Kid deaths from abuse, neglect soar in Florida

Kid deaths from abuse, neglect soar in Florida

A reporting change is meant to help save lives.

By MELANIE AVE, Times Staff Writer
Published December 29, 2007

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/12/29/St...om_abuse.shtml

Ann Unger set her 9-month-old daughter on the floor of the family's
Plant City home and headed to the bathroom. Angelica, a fast crawler,
usually followed close behind. Not this day.

Five minutes passed. Or was it six?

When Unger, 22, returned to the room, Angelica wasn't there. A frantic
search ended in the backyard pool, where Unger found the child floating
face down.

The mother's screams pierced the neighborhood as efforts to save the
baby failed. Angelica Unger died on Jan. 24, 2006, three months before
her first birthday.

In the past, her death likely would have been considered accidental, a
family tragedy. But investigators labeled her death a result of parental
neglect. Unger had left open the door that led to the pool.

Angelica was one of a record 170 children -- ages newborn to 16 -- who
died last year from abuse or neglect in Florida, according to a St.
Petersburg Times review of death reports by the Florida Department of
Children and Families.

The number represents an 80 percent increase over the previous year. The
steep climb is the result of an increased state effort to classify many
deaths such as Angelica's as neglect. The hope is that the change will
bring more awareness about child abuse and prevent further deaths.

"The majority of them," said Manatee County sheriff's Maj.Connie
Shingledecker, chairwoman of a state child abuse review team, "were
preventable in some way, shape or form."

"Everybody gets upset with the number going up," said the state
Department of Health's Michael Haney, a member of the review team. "I'm
not sure it's a bad thing. We need to know who these kids are and how
they're dying."

The team will present its final report to Gov. Charlie Crist and the
Legislature by Monday. The team is asking lawmakers for permission to
review all child deaths statewide.

"There really is no one looking at all deaths," said Shingledecker.
"That's really the only way we can look at prevention."

* * *

Their melodic and hopeful names make their short lives seem even more
tragic.

Harmony. Karma. Serenity. Heaven. Justice. Destiny.

While the lurid stories of outright abuse attract headlines and outrage,
far more children die as a result of neglect.

Ananalysis of 2006 state death reports, the latest data available, shows
seven out of 10 child deaths were due to neglect.

Lack of supervision caused 52 children to drown, six to overdose, six to
die in car accidents and five to asphyxiate.

Some of their caretakers stepped away for minutes, as in Angelica's
case, while others were gone much longer.

One-year-old Yaquan Daise died Feb. 17, 2006, after a dresser fell on
him in Duval County. His mother wasn't home at the time. She was out
shopping, leaving Yaquan and his two siblings, ages 4 and 2, alone,
according to state records.

In Broward County, Thomaris Waite, 1, died after his neck got caught in
a car window while his father slept in the car.

Unlike in abuse deaths, it is rare for a caretaker to be criminally
charged for neglect because those cases are hard to prove.

The law requires the state to show that caretakers were grossly
negligent and that the harm could have been easily foreseen, said New
Port Richey prosecutor Mike Halkitis.

Halkitis declined to prosecute a mother who feel asleep and rolled on
top of her baby, killing her. Karma Brown was 2 months old.

The mother admitted to snorting crushed OxyContin and smoking marijuana
the day Karma died, Dec. 8, 2006, according to a sheriff's report. But
the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office dropped neglect charges
because there was not enough drugs in the mother's system to prove she
was abusing them.

Kayla Rice, 20, of Auburndale was charged with criminal neglect after
her 6-month-old daughter suffocated. Rice had placed the baby on top of
a queen mattress that had been placed in a larger, wooden waterbed
frame. Destiny rolled over and got caught in the space in between.

When police arrived, they found marijuana in the house.

Rice, who pleaded no contest and received probation, said her daughter's
death "killed" her. She now places a monitor around her 3-month-old son
that sounds if he stops breathing.

"It bothers me really bad that people think my daughter was abused or
neglected," said Rice, sobbing. "I was a single mom. Working two jobs. I
was trying to do the best I could.

"They found pot in the house so they automatically assume I abuse my
daughter?"

* * *

Alyssa Doe's mother left her to die in a West Tampa alley shortly after
she was born.

Relatives alerted police to her mother, Mary Louise Doe, after finding
her no longer pregnant and unable to explain where the baby was.

Mary Louise told authorities that alcohol and crack cocaine blurred her
memory of the birth in May 2006. A judge sentenced her to five years in
prison and 10 years of probation.

Alyssa Doe was just one of many children who died while their caretakers
were under the influence.

Hunter Lanier, 2, of Santa Rosa County died in a car accident after his
mother wrecked after drinking and driving.

Eighteen-month-old Kenia Valencia of Manatee County suffocated under a
stove while her mother -- who tested positive for marijuana and cocaine
-- slept in another room. The toddler had been reunited, through the
state's foster care system, less than a month earlier with her mother,
who now faces manslaughter charges.

"If we could eliminate alcohol and substance abuse in this country you
would virtually eliminate domestic violence and child abuse," said
George Sheldon, assistant DCF secretary. "If you look at our files,
they're rampant with reports of people abusing drugs and alcohol."

State reviewers also concluded that Kenia was returned to her mother too
quickly.

Of the 170 children who died in Florida last year, the state had
received prior reports on 41 percent of them, meaning an abuse
investigator and possibly a caseworker had some earlier contact with the
child and his or her family.

