Report: CPS failed in abuse case
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/39240967.html
PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. — For weeks, a local father begged Child Protective Services to protect his young son from suspected abuse. Three-year-old Michael Kekoa Ravenell died after his mother’s boyfriend allegedly choked and beat him.
A blistering new report by the Department of Health and Human Services criticizes CPS for its handling of the case, and warns that the problems with this case may be statewide.
When Kekoa died last May, the questions were immediate and harsh.
According to court documents, Noah J. Thomas, the boyfriend of the boy’s mother, confessed that he’d beaten and choked him. Thomas told investigators blood was coming from the boy’s mouth, which he later tried to clean up with bleach.
An autopsy by Pierce County Medical Examiner found that the little boy died of blunt force trauma to the front and back of his head, and a massively swollen brain.
He also suffered a blunt impact to his abdomen, which compressed his abdominal wall to his spine, injuring his internal organs. There was also evidence of strangulation because of hemorrhages in Kekoa’s eyes.
But that doesn’t tell the story of what happened before he died.
Nearly two months earlier, the boy’s father had called Child Protective Services when he suspected abuse.
It was the first of what the boy’s father says were many suspicious marks on both his son and daughter.
“And he had bruising on the side of his head that was tender,” said Michael Ravenell, the boy’s biological father.
The case file shows CPS assigned an inexperienced social worker with just three months on the job to Kekoa’s case. ( this is no excuse for their failure to protect this child)
Ravenell says he kept calling, telling CPS about additional abuse, but got little response.
“Every day that went by was another day that something might have happened, or something more happened to my children,” he said.
Now the state’s own review of Michael’s death is a blistering indictment of how this case was handled.
“Policy wasn’t followed, procedure wasn’t followed, and that the supervision wasn’t adequate to make sure that policy was followed,” said CPS spokesman Thomas Shapley. (if the supervision was inadequate the supervisor should have also been fired)
The CPS social worker never checked Thomas’ background. He had a prior conviction for abusing his own children who were 2 and 4 years old.
The social worker never had a doctor examine the boy even though his father had informed her about the bruises.
The report also questions the then-new social worker’s training and supervision, and adds the problems may be statewide. (lack of training and supervision are not a valid excuse for their failure to protect this child!)
The report states the current training programs for new employees “are not sufficient to teach and train new employees who have no direct experience or knowledge of child welfare.” (still not a valid excuse for this failure)
It also notes that the case worker had consulted a supervisor several times during the investigation, but “interruptions to case staffings were commonplace due to unit workload and at times a thorough review of cases was not possible.” (this is NOT a valid excuse, if fact, it makes this failure even more negligent!)
Shapley said CPS has been made aware of the report’s findings.
“Supervisors and social workers throughout this agency are aware of this case and are looking at ways to do things better,” he said. (how about you get off your ass and actually do some work…it does not take much to type in a person name and a do a background check)
Maybe so. But that can’t compare to the anger and anguish that this father still feels. (I hope he sues, it won’t bring his son back, but it might make a difference in the way these cases are handled in the future as well as raise awareness to this epidemic.)
“You ask for help and nobody…I don’t know. It’s like nobody wanted to help me, my son, my kids,” Ravenell said. (I know exactly how he feels)
CPS has already fired the social worker who was on Kekoa’s case. The supervisor is still on the job and has not been disciplined. ( why the fuck not…it is clear from the report that she failed to do her job, she should be fired and prosecuted!)
The fatality review recommends that CPS beef up its training by teaming up new, inexperienced social workers with veterans. But the Department of Social and Health Services said in this struggling economy, the costly method is not a possibility. (this is not an excuse for failing to protect these children!)
Enough is enough, this childs death is a direct result of CPS failures and they should be charged with a crime for it. Why is the supervisor still working there? This supervisor and this “inexperienced” social worker killed this child through their neglect and inability to do their job and they should be held accountable for that! They should be charged with this child’s death and sent to prison…
I do not understand how the public can read these stories, see the failures of CPS, the faces of these beautiful children, that they allowed to die and not be screaming in the street for change and accountability! How many more children have to die, because CPS is incapable of performing even a fucking simple background check on a suspected abuser, how many bruises have to be ignored by social workers and their supervisors before the people say, not one more child will die on CPS’s watch. This child was murdered, not only by the mothers boyfriend, but by the very department that owed a duty to protect him.
If the other parent of a child, fails to protect that child from abuse, they are charged with a crime, why should CPS be any different? When these children die from what is so clearly negligence by Child Protective Services, then the people in charge of the case should suffer the same punishment as any other person would…hell even more so, because of their position, these people should be held to a higher standard than an ordinary person and face stricter punishments than them.
These deaths are an epidemic, this is mass murder by these departments…if this was occurring in any other country and we were seeing it on the news, the American people and government would react with outrage and a call for action to make it stop, but because it is happening in our country, by the Department of Health and Human Services…nothing is fucking done to stop it…no soliders are sent in to protect the innocent children, no mass outpouring of letters to the President begging him to intervene, no public cry for justice for these children.
What is the value of these childrens lives, do they not deserve the mass outrage that is afford to other tragedies where untold numbers of children are killed, simply because a government office is involved?
