WASHINGTON: WIFE WAS LEAVING MAN KILLED 5 CHILDREN

Wife Was Leaving Man Who Killed 5 Children

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/us/06killings.html?hpw

By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Published: April 5, 2009

GRAHAM, Wash. – A man who shot his five children to death in a mobile home near here over the weekend and later killed himself was distraught that his wife was having a relationship with another man, the authorities said Sunday.

The man, James Harrison, 34, was found dead in his car around 8:30 a.m. Saturday in Auburn, about 18 miles from here. The car’s engine was still running. Eight hours later, Pierce County sheriff’s deputies went to the mobile home after a relative saw a child lying down inside and no one answered the door.

The police found four of Mr. Harrison’s children dead in their bedrooms. The fifth was in a bathroom.

“One can only hope that most of them were asleep,” said Detective Ed Troyer of the Sheriff’s Department.

Neighbors identified the children as Maxine, 16; Samantha, 14 or 15; Jamie, 11; Heather, 8; and James, 7.

The children’s mother, Angela Harrison, Mr. Harrison’s wife, was not in the home at the time of the shootings.

Detective Troyer said Ms. Harrison had told her husband on Friday that she was leaving him, prompting Mr. Harrison and his daughter Maxine to track her to a convenience store in Auburn. Ms. Harrison was there with the other man.

The father and daughter “confronted her at the convenience store,” Detective Troyer said.

“She said she wasn’t coming home and that he was her new boyfriend,” he continued. “Everything went downhill from there.”

Detective Troyer said Mr. Harrison shot his children early Saturday. He then drove to an area near the convenience store in Auburn, where he shot himself.

The deaths followed recent mass shootings in Alabama, California, New York and North Carolina. Also on Saturday, a gunman shot and killed three police officers in Pittsburgh.

Here, at the Deer Run mobile home park, about an hour’s drive south from Seattle, Sheriff Paul Pastor said late Saturday that the shooting was the worst in the history of Pierce County. “This was not a tragedy,” Sheriff Pastor said. “This was a rotten murder.”

A spokeswoman for the State Children’s Administration said Sunday that Mr. Harrison had been found to have physically abused one of the children in February 2007.

The spokeswoman, Sherry Hill, said it was not yet clear who had called the agency to the house or whether the state had taken action against Mr. Harrison.

Ms. Hill said none of the children were removed from the home. She said the state had also been called to the home on matters “more geared toward neglect” but said she could not explain more. She said the state had not been in contact with the family in the last year.

“We still have to get further down into the weeds of this to get to the bottom of it,” Ms. Hill said.

Detective Troyer said deputies appeared to have visited the family as part of the 2007 abuse claim.

He said Ms. Harrison worked at a smoke shop and Mr. Harrison at the Emerald Queen Casino in Tacoma, possibly as a security guard.

Neighbors said that the Harrisons largely kept to themselves but argued frequently and loudly, and that Mr. Harrison could be heard threatening his children.

Carolyn Bader, who said she lived a few houses down from the Harrisons until January 2008, said she and her husband, Raymond, called the police and state child protection officials more than once because they were worried that the children were being abused.

“We’d be in our home with the doors and windows shut,” Ms. Bader said, “and they would be inside their house and we could hear him yelling at the kids.”

“It was out of control,” she added. “We would hear kids screaming in the house. I don’t mean playing screaming. I mean screaming.”

A neighbor, Ryan Peden, 16, said he had exchanged text messages with Maxine Harrison up until about 11 p.m. Friday.

In the last text message he received from Maxine, Ryan said, “Maxine told me, ‘I’m tired of crying. I’m going to bed. I’ll talk to you in the morning.’ “

Ryan said he knew Maxine from talking with her at a school bus stop. He said they were not particularly close but had been in contact more frequently recently. He said that she was a good student but that neither she nor the other children appeared to have been involved with many activities beyond school.

Another neighbor, Trisha Lund, said that her son, Robert, 8, sometimes played with James and that the two were in the same second-grade class this year at Orting Primary School. The boys also shared a regular session with a speech therapist at school. Ms. Lund said she and her parents had struggled to explain the shooting to Robert.