But even early contact is no guarantee against tragedy.

Cara Eaton's drug problems prompted caseworkers to take her infant daughter.

But weeks later, the baby died in foster care. The one-month-old
suffocated after her Sarasota County foster mother put her to sleep face
down.

Eaton, 31, of North Port blames DCF and its foster care contractor, the
Sarasota Family YMCA. She wanted the child with her grandmother, instead
of foster care.

DCF is putting greater emphasis on trying to strengthen families before
removing children, as well as having caseworkers broaden their
investigations to better assess if a child is in danger.

"The decision to remove a child from the home is a very tough decision
to make," Sheldon said. "You can't guarantee a perfect answer in every
case."

Andrea Moore, director of the child advocacy group Florida's Children
First in Coral Gables, said better prevention efforts and improved
investigations are key to keeping many children from dying.

"We are always going to have depraved or deranged people in society,"
Moore said. "But many of the child deaths that are a result of neglect
are preventable.

"We should be working to prevent every one of those."

* * *

Joyce White, 54, of Plantation was sitting on the front porch with her
3-year-old grandson when the phone rang.

When she returned, Garcie Luna was gone. He was found in a neighbor's
pool. The fence surrounding the pool had been damaged during Hurricane
Wilma and was missing a gate.

"It was just a few seconds of carelessness on my part for answering the
phone and my neighbor's part because they didn't fix the gate," White
said of the death in March 2006.

"It's torn our lives apart. It was more than I could take losing him,
especially for something so stupid."

Florida remains the worst of all states for drownings of children under
that age of 4, according to the state Department of Health.

For toddlers, most of the drownings occurred in swimming pools, while
for the infants, bathtubs were the more common scenario.

White has this advice for people with pools or water near their homes:
Put up a protective gate.

"Everybody needs to wake up," White said, "if you've got water in your
yard."

A 2000 Florida law requires new residential swimming pools to have
safety devices, including a fence with self-closing gates or an alarm.
But homes older than that, like the one where Angelica Unger died, were
not covered.

In the year since Angelica's death, her family doesn't talk much about
the gorgeous baby who died, the one who was "like a little doll," said
her grandmother Martha Johnston of Plant City. But it's not because they
have forgotten her.

"It was tragic," said Johnston as a new grandson played in the
background. "The more we think about it, the more it hurts."

Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Melanie Ave can
be reached at or (727) 893-8813.

Other cases

Here's a snapshot of some children who died last year from neglect
or abuse:

* Raiden Cook, 2, of Hudson drowned June 19, 2006, in an
above-ground pool at his grandmother's house while family members
napped. His parents, who were home at the time, were not prosecuted.
* Charles "C.J." Tyson Jr., 9 months, of Delray Beach died
April 27, 2006. After his parents fought, his father threw the baby out
a car window, smashed the baby's head on the car's hood and then tossed
him into a canal. Charles Tyson, 22, was charged with first-degree
murder and two counts of aggravated child abuse. A trial has been set
for April.
* Timberlan Addison, 2, of Tampa died Nov. 26, 2006. Timberlan
shot himself in the chest after finding his father's 9mm semiautomatic
handgun between couch cushions. His father, Timothy Jerome Addison, 38,
was charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Source: Newspaper reports; Florida Department of Children and Families

Number of Florida children dead from abuse or neglect:

* 1999: 80
* 2000: 98
* 2001: 91
* 2002: 86
* 2003: 88
* 2004: 112
* 2005: 95
* 2006: 170

Source: Florida Department of Children and Families, Florida Child
Abuse Death Review Team

2006 by the numbers

* Total dead statewide: 170
* Total from Tampa Bay: 23
* Dead from abuse: 3 of 10
* Dead from neglect: 7 of 10
* Percent age 5 and under: 90
* No. 1 cause of death: Drowning
* No. 2 cause of death: Multiple trauma
* No. 3 cause of death: Suffocation from co-sleeping
* Percentage with prior reports of abuse or neglect: 41

Source: Florida Department of Children and Families






CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A
DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NATIONAL
SECURITY AGENCY/CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WIRETAPPING PROGRAMS....

CPS Does not protect children...
It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even
killed at the hands of Child Protective Services.

every parent should read this .pdf from
connecticut dcf watch...

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com/8x11.pdf

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com

Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US
These numbers come from The National Center on
Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN)
Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS

*Perpetrators of Maltreatment*

Physical Abuse CPS 160, Parents 59
Sexual Abuse CPS 112, Parents 13
Neglect CPS 410, Parents 241
Medical Neglect CPS 14 Parents 12
Fatalities CPS 6.4, Parents 1.5

Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the very agencies that
are supposed to protect them and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per
100,000 children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse
and kills more children then parents in the United States. If the
citizens of this country hold CPS to the same standards that they hold
parents too. No judge should ever put another child in the hands of ANY
government agency because CPS nationwide is guilty of more harm and
death than any human being combined. CPS nationwide is guilty of more
human rights violations and deaths of children then the homes from which
they were removed. When are the judges going to wake up and see that
they are sending children to their death and a life of abuse when
children are removed from safe homes based on the mere opinion of a
bunch of social workers.


CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT
FAMILIES YEARLY NATIONWIDE AND COMING TO YOU'RE HOME SOON...


BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF
REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES
TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY
ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION...