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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... |
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