flags are not seen. This to me is just crying out for us to do something," she said.
Wilkins suggested that the agency keep tabs on adopted children for up to one year, especially in the case of special needs children.
But Storms, a lawyer, said she believed that would be unconstitutional.
After Wilkins' hour-long testimony, lawmakers appeared uncertain what, if anything, they could do.
"It's a source of enormous frustration. It can be very discouraging to continue to hear some of the same things," Storms said after Wilkins testified. "All I can do is keep trying and keep hoping that we get a different result. But we can make all the laws that we want to make and pass all the statutes and if people will not do what they're supposed to do then I don't know how you fix that."
Source http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/lawmakers-express-continued-frustration-with-dcf-response-in-1869405.html
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Oklahoma DHS governing board refuses special meeting on Serenity Deal death
Serenity Deal, 5, died in Oklahoma City after being placed with father by the Oklahoma Department of Human Services.
The governing board of the state's child-welfare agency has refused repeated requests to hold special meetings on the high-profile deaths of children in its care.
Steven Dow, of Tulsa, called for the special meetings. He is one of nine commissioners who oversee the state Department of Human Services.
He told The Oklahoman, “My calls for greater accountability and interest by the commission in even asking questions are met with a deafening silence. … I basically have gotten no response from most of the commissioners.”
Dow asked for special meetings after the 2010 death of Aja Johnson, 7, and the June death of Serenity Deal, 5.
He brought up five other children's deaths in one of his requests for a meeting about Serenity.
“Not once has the Commission discussed any of these horrific situations nor attempted to understand how our agency failed these children. Not once,” he wrote in an email to other commissioners.
“For a system to allow so many tragic deaths in such a short period of time is unconscionable. For us to not invite someone who has investigated the cases nor even ask our staff to explain what, from their perspective, happened is irresponsible and an utter dereliction of our duty to oversee the Department,” he wrote.
Dow said only one other commissioner, Anne Roberts, of Norman, agreed to a special meeting on Serenity.
Against a special meeting over Serenity was Commissioner Aneta Wilkinson, of Tulsa.
Wilkinson wrote in an email to Dow: “I firmly believe that DHS is handling this very unfortunate matter in the correct way. This terrible incident is not a system failure but involves the actions of individual people.
“Calling a special meeting at this time will only impede the investigation and disciplinary actions that are being implemented at this time. The proper role of the Commission is to determine policy. We are not and we should not be involved in personnel matters.”
Serenity died less than a month after she began living with her father full time in Oklahoma City at the recommendation of DHS workers.
The girl was placed with her father, Sean Devon Brooks, even though she was injured twice in January during overnight visits with him. DHS was involved because Serenity's mother had been accused of molesting a boy.
Brooks, who did not know he was the girl's father until she was 3, has been charged with first-degree murder.
DHS officials say child-welfare workers made mistakes in the girl's case. Four workers were put on administrative leave. One committed suicide. Another resigned. The other two are in the process of being fired.
Aja, 7, was killed in January 2010 by her stepfather, Lester Hobbs. Investigators said Hobbs killed the girl's mother in his motor home in Geronimo, left in her car with Aja, killed Aja and killed himself.
Aja was visiting her mother at the time of her death. Her father had temporary custody. DHS was criticized after her death because child-welfare workers earlier in her life had pushed for her to live with her mother and stepfather even though he was a felon and there were reports the stepfather abused her.
Source http://newsok.com/oklahoma-dhs-governing-board-refuses-special-meeting-on-serenity-deal-death/article/3602731?custom_click=pod_headline_crime
The governing board of the state's child-welfare agency has refused repeated requests to hold special meetings on the high-profile deaths of children in its care.
Steven Dow, of Tulsa, called for the special meetings. He is one of nine commissioners who oversee the state Department of Human Services.
He told The Oklahoman, “My calls for greater accountability and interest by the commission in even asking questions are met with a deafening silence. … I basically have gotten no response from most of the commissioners.”
Dow asked for special meetings after the 2010 death of Aja Johnson, 7, and the June death of Serenity Deal, 5.
He brought up five other children's deaths in one of his requests for a meeting about Serenity.
“Not once has the Commission discussed any of these horrific situations nor attempted to understand how our agency failed these children. Not once,” he wrote in an email to other commissioners.
“For a system to allow so many tragic deaths in such a short period of time is unconscionable. For us to not invite someone who has investigated the cases nor even ask our staff to explain what, from their perspective, happened is irresponsible and an utter dereliction of our duty to oversee the Department,” he wrote.
Dow said only one other commissioner, Anne Roberts, of Norman, agreed to a special meeting on Serenity.
Against a special meeting over Serenity was Commissioner Aneta Wilkinson, of Tulsa.
Wilkinson wrote in an email to Dow: “I firmly believe that DHS is handling this very unfortunate matter in the correct way. This terrible incident is not a system failure but involves the actions of individual people.
“Calling a special meeting at this time will only impede the investigation and disciplinary actions that are being implemented at this time. The proper role of the Commission is to determine policy. We are not and we should not be involved in personnel matters.”
Serenity died less than a month after she began living with her father full time in Oklahoma City at the recommendation of DHS workers.
The girl was placed with her father, Sean Devon Brooks, even though she was injured twice in January during overnight visits with him. DHS was involved because Serenity's mother had been accused of molesting a boy.
Brooks, who did not know he was the girl's father until she was 3, has been charged with first-degree murder.
DHS officials say child-welfare workers made mistakes in the girl's case. Four workers were put on administrative leave. One committed suicide. Another resigned. The other two are in the process of being fired.
Aja, 7, was killed in January 2010 by her stepfather, Lester Hobbs. Investigators said Hobbs killed the girl's mother in his motor home in Geronimo, left in her car with Aja, killed Aja and killed himself.
Aja was visiting her mother at the time of her death. Her father had temporary custody. DHS was criticized after her death because child-welfare workers earlier in her life had pushed for her to live with her mother and stepfather even though he was a felon and there were reports the stepfather abused her.
Source http://newsok.com/oklahoma-dhs-governing-board-refuses-special-meeting-on-serenity-deal-death/article/3602731?custom_click=pod_headline_crime
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Forensic pathologist: Nathaniel Craver's injuries could not be self-inflicted
"Traumatic brain injury" and "failure to thrive" caused Russian boy's death
By RICK LEE
Daily Record/Sunday News
Posted: 09/07/2011 09:29:04 AM EDT
A close-up photograph of 7-year-old Nathaniel Craver's face as he lay on an autopsy table showed his swollen head.
How extensive that swelling was became apparent when his head was compared to the frailness of his neck.
Dr. Wayne Ross, a forensic pathologist who has performed more than 9,000 autopsies and post-mortem exams, could not keep the astonishment out of his voice as he described the dead boy to the jury.
"His head, virtually his entire head, was swollen up like a balloon," he said. "And I don't mean just a little bit of swelling. The entire skull and head looked like a watermelon. Like an alien."
Ross, who conducts many York County autopsies for suspicious deaths, was testifying on the second day of trial for Michael and Nanette Craver, the Carroll Township couple accused of killing Nathaniel, their adopted Russian son.
Nathaniel died on Aug. 25, 2009 at Hershey Medical Center, five days after Michael Craver, 46, rushed him to the hospital.
Ross was on the witness stand for more than four hours, testifying about the boy's injuries and giving his expert opinion how they occurred. He said Nathaniel died from "complications of a traumatic brain injury" and "severe failure to thrive."
He said he was told before autopsy that Nathaniel's parents said he had a history of injuring himself.
Michael and Nanette Craver, 55, have maintained the boy struck his head on a wood stove in their home. They told police, doctors and child abuse investigators Nathaniel seemed all right except for a mark on his head. They put an ice pack on the mark and put him to bed about 45 minutes later. In they morning, they said, they could not rouse him.
Ross told the jury he began his examination from that aspect.
He said, during his examination, he turned to the police officer observing the autopsy and told him the boy's death "needed to be pursued from the aspect of abuse caused by another person."
Ross said he found evidence of injury to the right side of the boy's brain, a subdural hematoma, from an impact "of hundreds of Gs of force," inflicted about two weeks before he was brought to the hospital in a coma.
Ross said the swelling of the boy's head was the result of "multiple impacts."
Relying on photographs taken of Nathaniel during the summer of 2009, including one of a healthy, well-toned shirtless boy, Ross concluded that six weeks before his death the boy suffered repeated impacts to his head, pulled legs and arms, blunt force trauma to the chest, possibly was bound and was starved.
The doctor also found evidence of a skull fracture on the right side of the head, a healing broken rib, compression spinal injuries, and high enzyme levels confirming liver and heart damage.
The child otherwise was covered with small bruises and abrasions on his chest and back. In a picture of the dead child laying on his back, every rib could easily be counted.
Ross said Nathaniel's swollen brain at autopsy "was a mess."
"It was soft as anything," he said. "It was purple and it was dead. Flat and mushy and just horrible."
On cross-examination, defense attorneys pushed Ross with alternative theories for the injuries, such as fetal alcohol syndrome, self-abuse, genetic disorders and diseases. Ross conceded such theories could account for injuries in some cases but "not in this case."
He said he specifically looked for and did not find evidence of alcohol fetal syndrome in Nathaniel's brain.
When York County Office of Children, Youth and Families placed Nathaniel and his twin sister, Elizabeth, in her foster care at age 5, "They asked me to watch them to see if they injured themselves in any way," foster mother Lori Ferree said.
She testified neither child did while in her care for about two weeks.
Ferree said Nathaniel was an active boy who loved to play but seemed confused about being allowed to play in the dirt and get dirty. She said when she would take the children for supervised visits with the parents, the children would return in more "formal" clothes.
She said Nanette Craver chided her one time for dressing Elizabeth in the wrong shoes for her outfit."
Catholic Charities parent educator Lisa Blake testified that Michael Craver railed against Children, Youth and Families' "interference" in the family's lives.
She said during one meeting with him, he was so verbally abusive, she was happy to cut the session short.
Andrew Blochichak, a family physician and Nanette Craver's brother-in-law, testified he did not see Michael and Nathaniel Craver at any family gatherings the summer of 2009. He said he did see Nanette and Elizabeth. His testimony implied Nathaniel was being kept from sight.
He said he asked Nanette why Nathaniel was not at a July 4th party and a later wedding.
"Nanette said, 'Nathaniel is a handful,' and she didn't want to bring him," he said.
Source http://www.ydr.com/crime/ci_18841999?source=most_viewed
Jury hears details of adopted Russian boy's serious injuries
The Carroll Township couple, which adopted twins, have remained in prison.
By RICK LEE
Daily Record/Sunday News
Posted: 09/06/2011 08:56:57 AM EDT
After Michael Craver rushed his unresponsive 7-year-old son to Holy Spirit Hospital, the first doctor to examine him noticed an unstitched, healing wound on the back of the boy's head.
Beside the boy's frighteningly swollen face, mottled bluish skin, fixed pupils, raspy respiration and deep coma, the doctor wondered about the untreated head wound.
Dr. Nicholas J.T. Baran said Craver told him, "These injuries kind of happen all of the time."
Craver later said, "... it's amazing what you get used to," a York County Child abuse investigator said.
Nathaniel Craver, Michael and Nanette Craver's adopted Russian son, died at Hershey Medical Center on Aug, 25, 2009, five days after he was first taken to the hospital.
Tuesday
(SUBMITTED)in opening statements in the York County Judicial Center, Chief Deputy Prosecutor Tim Barker said the Cravers were charged with the boy's murder for both inflicting the injuries and denying him their parental duty to care for and protect him. Both parents are charged with criminal homicide, endangering the welfare of a child and conspiracy.
Barker told the jury of Nathaniel's uncountable injuries spread "head to toe" over his body. He said there was evidence of repeated physical abuse, "pattern" injuries and binding.
He focused specifically on the boy's swollen face and his underlying head injuries. Barker said he was told people cried when they saw Nathaniel in the hospital and that some described his appearance as "a little monster."
He said the Cravers' contention that the boy's physical and emotional disorders - fetal alcohol syndrome and reactive detachment disorder - and allegations of injuring himself resulted in his death.
"The defendants have used Nathaniel's background .... to cover what was really going on," he said. "There is only one conclusion. he did not self-abuse himself to death."
First Assistant Public Defender Clasina Mahoney argued that is exactly what happened. She said the Cravers "did not sit back and watch it happen, as the commonwealth would have you believe. They desperately searched for help."
They sought answers from doctors and hospitals throughout southeastern Pennsylvania, including Hershey Medical Center and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, she said.
She said therapy at a Lancaster facility, where Michael Craver batted balloons with his son and acted like a princess with his daughter, Nathaniel's twin sister, helped the girl who had similar problems, but not Nathaniel.
The first day of testimony focused on Nathaniel's appearance when he entered the hospital. His parents said he had hit his head on a wood stove in their Carroll Township home.
An emergency room nurse at Holy Spirit Hospital said the boy's head, "to me, felt like a wet sponge."
Baran testified Nathaniel registered the lowest possible score on a medical coma test. He also told the jury that a scan of the grotesquely swollen left side of the boy's face showed no subdural fresh bleeding and was the result of an older injury.
Dr. Mark Iantosca, a Hershey Medical Center neurosurgeon who removed part of Nathaniel's skull to relieve the swelling, said he found older blood under the boy's scalp and fresh blood pushing on his brain.
Iantosca also said the injury could have happened the way the Cravers' said it did.
"I think a 7-year-old child, throwing himself with a running start headfirst into a metal object would be sufficient to cause that injury," he said.
He added that the head injury could have been caused by "a closed fist, a blunt object or a car accident ...."
He also agreed with the defense that the child could have appeared uninjured and then suffered bleeding and swelling of the brain during the night.
The trial continues today and is expected to last through next week.
Parents' defense
On trial for murder, Michael and Nanette Craver maintain they never harmed their 7-year-old son, Nathaniel, but that the boy they adopted at 18 months old in Russia had physical and emotional problems that caused him to injure himself.
From the time Nathaniel was rushed to Holy Spirit Hospital on Aug. 20, 2009, to their arrests in February 2010 to the first day of their trial in the York County Judicial Center, they have consistently said the boy struck his head on a wood stove in the couple's Carroll Township home.
According to testimony, evidence and statements presented in court Tuesday during the first day of trial, the jury learned:
Nathaniel and his twin sister were born prematurely in a Russian prison to a mother with substance abuse problems;
Both children were diagnosed in the United States with fetal alcohol syndrome and reactive detachment disorder;
Nathaniel was hyperactive, mentally delayed and had a short attention span;
He pinched and bit himself, pulled his hair and eyebrows out and pulled the skin under his nose until it bled;
He had a high pain tolerance and appeared fearless;
He would bang his head and rock himself to sleep;
The Cravers were reported twice to York County Children, Youth and Families for apparent injuries on the children. The children were placed in foster care but no findings of abuse were substantiated;
After returning from foster care, Nathaniel was distant with his parents;
Nathaniel was distant with children but "touchy-feely" with adults, offering them hugs and kisses;
He would pull the family dog's fur;
He was abusive to his sister;
He frequently wet the bed.