“I asked him how he felt about it,” Ms. Lund said. “He said, ‘I’m mad at his dad.’ “

I HAVE NO WORDS…ONLY QUESTIONS..BEGINNING WITH WHY?

Murder of 5 children shocks Wash. trailer park

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090405/ap_on_re_us/children_slain/print

By PHUONG LE, Associated Press Writer Phuong Le, Associated Press Writer

GRAHAM, Wash. – A quiet mobile home park nestled among towering evergreens reeled Sunday in the aftermath of an unthinkable crime: five children slain in their own home, apparently by their father, who took his own life with a gunshot miles away.

“How could something like this happen?” asked Mary Ripplinger, whose kids were playmates of the slain children. “Everyone’s asking: Why did he do it? It’s not right.”

A relative visiting the family’s doublewide trailer at the Deer Run mobile home park Saturday couldn’t get anyone to answer the door but through a window glimpsed a child lying motionless on a bed.

Pierce County deputies called to the home 15 miles southeast of Tacoma were confronted with a horror: four children murdered in their beds and the fifth slain in the bathroom. The four girls and the youngest child, a 7-year-old boy, apparently had been shot to death.

“This was not a tragedy. It was a rotten murder,” Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor said. “This appears to be the terrible work of the biological father. If that doesn’t break your heart, I don’t know what does.”

Earlier Saturday, police found the father dead in his still-running car near the Muckleshoot Casino in Auburn, about 18 miles north of Graham and 30 miles south of Seattle.

The father had apparently killed himself with a rifle, Auburn Police Sgt. Scott Near said. No note was left in the car.

The mother’s aunt, Penny Flansburg, identified the couple as Angela and James Harrison and the children as Maxine, Samantha, Heather, Jamie and James. The father worked as a diesel mechanic, and the mother works at Wal-Mart, Flansburg said.

She was at a loss to explain the crime.

“They were pleasant together,” Flansburg said. “We can’t even figure out why.”

Ryan Peden, a classmate of the eldest daughter, who was 16, said she told him Friday night that her parents had gotten into a fight and her mother had left. The father followed the mother and tried to get her to return, said Peden, 16.

Carolyn and Raymond Bader, a former neighbor of the family, told The Seattle Times they often heard the father yelling at the children. The Baders said they called the sheriff’s department and Child Protective Services several times with their concerns.

“We did all we could to help these kids,” Raymond Bader said. “We tried to protect these kids. We did what we could.”

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press

EXCLUSIVE: AGENCY OVERHAULS POLICIES AFTER DEATHS

 

Department of Social Services also disciplines seven workers in response to five children dying in homes

http://www.thestate.com/local/story/739037.html

By CLIF LeBLANC – cleblanc@thestate.com

Seven Department of Social Services employees are being disciplined in the deaths of five children in homes troubled by drug abuse, in cases cited by child safety advocates as failures in the child safety net.

DSS director Kathleen Hayes, after reviewing the five cases, also said her agency is moving to better protect other children who are at risk. The agency has launched an overhaul of its practices for dealing with drugs in families and has ratcheted up staff training, she said.

Hayes’ review comes in response to complaints from the Child Fatalities Review Committee, an arm of SLED that investigates child deaths in South Carolina. The cases in contention were identified last week in a State newspaper report. Committee members told the newspaper DSS had failed to act on two years of complaints that caseworkers too often tolerate drug use in troubled families.

DSS is disciplining one supervisor and six caseworkers involved, Hayes said.

Another caseworker has been transferred away from dealing with children, and 13 other child welfare staffers have left the agency in the wake of the deaths, which happened between 2005 and 2007.

DSS declined to identify the employees or former employees.
“I am really disturbed by the inadequacies in these cases,” Hayes said Friday after an in-depth internal examination of how the agency failed to deal with the troubled families.

“The overwhelming issue in these cases was undervaluing the risk.”

The deceased children ranged in age from 26 days to 17 years and died in households where parents or caregivers were involved with drugs or alcohol.

