A Parenting & kids forum. ParentingBanter.com

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » ParentingBanter.com forum » alt.parenting » Spanking
Site Map Home Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

A mother’s fears confirmed about her daughter: CPS - “If the calls were saying the girl was being raped repeatedly and the parents can’t keep her from being raped, then we would have responded immediately.”



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old August 20th 07, 06:03 AM posted to alt.support.child-protective-services,alt.support.foster-parents,alt.dads-rights.unmoderated,alt.parenting.spanking
fx
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,848
Default A mother’s fears confirmed about her daughter: CPS - “If the calls were saying the girl was being raped repeatedly and the parents can’t keep her from being raped, then we would have responded immediately.”

A mother’s fears confirmed about her daughter

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, August 19, 2007

By Edward Fitzpatrick

Journal Staff Writer

http://www.projo.com/news/courts/con...3.30b9950.html

PAWTUCKET — When her missing daughter turned up in Central Falls, she
suspected the worst: the 16-year-old Pawtucket girl, who has Down
syndrome, had bruises on her neck, her clothes were dirty, and she no
longer had shoes on her feet.

The next day, the mother’s fears were confirmed when Family Court Chief
Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah Jr. asked the girl, “What do guys do, take
advantage of you?”

The girl nodded.

“How many guys?”

“A lot.”

“Do you know their names?”

“No.”

“Did you ever say, ‘Don’t do it?’ ”

The girl nodded.

“And they continue to do it?”

The girl nodded again.

“Do you know where they live?”

“In Central Falls.”

“Yeah, but besides that. You don’t recognize them at all?”

The girl shook her head.

“So you poor kid,” Jeremiah said. “If you’re walking down the street,
they just stop and pick you up?”

The girl nodded.

“Do you ever run?”

The girl nodded.

“What happens if you run?”

The girl said, “They start chasing me.”

That July 25 Family Court hearing culminated a months-long crisis during
which the girl had begun fighting with her mother and leaving home for
days at a time. Both Jeremiah and the girl’s court-appointed lawyer
question whether the Central Falls police and the state Department of
Children, Youth and Families could have done more to investigate and to
help the family.

The parents, who were born in Puerto Rico and speak Spanish, said they
suspected people were taking advantage of their daughter, but the girl
was at odds with her parents, and they were never quite sure what was
happening until she answered Jeremiah’s questions.

The mother said she warned her daughter, but she didn’t understand the
dangers. “She doesn’t believe anyone has malice, that anyone is bad,”
the mother said through an interpreter. “She believes all of them were
her friends.”

The parents said that when they were desperate for help, a Pawtucket
police detective and social workers from Tides Family Services came to
their aid. But they feel they were let down by the state Department of
Children, Youth and Families.

“From the very beginning, I’ve always asked for help,” the mother said.
“We did not know what to do. That’s why we asked for help. And no one,
no one, no one helped.”

Jeremiah said the Central Falls police “should have done a more thorough
investigation” when the girl walked into the police station the day
before the court hearing with bruises on her neck. “That’s terrible work
on their part,” he said. “They should have done something.”

DCYF’s chief deputy legal counsel, Andrew J. Johnson, said that until
the July 25 court hearing, “we didn’t know the level of abuse she was
receiving in the community.” He said the agency acted appropriately
based on what it knew before that hearing, and since then, DCYF has
placed the girl at Butler Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in
Providence, and is planning to move her to a group home.“I wish we could
protect every child,” Johnson said. “But in this situation, we didn’t
know what was going on until after.”

The Central Falls police chief, Col. Joseph P. Moran III, said the
police immediately contacted the girl’s family and turned her over to
her mother when the girl walked into the police station on July 24. But
no one told the police that the girl might have been sexually assaulted,
he said.

“If she had indicated she was sexually assaulted, we would have followed
protocol. She would have gone to the hospital, and a detective would
have been called,” Moran said. “We all want to do the right thing for
the kids. We have a real good police department, but we can only work
with the information we have.”

Moran said the police will investigate if the family or the social
workers want to file a report now.

The Journal is withholding the names of the girl and her parents because
the girl may have been the victim of sexual assaults.

Jeremiah said that because the girl has Down syndrome, she was unable to
consent to having sex, and it’s his impression she was raped on more
than one occasion. Johnson said, “Even if she said ‘yes,’ she doesn’t
have the capacity to allow that to happen. So in my book, it’s rape.”

THE GIRL’S court-appointed lawyer, Janice W. Head, said that in recent
months, the girl had been leaving home and going about a mile away to
see a friend and hang out on Garfield Street in Central Falls. Last
month, the family sought help as the problems escalated.

Head offered the following chronology of events:

On July 22, a Sunday, one of the girl’s brothers spotted his sister on
Garfield Street as the girl was getting out of a car with two or three
young men inside. The brother called his mother, who came to bring the
girl home, but the girl screamed and cursed and refused to get in the
car. Eventually, the brother picked the girl up and put her in the car.
“She’s a tiny little thing,” Head said.

When the girl got home, she locked herself in her room and called the
Pawtucket police, saying her parents were hitting her. The police came
to the house and told the parents not to touch their daughter.

“What could we do?” the father asked. “We couldn’t grab her hands and
make her stay.”

The girl ended up leaving the house. The mother called the Pawtucket
police and was told she had to wait 24 hours before filing a
missing-person report. The girl did not return home that night.

The next day, Monday, July 23, the mother called the Pawtucket police,
saying her daughter could probably be found on Garfield Street. The
Pawtucket police told her they’d notify the Central Falls police.

The mother also went to the Department of Children, Youth and Families
office in Pawtucket that day, but she was told the state agency could
not help without an order from a judge.