Nathaniel's injuries
The jury also learned Nathaniel's injuries included:
A fresh hematoma, massive bleeding between the skull and the brain;
Older evidence of bleeding between the scalp and the skull;
A boxer's cauliflower ear on the left side of his head;
A ruptured right eardrum;
Evidence of binding;
Pattern bruising to the back and buttocks;
Emaciation and less than one millimeter of subcutaneous fat;
And "head-to-toe" marks, bruising, contusions and abrasions, according to at least two medical witnesses.
http://www.ydr.com/crime/ci_18834019
Click Here To Read More About This Case
By RICK LEE
Daily Record/Sunday News
Posted: 09/07/2011 09:29:04 AM EDT
A close-up photograph of 7-year-old Nathaniel Craver's face as he lay on an autopsy table showed his swollen head.
How extensive that swelling was became apparent when his head was compared to the frailness of his neck.
Dr. Wayne Ross, a forensic pathologist who has performed more than 9,000 autopsies and post-mortem exams, could not keep the astonishment out of his voice as he described the dead boy to the jury.
"His head, virtually his entire head, was swollen up like a balloon," he said. "And I don't mean just a little bit of swelling. The entire skull and head looked like a watermelon. Like an alien."
Ross, who conducts many York County autopsies for suspicious deaths, was testifying on the second day of trial for Michael and Nanette Craver, the Carroll Township couple accused of killing Nathaniel, their adopted Russian son.
Nathaniel died on Aug. 25, 2009 at Hershey Medical Center, five days after Michael Craver, 46, rushed him to the hospital.
Ross was on the witness stand for more than four hours, testifying about the boy's injuries and giving his expert opinion how they occurred. He said Nathaniel died from "complications of a traumatic brain injury" and "severe failure to thrive."
He said he was told before autopsy that Nathaniel's parents said he had a history of injuring himself.
Michael and Nanette Craver, 55, have maintained the boy struck his head on a wood stove in their home. They told police, doctors and child abuse investigators Nathaniel seemed all right except for a mark on his head. They put an ice pack on the mark and put him to bed about 45 minutes later. In they morning, they said, they could not rouse him.
Ross told the jury he began his examination from that aspect.
He said, during his examination, he turned to the police officer observing the autopsy and told him the boy's death "needed to be pursued from the aspect of abuse caused by another person."
Ross said he found evidence of injury to the right side of the boy's brain, a subdural hematoma, from an impact "of hundreds of Gs of force," inflicted about two weeks before he was brought to the hospital in a coma.
Ross said the swelling of the boy's head was the result of "multiple impacts."
Relying on photographs taken of Nathaniel during the summer of 2009, including one of a healthy, well-toned shirtless boy, Ross concluded that six weeks before his death the boy suffered repeated impacts to his head, pulled legs and arms, blunt force trauma to the chest, possibly was bound and was starved.
The doctor also found evidence of a skull fracture on the right side of the head, a healing broken rib, compression spinal injuries, and high enzyme levels confirming liver and heart damage.
The child otherwise was covered with small bruises and abrasions on his chest and back. In a picture of the dead child laying on his back, every rib could easily be counted.
Ross said Nathaniel's swollen brain at autopsy "was a mess."
"It was soft as anything," he said. "It was purple and it was dead. Flat and mushy and just horrible."
On cross-examination, defense attorneys pushed Ross with alternative theories for the injuries, such as fetal alcohol syndrome, self-abuse, genetic disorders and diseases. Ross conceded such theories could account for injuries in some cases but "not in this case."
He said he specifically looked for and did not find evidence of alcohol fetal syndrome in Nathaniel's brain.
When York County Office of Children, Youth and Families placed Nathaniel and his twin sister, Elizabeth, in her foster care at age 5, "They asked me to watch them to see if they injured themselves in any way," foster mother Lori Ferree said.
She testified neither child did while in her care for about two weeks.
Ferree said Nathaniel was an active boy who loved to play but seemed confused about being allowed to play in the dirt and get dirty. She said when she would take the children for supervised visits with the parents, the children would return in more "formal" clothes.
She said Nanette Craver chided her one time for dressing Elizabeth in the wrong shoes for her outfit."
Catholic Charities parent educator Lisa Blake testified that Michael Craver railed against Children, Youth and Families' "interference" in the family's lives.
She said during one meeting with him, he was so verbally abusive, she was happy to cut the session short.
Andrew Blochichak, a family physician and Nanette Craver's brother-in-law, testified he did not see Michael and Nathaniel Craver at any family gatherings the summer of 2009. He said he did see Nanette and Elizabeth. His testimony implied Nathaniel was being kept from sight.
He said he asked Nanette why Nathaniel was not at a July 4th party and a later wedding.
"Nanette said, 'Nathaniel is a handful,' and she didn't want to bring him," he said.
Source http://www.ydr.com/crime/ci_18841999?source=most_viewed
Jury hears details of adopted Russian boy's serious injuries
The Carroll Township couple, which adopted twins, have remained in prison.
By RICK LEE
Daily Record/Sunday News
Posted: 09/06/2011 08:56:57 AM EDT
After Michael Craver rushed his unresponsive 7-year-old son to Holy Spirit Hospital, the first doctor to examine him noticed an unstitched, healing wound on the back of the boy's head.
Beside the boy's frighteningly swollen face, mottled bluish skin, fixed pupils, raspy respiration and deep coma, the doctor wondered about the untreated head wound.
Dr. Nicholas J.T. Baran said Craver told him, "These injuries kind of happen all of the time."
Craver later said, "... it's amazing what you get used to," a York County Child abuse investigator said.
Nathaniel Craver, Michael and Nanette Craver's adopted Russian son, died at Hershey Medical Center on Aug, 25, 2009, five days after he was first taken to the hospital.
Tuesday
(SUBMITTED)in opening statements in the York County Judicial Center, Chief Deputy Prosecutor Tim Barker said the Cravers were charged with the boy's murder for both inflicting the injuries and denying him their parental duty to care for and protect him. Both parents are charged with criminal homicide, endangering the welfare of a child and conspiracy.
Barker told the jury of Nathaniel's uncountable injuries spread "head to toe" over his body. He said there was evidence of repeated physical abuse, "pattern" injuries and binding.
He focused specifically on the boy's swollen face and his underlying head injuries. Barker said he was told people cried when they saw Nathaniel in the hospital and that some described his appearance as "a little monster."
He said the Cravers' contention that the boy's physical and emotional disorders - fetal alcohol syndrome and reactive detachment disorder - and allegations of injuring himself resulted in his death.
"The defendants have used Nathaniel's background .... to cover what was really going on," he said. "There is only one conclusion. he did not self-abuse himself to death."
First Assistant Public Defender Clasina Mahoney argued that is exactly what happened. She said the Cravers "did not sit back and watch it happen, as the commonwealth would have you believe. They desperately searched for help."
They sought answers from doctors and hospitals throughout southeastern Pennsylvania, including Hershey Medical Center and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, she said.
She said therapy at a Lancaster facility, where Michael Craver batted balloons with his son and acted like a princess with his daughter, Nathaniel's twin sister, helped the girl who had similar problems, but not Nathaniel.
The first day of testimony focused on Nathaniel's appearance when he entered the hospital. His parents said he had hit his head on a wood stove in their Carroll Township home.
An emergency room nurse at Holy Spirit Hospital said the boy's head, "to me, felt like a wet sponge."
Baran testified Nathaniel registered the lowest possible score on a medical coma test. He also told the jury that a scan of the grotesquely swollen left side of the boy's face showed no subdural fresh bleeding and was the result of an older injury.
