Jury awards abused kids $6.2 million State (Department of Socialand Health Services) found negligent in case...

Jury awards abused kids $6.2 million State found negligent in case

ANNIE FLANZRAICH
The Associated Press.


http://www.theolympian.com/news/story/126874.html


SEATTLE - A King County Superior Court jury ordered the state to pay
$6.2 million Tuesday to four siblings who were repeatedly abused in
foster care for six years, the latest in a string of legal troubles for
the state Department of Social and Health Services.

The jury deliberated for three days following the three-week trial,
which centered on whether the state was negligent in licensing and
monitoring the Seattle and Tacoma foster homes where the children stayed.

Most of the Williams siblings' abuse occurred between 1993 and 1998,
while they stayed at the Seattle home of Pearl Hall, evidence showed.
Hall, now deceased, beat the children with extension cords, belts and
shoes. Her son Paul, a teenager at the time, sexually abused the three
oldest children, said Kathy Goater, an attorney for the children.

In 2001, Paul Hall was convicted in King County Superior Court of child
rape and child molestation in the case.

Robert Williams, now 16, ran away to a supermarket to avoid another of
Pearl Hall's beatings in July 1998, when he was just 7 years old. Police
found him there and a few days later the four were moved to a home in
Tacoma.

They stayed at the Tacoma home from 1998 to 1999, and were beaten there
as well, court documents showed. After 1999, the children were removed
from foster care and sent to live with relatives.

The siblings - two boys and two girls - are now 13 to 19 years old.

"It is deeply regrettable that these children had to suffer abuse in a
home that should have been a safe place," DSHS spokeswoman Kathy Spears
said. "We did try to resolve this matter prior to trial, but the
settlement negotiations did not bring us close enough to resolution."

The state attorney general's office is weighing whether to appeal,
Spears said.

In 2004, the state agreed to overhaul its foster-care system to settle a
case brought by Jessica Braam, who lived in 34 foster homes by the time
she sued in 1998. An oversight panel was assigned to work with DSHS in
improving foster parent training and support, preventing unsafe
placements and making other changes, but the state has been sued several
times in recent years.

Last month, the state agreed to pay $290,000 to settle a lawsuit
accusing the state of negligence in the case of an 8-year-old foster
child sexually abused at a foster home in Ellensburg in 2002. In April,
a multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed in Yakima County blamed state social
workers for ignoring warnings that could have avoided abuse that left a
6-year-old girl brain damaged and partially blind.

Goater's co-counsel, Becky Roe, said she had never seen a group of
children who so badly slipped through the system's cracks, and she hoped
the verdict Tuesday would encourage the state to get its act together
when it comes to protecting foster children.

"They are supposed to be monitoring and complying with their own
policies, and they weren't," Roe said.

The siblings did not see a case worker for the first 18 months after
they were placed into foster care, evidence showed. After that,
different case workers sporadically monitored the children until March
1996 when a steady case worker was finally assigned, Roe said. At the
time, foster children were supposed to be visited every 30 days. At a
news conference, the oldest of the four children, De'Arra Williams, 19,
praised her brother Robert for running away to the supermarket and
changing their lives.

"He saved us," she said.







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

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.

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...

Article stated:
The siblings did not see a case worker for the first 18 months after
they were placed into foster care
....
At the time, foster children were supposed to be visited every 30 days.

CPS was found negligent to the tune of 6.2 Million.

State actually supplied kids to violent abuser and child molester.