In a 2005 Spartanburg County case, for example, caseworkers did not investigate allegations that the mother allowed friends to use crack cocaine in front of her children. Six months later, the woman’s 7-month-old was asphyxiated after she left him and his toddler sister with a boyfriend who had methamphetamine and other drug charges on his record. He also had been accused of molesting the 3-year-old.

In an Oconee County drowning of a 2-year-old in 2007, parents with extensive criminal records were allowed to keep their four children even though caseworkers knew the parents left them unsupervised and their home at one time lacked running water and utilities.

The committee took its complaints of drug tolerance to DSS leaders last spring and summer and was outraged at being ignored.

“We don’t condone or excuse the use of illegal drugs,” Hayes said Friday in defense of the agency. She also said agency leaders also failed to let the committee know of changes in practices that were under way.

With these five families, caseworkers either used poor judgment in determining dangers, did not move quickly enough to protect the children or their siblings or failed to follow proper procedures, Hayes said.

In Laurens County, where two of the cases originated, the DSS office was overloaded with cases and plagued with staff turnover, Hayes said.

The caseworker in one of the questioned cases was handling 55 cases, even though the average workload is about 15, Hayes said. She said an experienced supervisor was transferred there in January.

Committee chairman Clay Nichols, a Richland County forensic pathologist, had called the failures a lack of common sense.

“The majority of DSS cases are handled properly,” Hayes said. “We have highly dedicated caseworkers.”
A senior member of the committee and a SLED agent who oversees child fatality investigations said they welcome the announced changes.

“I’m pleased with her assessment and quick reaction,” victims advocate Laura Hudson said. “These are deaths we’re talking about, not broken ankles.

“People that are not doing their jobs in dealing with children need to be pushing carts at Kmart.”

Hudson said she was worried last week when Hayes attended her first meeting of the committee. Afterward, Hudson said, the director seemed more interested in learning how the newspaper obtained access to records of the five cases than to the issues raised by committee members.

“I am mystified by that statement,” Hayes said in reaction. “… We share their goal of protecting children and that was my message to them.”

Capt. Patsy Lightle, head of the special victim’s unit at the State Law Enforcement Division, said she hopes DSS will ensure changes are made.

“Facts are facts,” Lightle said. “When the facts show you that you’re wrong, you make it right.”

Committee vice chairman Gratin Smith, a Greenwood pediatrician, said he is pleased with the agency’s response. But he said he would like other state leaders to be equally responsive.

“We don’t think the committee has had the response it needs from the governor’s office or even the Legislature.”

REACHING OUT
In the past month, DSS has reached out to other agencies that deal with substance abuse and to national experts for help in upgrading training and policies.

Hayes said the agency on Friday sent notice to all 46 county offices of interim changes in the way drug cases are handled. The new rules take effect Monday and will apply until changes from the national experts are adopted.

Also, specialists from the Children’s Welfare League of America and the National Center for Substance Abuse and Child Welfare will be in town April 27, Hayes said.

The interim guidelines are in question-and-answer format and streamline the agency’s voluminous policies and procedures manual, said Wilbert Lewis, director of child protective services.

The intent, Hayes wrote in a directive memo, is to “more clearly focus attention on … critical practices” and to eliminate “extraneous instructions.”

Still, more needs to be done, Hayes said. “There are things we need to do to connect the dots” in how DSS works with other agencies to protect children.

DSS, though a $1 billion agency, has suffered deep cuts in its budget and is seeking help from private funds.

• Casey Family Programs, based in Seattle, provided a grant of $800,000 over four years to team caseworkers with other agencies that deal with troubled families. The intent is to get involved sooner, bring in a neutral facilitator and give families a chance to craft their own plan to keep children from being removed from the home. A pilot program is to be launched this spring in 10 counties that have yet to be selected, said Hayes’ chief of staff, Katie Morgan.

• The National Governors Association picked South Carolina and five other states to help train caseworkers in finding ways to safely reduce the number of children placed onto foster care.