Dr. Mark Iantosca, a Hershey Medical Center neurosurgeon who removed part of Nathaniel's skull to relieve the swelling, said he found older blood under the boy's scalp and fresh blood pushing on his brain.
Iantosca also said the injury could have happened the way the Cravers' said it did.
"I think a 7-year-old child, throwing himself with a running start headfirst into a metal object would be sufficient to cause that injury," he said.
He added that the head injury could have been caused by "a closed fist, a blunt object or a car accident ...."
He also agreed with the defense that the child could have appeared uninjured and then suffered bleeding and swelling of the brain during the night.
The trial continues today and is expected to last through next week.
Parents' defense
On trial for murder, Michael and Nanette Craver maintain they never harmed their 7-year-old son, Nathaniel, but that the boy they adopted at 18 months old in Russia had physical and emotional problems that caused him to injure himself.
From the time Nathaniel was rushed to Holy Spirit Hospital on Aug. 20, 2009, to their arrests in February 2010 to the first day of their trial in the York County Judicial Center, they have consistently said the boy struck his head on a wood stove in the couple's Carroll Township home.
According to testimony, evidence and statements presented in court Tuesday during the first day of trial, the jury learned:
Nathaniel and his twin sister were born prematurely in a Russian prison to a mother with substance abuse problems;
Both children were diagnosed in the United States with fetal alcohol syndrome and reactive detachment disorder;
Nathaniel was hyperactive, mentally delayed and had a short attention span;
He pinched and bit himself, pulled his hair and eyebrows out and pulled the skin under his nose until it bled;
He had a high pain tolerance and appeared fearless;
He would bang his head and rock himself to sleep;
The Cravers were reported twice to York County Children, Youth and Families for apparent injuries on the children. The children were placed in foster care but no findings of abuse were substantiated;
After returning from foster care, Nathaniel was distant with his parents;
Nathaniel was distant with children but "touchy-feely" with adults, offering them hugs and kisses;
He would pull the family dog's fur;
He was abusive to his sister;
He frequently wet the bed.
Nathaniel's injuries
The jury also learned Nathaniel's injuries included:
A fresh hematoma, massive bleeding between the skull and the brain;
Older evidence of bleeding between the scalp and the skull;
A boxer's cauliflower ear on the left side of his head;
A ruptured right eardrum;
Evidence of binding;
Pattern bruising to the back and buttocks;
Emaciation and less than one millimeter of subcutaneous fat;
And "head-to-toe" marks, bruising, contusions and abrasions, according to at least two medical witnesses.
http://www.ydr.com/crime/ci_18834019
Click Here To Read More About This Case
Friday, September 2, 2011
Arizona: meet the CPS bunker By Laurie Roberts
It seemed a reasonable enough question.
A four-month-old baby is found not breathing and near death, according to Chandler police. Baby Josephine suffers 14 broken bones, bruises all over her face and a cigarette burn to her arm.
All this, while she is in the custody of a “safety monitor,” a woman entrusted with the infant's care by Child Protective Services.
So, as I said, it seemed reasonable to ask why CPS put the baby with this woman and what steps the agency took to ensure the baby would be safe — back before she became a punching bag and an ash tray.
Public: Meet bunker.
“Your request for public records in this matter is respectfully declined,” wrote Todd Stone, public records request coordinator for the Department of Economic Security, which oversees CPS.
To understand how outrageous the DES response is, you have to go back to 2007 when three Tucson children died on CPS's watch. While CPS was busy sweeping the story under its well-worn rug, this newspaper and The Arizona Daily Star sued to get the records, uncovering a stunning array of foul-ups and failures that hastened those children to their graves. As a result, the Legislature in 2008 passed a series of reforms, including a law opening CPS records when a child is beaten to death or nearly so.
The new law was simple. It says that CPS “shall promptly provide CPS information to the public regarding a case of child abuse, abandonment or neglect that has resulted in a fatality or near fatality.”
Now, fast forward to last week, when Chandler police arrested Angelica Jimenez and her boyfriend, Steven Saldana, for child abuse. According to police, baby Josephine was no longer breathing when she was discovered in the early hours of Aug. 3. She was taken to Cardon Children's Medical Center, near death and in seizures.
“The victim was found to have fourteen broken bones in the legs and ribs. There also was a cigarette burn to the left forearm along with bumps and bruises on the forehead as well as bruising on both sides of the face…,” police wrote in court documents. “Forensic doctors stated the child had suffered a near-death episode and the injuries were non-accidental trauma.”
Jimenez told police that the baby had been placed in her care by CPS, a fact which CPS confirmed.
So I asked for the records last week. I wanted to know why CPS felt Jimenez was an appropriate “safety monitor” and what steps the agency took to check her background and the background of her felon live-in boyfriend.
Within 24, hours, I was turned down flat.
I pointed out the police document that quoted the doctors … and was told CPS must have “a determination from a Doctor specifically stating that a near fatality occurred”.
Beyond, apparently, the determination of the doctors on the scene who talked to the police on the scene.
Arizona Republic attorney David Bodney wrote a four-page demand letter. Again, CPS said no.
“All appropriate parties were engaged in a review of the matter,” Stone wrote Wednesday. “In connection with such review, a conclusion was reached that the incident that is the subject of the public records request in question was not a near fatality.”
I asked who “all appropriate parties” were. Stone's reply: “The forensic physician involved in this case made the determination that this was not a near fatality.”
I don't know if it's the same forensic physician who told the police that it was a near-death episode. But since CPS is determined to go to great lengths to avoid answering questions about what it did -- or didn't do -- to protect baby Josephine, I'll toss out one more hurdle.
State and federal law define a near fatality as “an act that, as certified by a physician, places a child in serious or critical condition.”
Hard to see how 14 broken bones, a cigarette burn and a four-month-old baby not breathing wouldn't qualify.
Former House Speaker Kirk Adams, a prime sponsor of the 2008 law, called the CPS response “disturbing,” noting that the law requires openness in such cases so that children ultimately are better protected.
“It certainly was not our intent to provide a technical escape clause for them not to share what has happened in these cases,” he said. “There is incredible public interest to know whether or not an agency which has a nearly impossible but incredibly important task of protecting these children, whether or not things operated correctly, whether or not procedures are being followed.”
One would think that the CPS brass, given their budget woes, would have better things to do than spending a week working out how to avoid having to explain to the public what they did to ensure baby Josephine's safety before handing her over to the woman who now sits in jail.
But no. The bunker's been fortified, the blackout curtains have dropped, the moat's been dug and alligators are circling, to warn off any brave soul who might try to get a peek into the place.
(Column published Sept. 3, 2011, The Arizona Republic)
Friday, September 2, 2011 at 06:07 PM
Source http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/LaurieRoberts/140200
A four-month-old baby is found not breathing and near death, according to Chandler police. Baby Josephine suffers 14 broken bones, bruises all over her face and a cigarette burn to her arm.
All this, while she is in the custody of a “safety monitor,” a woman entrusted with the infant's care by Child Protective Services.
So, as I said, it seemed reasonable to ask why CPS put the baby with this woman and what steps the agency took to ensure the baby would be safe — back before she became a punching bag and an ash tray.
Public: Meet bunker.
“Your request for public records in this matter is respectfully declined,” wrote Todd Stone, public records request coordinator for the Department of Economic Security, which oversees CPS.
To understand how outrageous the DES response is, you have to go back to 2007 when three Tucson children died on CPS's watch. While CPS was busy sweeping the story under its well-worn rug, this newspaper and The Arizona Daily Star sued to get the records, uncovering a stunning array of foul-ups and failures that hastened those children to their graves. As a result, the Legislature in 2008 passed a series of reforms, including a law opening CPS records when a child is beaten to death or nearly so.