The next day, July 24, the girl turned up at the Central Falls Police
Department, which is around the corner from Garfield Street.

The police chief, Moran, said the girl came to the police station to
check on whether her brother had been involved in a fight on Garfield
Street. Head said the brother might have been “fighting for his sister’s
honor.” Moran said the police dispatcher recognized the girl as someone
who’d been reported missing, so the police turned the girl over to her
mother, who came to the station with two workers from Tides Family Services.

“When I saw her, she didn’t look well at all,” the mother recalled. Her
daughter had bruises and red marks on her neck, her clothes were dirty,
and she had no shoes on her feet. The mother said it looked as though
someone had applied pressure to her daughter’s neck. The girl didn’t
want to talk with her mother, and the mother never directly asked about
the bruises. The mother said she feared her daughter had been raped, but
she never told the authorities.

Head said the mother told the Central Falls police she didn’t want to
bring her daughter home because she was afraid the girl would run away
again and she felt she couldn’t keep her safe, but the mother was told
to call the Pawtucket police because the family lives in Pawtucket.

The mother, the girl and the Tides workers went to the Pawtucket police
station, where no youth detectives were available immediately, and they
were told to call DCYF.

While outside the Pawtucket police station, the Tides workers called
DCYF’s Child Protective Services Hot Line and were told that if it
wasn’t an abuse or neglect case, they should call another hot line, Kids
Link Rhode Island, which DCYF unveiled this year “to serve behavioral
health needs of children.” A Kids Link operator promised to call back
after speaking with a clinician.

As the mother, the girl and the Tides workers waited for a return call,
Pawtucket police Detective Manuel Maciel arrived at the station and
asked if he could help. Maciel checked records and found a Family Court
petition had been filed in May saying the girl was “wayward” because she
was “habitually disobedient to the reasonable and lawful commands” of
her parents. The girl was due in Family Court on Aug. 28, but Maciel
said he’d try to get that court date moved up.

In the meantime, Maciel and Kids Link suggested the girl go to Hasbro
Children’s Hospital, and a Kids Link clinician met them there. Head said
she doesn’t know if the girl was examined to see if she’d been raped.
She said the hospital staff determined the girl did not need to be
hospitalized for physical reasons and was no threat to herself.

At 11:30 that Tuesday night, on July 24, the Tides workers placed a
second call to the Child Protective Services Hot Line and were advised
to call DCYF intake services in the morning.

“So I had to bring her back home,” the mother said.

The next morning, Maciel went to Family Court, and Jeremiah agreed to
hear the case that day. “Detective Maciel went above and beyond,” Head said.

Maciel could not be reached for this story. The mother gave Tides
workers written authorization to speak to The Journal, but Tides
supervisor Shanna Loveless said the not-for-profit social service agency
does not discuss clients’ cases.

AT THE JULY 25 hearing, Jeremiah placed the girl in the temporary
custody of DCYF with one-on-one supervision.

At another hearing two days later, Jeremiah asked Head if she’d seen red
marks on the girl’s neck. “I did,” Head replied. “And the officer did
tell me it extends all the way down. She was badly, badly bruised and
banged up, judge.” The girl referred to the marks as hickeys, but they
didn’t look like hickeys, Head said.

During the July 27 hearing, Johnson told the judge that the girl
“doesn’t function high enough” to undergo a diagnostic assessment
evaluation. He said the girl had been placed at Butler Hospital. “I
think the basic thing for this girl is to be safe,” he said.

Jeremiah questioned whether DCYF should have investigated more when the
hot line calls came in.

Johnson said the hot line determined the girl could go home with her
mother that night and would be safe, and a social worker was going to
contact the mother the next morning. “We were advised the child was
acting out and was not behaving,” he told The Journal. “If the calls
were saying the girl was being raped repeatedly and the parents can’t
keep her from being raped, then we would have responded immediately.”

During the July 27 hearing, Johnson said, “We think that the mother’s
lack of speaking English interfered in her being able to access the
appropriate services in the community, and we’re trying to make sure
that this girl does not fall through any cracks and is protected, your
honor.”

When the girl returned to Family Court on Aug. 2, Johnson said she was
still at Butler and DCYF was trying to get her into a group home run by
the Groden Center, a nonprofit organization for children with autism and
developmental disabilities.

The mother said she visits her daughter at Butler, and the girl has told
her: “Mom, I want to move away from this state. I’ve been through a lot.”

— With reports by staff writer Jennifer D. Jordan





CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A
DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NSA / CIA
WIRETAPPING PROGRAM....

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

CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING HUNDREDS 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...

 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
The Killing of a Journalist: Yusuf Bey raped and sodomized at leastfour young girls, including his own foster daughter. Officials with the county'sChild Protective Services knew all about it, but did nothing. fx Spanking 9 August 14th 07 05:49 PM
The Killing of a Journalist: Yusuf Bey raped and sodomized at leastfour young girls, including his own foster daughter. Officials with the county'sChild Protective Services knew all about it, but did nothing. fx Foster Parents 9 August 14th 07 05:49 PM
The Killing of a Journalist: Yusuf Bey raped and sodomized at leastfour young girls, including his own foster daughter. Officials with the county'sChild Protective Services knew all about it, but did nothing. fx Spanking 0 August 8th 07 04:05 AM
The Killing of a Journalist: Yusuf Bey raped and sodomized at leastfour young girls, including his own foster daughter. Officials with the county'sChild Protective Services knew all about it, but did nothing. fx Foster Parents 0 August 8th 07 04:05 AM
Girl, 10 Raped at School by 11 & 12 yr old Classmates Le Mod Pol General 10 February 14th 04 02:01 PM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 04:52 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 ParentingBanter.com.
The comments are property of their posters.