The new law was simple. It says that CPS “shall promptly provide CPS information to the public regarding a case of child abuse, abandonment or neglect that has resulted in a fatality or near fatality.”
Now, fast forward to last week, when Chandler police arrested Angelica Jimenez and her boyfriend, Steven Saldana, for child abuse. According to police, baby Josephine was no longer breathing when she was discovered in the early hours of Aug. 3. She was taken to Cardon Children's Medical Center, near death and in seizures.
“The victim was found to have fourteen broken bones in the legs and ribs. There also was a cigarette burn to the left forearm along with bumps and bruises on the forehead as well as bruising on both sides of the face…,” police wrote in court documents. “Forensic doctors stated the child had suffered a near-death episode and the injuries were non-accidental trauma.”
Jimenez told police that the baby had been placed in her care by CPS, a fact which CPS confirmed.
So I asked for the records last week. I wanted to know why CPS felt Jimenez was an appropriate “safety monitor” and what steps the agency took to check her background and the background of her felon live-in boyfriend.
Within 24, hours, I was turned down flat.
I pointed out the police document that quoted the doctors … and was told CPS must have “a determination from a Doctor specifically stating that a near fatality occurred”.
Beyond, apparently, the determination of the doctors on the scene who talked to the police on the scene.
Arizona Republic attorney David Bodney wrote a four-page demand letter. Again, CPS said no.
“All appropriate parties were engaged in a review of the matter,” Stone wrote Wednesday. “In connection with such review, a conclusion was reached that the incident that is the subject of the public records request in question was not a near fatality.”
I asked who “all appropriate parties” were. Stone's reply: “The forensic physician involved in this case made the determination that this was not a near fatality.”
I don't know if it's the same forensic physician who told the police that it was a near-death episode. But since CPS is determined to go to great lengths to avoid answering questions about what it did -- or didn't do -- to protect baby Josephine, I'll toss out one more hurdle.
State and federal law define a near fatality as “an act that, as certified by a physician, places a child in serious or critical condition.”
Hard to see how 14 broken bones, a cigarette burn and a four-month-old baby not breathing wouldn't qualify.
Former House Speaker Kirk Adams, a prime sponsor of the 2008 law, called the CPS response “disturbing,” noting that the law requires openness in such cases so that children ultimately are better protected.
“It certainly was not our intent to provide a technical escape clause for them not to share what has happened in these cases,” he said. “There is incredible public interest to know whether or not an agency which has a nearly impossible but incredibly important task of protecting these children, whether or not things operated correctly, whether or not procedures are being followed.”
One would think that the CPS brass, given their budget woes, would have better things to do than spending a week working out how to avoid having to explain to the public what they did to ensure baby Josephine's safety before handing her over to the woman who now sits in jail.
But no. The bunker's been fortified, the blackout curtains have dropped, the moat's been dug and alligators are circling, to warn off any brave soul who might try to get a peek into the place.
(Column published Sept. 3, 2011, The Arizona Republic)
Friday, September 2, 2011 at 06:07 PM
Source http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/LaurieRoberts/140200
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Oregon - Girl’s death spurs lawsuit
The state Department of Human Services faces a $1.5 million case over the abuse suffered by Jeanette Maples
By Karen McCowan
The Register-Guard
Oregon’s child protective services agency faces a $1.5 million lawsuit for failing to prevent the 2009 starvation, torture and beating death of north Eugene teenager Jeanette Maples.
Portland attorney David Paul mailed the wrongful death complaint Monday to Lane County Circuit Court. The court clerk had not received or filed the lawsuit Tuesday afternoon, but Paul’s legal assistant provided a copy to The Register-Guard. Paul has successfully represented children injured in state foster care, including a record-breaking $2 million settlement for twins injured by poor foster care.
The suit on behalf of Jeanette’s estate targets the state Department of Human Services, which is responsible for investigating reports of child abuse and neglect. The complaint accuses the agency of failing to reasonably respond to multiple reports over four years that Jeanette was being abused. It called the state’s inaction “a substantial factor” in her death at age 15.
Jeanette’s mother, Angela McAnulty, is on Oregon’s death row after pleading guilty in February to the aggravated murder of her daughter. The dead teen’s stepfather, Richard McAnulty, is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to murder by abuse. He denied inflicting harm, but admitted failing to protect Jeanette from her mother or to report her injuries and starvation to authorities.
“Jeanette Maples’ death could have been prevented if the State of Oregon exercised reasonable care in responding to reports that Jeanette Maples was being abused,” the suit charges. It alleges that state workers failed to “investigate and heed” allegations of abuse from reliable sources beginning in 2006, four years before Jeanette died. It also accuses the agency of failing to consider Angela McAnulty’s documented history of child abuse in California before moving to Oregon.
The suit also faults the agency for failing to adequately assess Jeanette’s “vulnerability to abuse.” It says workers wrongfully concluded that Jeanette “could fend for herself as a young teenager” despite “a history of abuse and neglect by the adult parents in her home.”
Those charges echoed the January 2010 findings of an internal Department of Human Services critical incident team.
The suit says state “negligence” was a substantial factor in Jeanette’s “suffering, humiliation, pain, fear, anguish, and torture” and ultimately in her violent death. As a result, she suffered “severe hunger, starvation, anemia, dehydration, alienation of affection, distress and a lack of the enjoyment of her short life, to her non-economic damage in the amount of $500,000.”
Siblings not considered heirs
The Oregon Attorney General’s Office, which will defend the Department of Human Services in the case, declined comment on the suit Tuesday.
“It is the policy of the Department of Justice not to comment on pending litigation,” spokesman Tony Green said.
The bulk of the lawsuit’s damages would go to Jeanette’s father, Anthony Maples, of California. The suit seeks $1 million in noneconomic damages for his loss of Jeanette’s “society, love and companionship.” As her “lone qualified heir” under Oregon law, Anthony Maples would also receive $500,000 the suit seeks as the value of the estate his daughter would probably have accumulated in her lifetime if not for her wrongful death.
The suit seeks an additional $7,000 to cover the teen’s burial and related expenses.
Anthony Maples could not be reached for comment Tuesday. He told The Register-Guard shortly after Jeanette’s death that he had not been in touch with his daughter for nearly a decade. According to his unsuccessful February 2010 court petition to be appointed personal representative of her estate, he had nine drug possession convictions — at least five involving methamphetamine — between 1990 and 2008. The petition shows that he was in and out of jail until late 2008, when he entered and completed a one-year residential treatment program. According to a June 2010 declaration in support of that petition, Maples had been clean and sober for 16 months.
Lane County Circuit Judge Lauren Holland in August 2010 denied Maples’ request, instead appointing Portland attorney Erin Olson as the estate’s personal representative.
Step-grandmother speaks out
The prospect of Anthony Maples collecting damages from the suit distressed Jeanette’s step-grandmother, Lynn McAnulty. She testified during Angela McAnulty’s trial that she made multiple — and apparently futile — abuse reports to the Department of Human Services in the last months of the teen’s life.
“Why should he profit off Jeanette’s death?” the Leaburg woman said. “He doesn’t deserve it because he wasn’t involved in her life. He didn’t know her. He didn’t even come to her memorial service.”
Lynn McAnulty said lawsuit proceeds would more rightfully go to Jeanette’s surviving half-siblings — a 14-year-old girl and an 8-year-old boy — both in foster homes and in state protective custody. Absent a will, however, only a deceased person’s parents, spouse or children are legal heirs under Oregon law.
In a interview this month, McAnulty elaborated on her trial testimony that she repeatedly and unsuccessfully phoned child protective service workers in 2009, urging them to investigate Jeanette’s emaciation and injuries. She acknowledged posing as a concerned neighbor, saying she feared losing the limited access she had to her grandchildren if Angela McAnulty learned she’d reported abuse. (According to child protection caseworkers, the agency protects the confidentiality of people who report abuse.)
Lynn McAnulty said she told one phone screener, “This child looks like an Ethiopian (famine victim),” only to have the screener respond with “something like, ‘You’re telling us she needs medical help — that’s not us,’ and, ‘Are you sure she’s not anorexic?’ ”
McAnulty said she placed her last call to the agency the week before Jeanette died, after her son called to tell her he’d caught the girl drinking from the toilet.
“I said, ‘Someone needs to go there. Something’s wrong with this child. It’s urgent,’” McAnulty said. “I told her, ‘I’ve called several times,’ and she said, ‘We don’t just drop everything — we have to go through channels.’ ”
McAnulty also reiterated her trial testimony that she asked one screener if she should call the police, but was advised that child protection workers could more effectively investigate.
The agency’s internal investigation, now posted on its website (www.oregon.gov/DHS/abuse/publications/children/cirt-jm-initial-report.pdf) without the redactions that originally blacked out information that might have compromised Angela McAnulty’s trial, reports only two calls in 2009, both from “the same individual” on Dec. 1. It says the person reported that Angela McAnulty’s children were being “abused and neglected, especially the older one.”
Report details decisions
The newly public material says the caller reported that the older child — Jeanette — was not attending school, had “current marks and bruises” and “appeared malnourished.” It also said the caller reported that the child was “not allowed to speak with her.”
“The (caller) initially would not provide the last name of the children or an address,” the state’s internal report said. “In a subsequent call that same day, the reporter called back and provided the last name and address for the family. Concluding that the call did not constitute a report of abuse or neglect, the matter was closed at screening.”
The critical incident team found that conclusion to be in error, the internal report said.
“This report in fact constituted abuse or neglect and should have been assigned for child protective service assessment,” it said.
The team’s report also acknowledged that additional calls “may have been made but not documented” if they “did not rise to the level of abuse or neglect.”
The newly public material from the internal report shows that the agency responded to two 2006 reports that Jeanette was “being punished by being forced to kneel on the tile floor with her nose to the wall and hands behind her back for extended periods of time, that she was being forced to eat chili peppers, and that her hair was being pulled making her head sore.” But the agency “could not determine whether there was a safety threat” to the girl because of inconsistent information about food deprivation and punishment from Angela and Richard McAnulty, Jeanette’s sister, and Jeanette herself.
The new material also details the agency’s response to a 2007 report from “a credible source” that Jeanette had a bruise on her chin. It says the critical incident team found that the agency erred in closing that case without further assessment, based on Jeanette’s “denial that abuse had occurred.”
The agency has adopted new protocols in response to the internal report — including a policy of more thoroughly investigating cases involving children such as Jeanette, who are not in school or other settings where other adults can see their condition.
Source http://www.registerguard.com/web/updates/26794414-55/jeanette-maples-death-oregon-paul.html.csp
By Karen McCowan
The Register-Guard
Oregon’s child protective services agency faces a $1.5 million lawsuit for failing to prevent the 2009 starvation, torture and beating death of north Eugene teenager Jeanette Maples.
Portland attorney David Paul mailed the wrongful death complaint Monday to Lane County Circuit Court. The court clerk had not received or filed the lawsuit Tuesday afternoon, but Paul’s legal assistant provided a copy to The Register-Guard. Paul has successfully represented children injured in state foster care, including a record-breaking $2 million settlement for twins injured by poor foster care.
The suit on behalf of Jeanette’s estate targets the state Department of Human Services, which is responsible for investigating reports of child abuse and neglect. The complaint accuses the agency of failing to reasonably respond to multiple reports over four years that Jeanette was being abused. It called the state’s inaction “a substantial factor” in her death at age 15.
Jeanette’s mother, Angela McAnulty, is on Oregon’s death row after pleading guilty in February to the aggravated murder of her daughter. The dead teen’s stepfather, Richard McAnulty, is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to murder by abuse. He denied inflicting harm, but admitted failing to protect Jeanette from her mother or to report her injuries and starvation to authorities.
“Jeanette Maples’ death could have been prevented if the State of Oregon exercised reasonable care in responding to reports that Jeanette Maples was being abused,” the suit charges. It alleges that state workers failed to “investigate and heed” allegations of abuse from reliable sources beginning in 2006, four years before Jeanette died. It also accuses the agency of failing to consider Angela McAnulty’s documented history of child abuse in California before moving to Oregon.
The suit also faults the agency for failing to adequately assess Jeanette’s “vulnerability to abuse.” It says workers wrongfully concluded that Jeanette “could fend for herself as a young teenager” despite “a history of abuse and neglect by the adult parents in her home.”
Those charges echoed the January 2010 findings of an internal Department of Human Services critical incident team.
The suit says state “negligence” was a substantial factor in Jeanette’s “suffering, humiliation, pain, fear, anguish, and torture” and ultimately in her violent death. As a result, she suffered “severe hunger, starvation, anemia, dehydration, alienation of affection, distress and a lack of the enjoyment of her short life, to her non-economic damage in the amount of $500,000.”
Siblings not considered heirs
The Oregon Attorney General’s Office, which will defend the Department of Human Services in the case, declined comment on the suit Tuesday.
“It is the policy of the Department of Justice not to comment on pending litigation,” spokesman Tony Green said.
The bulk of the lawsuit’s damages would go to Jeanette’s father, Anthony Maples, of California. The suit seeks $1 million in noneconomic damages for his loss of Jeanette’s “society, love and companionship.” As her “lone qualified heir” under Oregon law, Anthony Maples would also receive $500,000 the suit seeks as the value of the estate his daughter would probably have accumulated in her lifetime if not for her wrongful death.
The suit seeks an additional $7,000 to cover the teen’s burial and related expenses.
Anthony Maples could not be reached for comment Tuesday. He told The Register-Guard shortly after Jeanette’s death that he had not been in touch with his daughter for nearly a decade. According to his unsuccessful February 2010 court petition to be appointed personal representative of her estate, he had nine drug possession convictions — at least five involving methamphetamine — between 1990 and 2008. The petition shows that he was in and out of jail until late 2008, when he entered and completed a one-year residential treatment program. According to a June 2010 declaration in support of that petition, Maples had been clean and sober for 16 months.
Lane County Circuit Judge Lauren Holland in August 2010 denied Maples’ request, instead appointing Portland attorney Erin Olson as the estate’s personal representative.
Step-grandmother speaks out
The prospect of Anthony Maples collecting damages from the suit distressed Jeanette’s step-grandmother, Lynn McAnulty. She testified during Angela McAnulty’s trial that she made multiple — and apparently futile — abuse reports to the Department of Human Services in the last months of the teen’s life.
“Why should he profit off Jeanette’s death?” the Leaburg woman said. “He doesn’t deserve it because he wasn’t involved in her life. He didn’t know her. He didn’t even come to her memorial service.”
Lynn McAnulty said lawsuit proceeds would more rightfully go to Jeanette’s surviving half-siblings — a 14-year-old girl and an 8-year-old boy — both in foster homes and in state protective custody. Absent a will, however, only a deceased person’s parents, spouse or children are legal heirs under Oregon law.
In a interview this month, McAnulty elaborated on her trial testimony that she repeatedly and unsuccessfully phoned child protective service workers in 2009, urging them to investigate Jeanette’s emaciation and injuries. She acknowledged posing as a concerned neighbor, saying she feared losing the limited access she had to her grandchildren if Angela McAnulty learned she’d reported abuse. (According to child protection caseworkers, the agency protects the confidentiality of people who report abuse.)
Lynn McAnulty said she told one phone screener, “This child looks like an Ethiopian (famine victim),” only to have the screener respond with “something like, ‘You’re telling us she needs medical help — that’s not us,’ and, ‘Are you sure she’s not anorexic?’ ”
McAnulty said she placed her last call to the agency the week before Jeanette died, after her son called to tell her he’d caught the girl drinking from the toilet.
“I said, ‘Someone needs to go there. Something’s wrong with this child. It’s urgent,’” McAnulty said. “I told her, ‘I’ve called several times,’ and she said, ‘We don’t just drop everything — we have to go through channels.’ ”
McAnulty also reiterated her trial testimony that she asked one screener if she should call the police, but was advised that child protection workers could more effectively investigate.
The agency’s internal investigation, now posted on its website (www.oregon.gov/DHS/abuse/publications/children/cirt-jm-initial-report.pdf) without the redactions that originally blacked out information that might have compromised Angela McAnulty’s trial, reports only two calls in 2009, both from “the same individual” on Dec. 1. It says the person reported that Angela McAnulty’s children were being “abused and neglected, especially the older one.”
Report details decisions
The newly public material says the caller reported that the older child — Jeanette — was not attending school, had “current marks and bruises” and “appeared malnourished.” It also said the caller reported that the child was “not allowed to speak with her.”
“The (caller) initially would not provide the last name of the children or an address,” the state’s internal report said. “In a subsequent call that same day, the reporter called back and provided the last name and address for the family. Concluding that the call did not constitute a report of abuse or neglect, the matter was closed at screening.”
The critical incident team found that conclusion to be in error, the internal report said.
“This report in fact constituted abuse or neglect and should have been assigned for child protective service assessment,” it said.
The team’s report also acknowledged that additional calls “may have been made but not documented” if they “did not rise to the level of abuse or neglect.”
The newly public material from the internal report shows that the agency responded to two 2006 reports that Jeanette was “being punished by being forced to kneel on the tile floor with her nose to the wall and hands behind her back for extended periods of time, that she was being forced to eat chili peppers, and that her hair was being pulled making her head sore.” But the agency “could not determine whether there was a safety threat” to the girl because of inconsistent information about food deprivation and punishment from Angela and Richard McAnulty, Jeanette’s sister, and Jeanette herself.
The new material also details the agency’s response to a 2007 report from “a credible source” that Jeanette had a bruise on her chin. It says the critical incident team found that the agency erred in closing that case without further assessment, based on Jeanette’s “denial that abuse had occurred.”
The agency has adopted new protocols in response to the internal report — including a policy of more thoroughly investigating cases involving children such as Jeanette, who are not in school or other settings where other adults can see their condition.
Source http://www.registerguard.com/web/updates/26794414-55/jeanette-maples-death-oregon-paul.html.csp
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Sacramento judge eviscerates defendant, CPS over girl's death
By Marjie Lundstrom and Sam Stanton
sstanton@sacbee.com
Published: Saturday, Aug. 20, 2011 - 12:00 am | Page 1A
The court hearing Friday was to sentence 23-year-old Thomas Jerome Martin to prison for beating 3-year-old Valeeya Brazile to death.
But it turned into a public trial of Sacramento County's Child Protective Services, and Superior Court Judge Michael A. Savage found the agency guilty.
In a searing condemnation of CPS, the judge recounted repeated failures to save the little girl from months of beatings that eventually killed her and sent her mother and Martin, the mother's live-in boyfriend, off to prison.
"There is not the slightest evidence in this case that the protection or safety of Valeeya or her brother was ever a priority, or even a significant concern, for the agency or the caseworker charged with their protection," Savage said before he sentenced Martin to prison for the maximum 29 years to life.
Valeeya, a smiling little girl who loved pancakes and was proud of the fact that she could recognize the letter "V," was killed Feb. 5, 2008, in a Fair Oaks apartment. The child had been living with Martin, her 6-year-old brother and her mother, Mia Holmes, who is now serving 12 years.
Martin denies killing Valeeya, and as the judge and three of Valeeya's relatives spoke, he sat quietly at the defense table, yawning, shaking his head and cracking his knuckles.
Savage said the jury that convicted Martin of second-degree murder was the only official body that did anything on Valeeya's behalf.
"The evidence in this case of repeated, systematic, purposeful and brutally inflicted trauma by Mr. Martin on Valeeya is mountainous and undeniable," Savage said. "There is no doubt that this defendant routinely and unmercifully battered this absolutely defenseless 3-year-old, eventually beating her with enough force to end her life.
"And, unlike many others involved in this case, the jury was not fooled, did not shrug and did not shirk their responsibility."
Ann Edwards, director of the Department of Health and Human Services that oversees CPS, said in a statement issued Friday that Valeeya's murder "is tragic and we all mourn her loss.
"Although we cannot comment on the specifics of this case due to confidentiality laws, CPS has made significant practice improvements since 2008."
Valeeya's murder was among a series of high-profile deaths involving children whose families had been known to CPS. The mounting death toll, reported in a series of Bee stories, triggered numerous outside reviews.
Lynn Frank, Edwards' predecessor in the top job, resigned in 2009 as a scathing grand jury report was about to be released.
This month, the county announced that CPS Director Laura Coulthard was resigning under unexplained circumstances.
While CPS advocates say the agency has improved, despite budget cuts, Savage said the agency was more concerned with helping the mother than protecting Valeeya and her brother.
Savage said the social worker's "personal policy" to announce all visits contributed to CPS never discovering that Martin was living in the apartment – or using it as a haven for his marijuana-dealing business.
"With that ludicrous practice in place, the worker showed the ultimate disrespect to the one person she should have been duty bound to protect: Valeeya Brazile," Savage said.
The judge noted that in 2006, when Valeeya was 2 and sitting unrestrained in her mother's car, Holmes tried to run over a boyfriend.
"That behavior was so outrageous that CPS was given the responsibility of providing 'protection' for Valeeya and her sibling," Savage said. "At least, that's what the agency title implied.
"Based on that car assault alone, rational adults might have appropriately concluded that Mia had forever forfeited her right to act as a caretaker for Valeeya or any other child, for that manner."
Instead, CPS returned the children to Holmes after only four months. The social worker assigned to the case, Alexis Hince, protected Holmes' interests over that of the children, Savage said.
"How in the world could such a thing happen while CPS watched … ?" he asked.
"The case worker in this case testified, 'My job was to help her to get her children back, not to take her children away from her, so my job was to work with her in that goal so she didn't have to be worried she was going to lose her kids.'
"Heaven forbid that Mia Holmes would have had to have a moment's worry about losing her kids."
A 2009 Bee investigation found Hince was one of at least 68 individuals out of 969 CPS workers at the time with a criminal record. Savage said Hince made it clear that CPS knew of her convictions for welfare fraud – one while she worked at the agency. However, the judge said, Hince testified her convictions did not become a problem for her until they were reported in The Bee.
A CPS spokeswoman said Hince has not worked for the county since May 2009.
"It should go without saying that having criminals monitor criminals, especially when children are involved, begs for calamity," Savage said.
Martin sat impassively as the judge, a no-nonsense former prosecutor becoming known for his withering comments at sentencings, described how Martin had wasted his life serving as a baby sitter for Holmes, who was 20 years his senior.
"The defendant, 19 years old and unemployed, spent every day of his life devoted to playing video games, selling marijuana and becoming intoxicated," he said. "He completely escaped the notice of CPS, even though he lived in Mia's apartment every day for months on end."
Courtroom seats filled quickly Friday as five sheriff's detectives filed in and were seated among relatives for both Martin and Valeeya. Before the judge's calm, systematic deconstruction of CPS, Deputy District Attorney Rick Miller brought forward three of Valeeya's relatives to express their anger at Martin.
On one side of the courtroom, where Martin's grandmother and other family members were seated, rumblings of discontent began, and two of the five bailiffs present to keep the peace escorted two men out into the hallway, one of them shouting.
Olga Smith, the little girl's aunt, told Martin he was a "monster."
"I don't know what that little baby could have done to you to make you want to torture her on a daily basis," she said, "to make you want to throw her, to make you want to throw her in the air, to feel her heartbeat, punch her in the stomach, man, and on top of her little head.
"I don't know what would make you want do that. What could she have done to you?"
Eventually, Smith's emotions boiled over and she shouted profanities at Martin, something that often will result in expulsion from court.
The judge did not move to stop her, and Martin feigned boredom.
"It makes you angry," prosecutor Miller told The Bee. "Anybody who looks at this just gets angry."
The entire hearing took just over 30 minutes, and bailiffs escorted the emotional relatives out in groups.
Smith stopped one bailiff and told him, "Go hug that judge for me."
As she left the courtroom, with Martin still seated at the defense table, Smith called out one last message:
"Bye, monster."
Source http://www.sacbee.com/2011/08/20/3849750/sacramento-judge-eviscerates-defendant.html
sstanton@sacbee.com
Published: Saturday, Aug. 20, 2011 - 12:00 am | Page 1A
The court hearing Friday was to sentence 23-year-old Thomas Jerome Martin to prison for beating 3-year-old Valeeya Brazile to death.
But it turned into a public trial of Sacramento County's Child Protective Services, and Superior Court Judge Michael A. Savage found the agency guilty.
In a searing condemnation of CPS, the judge recounted repeated failures to save the little girl from months of beatings that eventually killed her and sent her mother and Martin, the mother's live-in boyfriend, off to prison.
"There is not the slightest evidence in this case that the protection or safety of Valeeya or her brother was ever a priority, or even a significant concern, for the agency or the caseworker charged with their protection," Savage said before he sentenced Martin to prison for the maximum 29 years to life.
Valeeya, a smiling little girl who loved pancakes and was proud of the fact that she could recognize the letter "V," was killed Feb. 5, 2008, in a Fair Oaks apartment. The child had been living with Martin, her 6-year-old brother and her mother, Mia Holmes, who is now serving 12 years.
Martin denies killing Valeeya, and as the judge and three of Valeeya's relatives spoke, he sat quietly at the defense table, yawning, shaking his head and cracking his knuckles.
Savage said the jury that convicted Martin of second-degree murder was the only official body that did anything on Valeeya's behalf.
"The evidence in this case of repeated, systematic, purposeful and brutally inflicted trauma by Mr. Martin on Valeeya is mountainous and undeniable," Savage said. "There is no doubt that this defendant routinely and unmercifully battered this absolutely defenseless 3-year-old, eventually beating her with enough force to end her life.
"And, unlike many others involved in this case, the jury was not fooled, did not shrug and did not shirk their responsibility."
Ann Edwards, director of the Department of Health and Human Services that oversees CPS, said in a statement issued Friday that Valeeya's murder "is tragic and we all mourn her loss.
"Although we cannot comment on the specifics of this case due to confidentiality laws, CPS has made significant practice improvements since 2008."
Valeeya's murder was among a series of high-profile deaths involving children whose families had been known to CPS. The mounting death toll, reported in a series of Bee stories, triggered numerous outside reviews.
Lynn Frank, Edwards' predecessor in the top job, resigned in 2009 as a scathing grand jury report was about to be released.
This month, the county announced that CPS Director Laura Coulthard was resigning under unexplained circumstances.
While CPS advocates say the agency has improved, despite budget cuts, Savage said the agency was more concerned with helping the mother than protecting Valeeya and her brother.
Savage said the social worker's "personal policy" to announce all visits contributed to CPS never discovering that Martin was living in the apartment – or using it as a haven for his marijuana-dealing business.
"With that ludicrous practice in place, the worker showed the ultimate disrespect to the one person she should have been duty bound to protect: Valeeya Brazile," Savage said.
The judge noted that in 2006, when Valeeya was 2 and sitting unrestrained in her mother's car, Holmes tried to run over a boyfriend.
"That behavior was so outrageous that CPS was given the responsibility of providing 'protection' for Valeeya and her sibling," Savage said. "At least, that's what the agency title implied.
"Based on that car assault alone, rational adults might have appropriately concluded that Mia had forever forfeited her right to act as a caretaker for Valeeya or any other child, for that manner."
Instead, CPS returned the children to Holmes after only four months. The social worker assigned to the case, Alexis Hince, protected Holmes' interests over that of the children, Savage said.
"How in the world could such a thing happen while CPS watched … ?" he asked.
"The case worker in this case testified, 'My job was to help her to get her children back, not to take her children away from her, so my job was to work with her in that goal so she didn't have to be worried she was going to lose her kids.'
"Heaven forbid that Mia Holmes would have had to have a moment's worry about losing her kids."
A 2009 Bee investigation found Hince was one of at least 68 individuals out of 969 CPS workers at the time with a criminal record. Savage said Hince made it clear that CPS knew of her convictions for welfare fraud – one while she worked at the agency. However, the judge said, Hince testified her convictions did not become a problem for her until they were reported in The Bee.
A CPS spokeswoman said Hince has not worked for the county since May 2009.
"It should go without saying that having criminals monitor criminals, especially when children are involved, begs for calamity," Savage said.
Martin sat impassively as the judge, a no-nonsense former prosecutor becoming known for his withering comments at sentencings, described how Martin had wasted his life serving as a baby sitter for Holmes, who was 20 years his senior.
"The defendant, 19 years old and unemployed, spent every day of his life devoted to playing video games, selling marijuana and becoming intoxicated," he said. "He completely escaped the notice of CPS, even though he lived in Mia's apartment every day for months on end."
Courtroom seats filled quickly Friday as five sheriff's detectives filed in and were seated among relatives for both Martin and Valeeya. Before the judge's calm, systematic deconstruction of CPS, Deputy District Attorney Rick Miller brought forward three of Valeeya's relatives to express their anger at Martin.
On one side of the courtroom, where Martin's grandmother and other family members were seated, rumblings of discontent began, and two of the five bailiffs present to keep the peace escorted two men out into the hallway, one of them shouting.
Olga Smith, the little girl's aunt, told Martin he was a "monster."
"I don't know what that little baby could have done to you to make you want to torture her on a daily basis," she said, "to make you want to throw her, to make you want to throw her in the air, to feel her heartbeat, punch her in the stomach, man, and on top of her little head.
"I don't know what would make you want do that. What could she have done to you?"
Eventually, Smith's emotions boiled over and she shouted profanities at Martin, something that often will result in expulsion from court.
The judge did not move to stop her, and Martin feigned boredom.
"It makes you angry," prosecutor Miller told The Bee. "Anybody who looks at this just gets angry."
The entire hearing took just over 30 minutes, and bailiffs escorted the emotional relatives out in groups.
Smith stopped one bailiff and told him, "Go hug that judge for me."
As she left the courtroom, with Martin still seated at the defense table, Smith called out one last message:
"Bye, monster."
Source http://www.sacbee.com/2011/08/20/3849750/sacramento-judge-eviscerates-defendant.html
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