• A one-year, $50,000 Duke Endowment grant sent 62 DSS employees, S.C. Family Court judges and other child advocates to learn from best practices in other states, including programs in Charlotte. (What a joke, NCDSS isn’t any better than SC’s…)

SLED’s Lightle said Hayes’ changes bode well for child safety in South Carolina.

“I’m thankful on behalf of SLED and the children in this state that she is taking steps to correct the problems.”

Reach LeBlanc at (803) 771-8664

KALAB LAY: YOU COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED

Greatest tragedy: You could have been saved

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2009/mar/31/greatest-tragedy-you-could-have-been-saved/

Dear Kalab,

One year ago today, the brutality that took your life away took our breath away.

Your parents remain jailed two miles from your grave, charged with beating you and your twin sister, Kayla.

Your surviving siblings and half siblings are scattered in three family or foster homes in two states.

I wish I could tell you why child protective services didn’t intervene in time to save you or why an Illinois judge sent you to live with your parents in Evansville after you had been with the same foster family for 41 of your 43 months.

I wish I could tell you someone, some agency, some entity had taken responsibility for, or even accepted accountability for, some of the events in the chain inexorably leading to your death from blunt force trauma to the head.

I’m sorry. I can’t.

And, Kalab, I am so sorry you died after days of torture in the place where you should have been cherished and safe. No child deserves to live in the hell that was your home.

You need to know it wasn’t your fault. No matter what you were told, you didn’t do anything wrong. You were completely innocent, pure and worthy of love and protection simply because you were unique to this world and, therefore, precious.

Sometimes, the truth is, monsters wear clever disguises and lurk in familiar places. Sometimes monsters fool the children who love them. Sometimes they trick adults who might be able to help.

You probably won’t believe this, but I met Kayla – once and briefly – when chance brought us together.

Without introduction, she clamored up my legs like a little monkey, wrapped her arms around my shoulders and nestled her beautiful face in my neck.

I buried mine in her shiny dark hair, rocking her gently from side to side, from side to side, from side to side.

That moment will never fade. I barely made it to my car before bursting into tears. I cried for you, for Kayla, for your brothers and sisters, for those who loved you, for those who never met you but will always remember you and for the estimated 1,500 children who die of abuse or neglect in this country every year.

For months, my colleague Kate Braser – I wish you had a chance to know Kate; you would have liked her – and I have been trying to ask the right questions of the right people in the hopes of finding someone who can make sense of your death.

Although Kate no longer works here, she has continued to participate in the effort to tell your story from her hometown near Chicago. Unfortunately, the laws designed to protect the privacy of your family also empower those who might have answers to withhold them.

When someone does provide an answer, inevitably that answer comes hand-in-hand with a host of additional questions.

Your life, in and out of the child welfare systems in two states, and your tragic death cry out for scrutiny. I hear that cry at night, in the dark, where the monsters sometimes hide.

After reviewing thousands of documents related to the investigation of your death, I cannot point to any one individual involved in your case who exhibited either thoughtlessness or intention.

However, the number of warning signs in your file screamed for extra attention.

Father’s criminal history. Red flag. Mother’s childhood abuse. Red flag. Both parents’ use of methamphetamine. Red flag. Increased negative behaviors of children following parental visits. Red flag. Red flag. Red flag. Red flag.

Lack of communication and flexibility within child welfare guidelines also appear to be contributing factors.

Collectively, the system failed.

In the coming months, this newspaper will take an in-depth look at the actions of those responsible for your care within a framework of laws designed to reunite families.

Your life, though short, has mattered more than you could possibly imagine. You united the community, inspired proposed legislation and encouraged a new group to form in an effort to increase awareness about and prevention of child abuse.

Kalab, you have done so much for so many, it is a great tragedy to realize your life actually improved when it was taken away.

The greatest tragedy is that you could have been saved.

- Libby Keeling
(812) 464-7450 or keelingl@courierpress.com

VIGIL TONIGHT
A candlelight vigil remembering Kalab Lay is planned for 7 p.m. today at the Children’s Angel Monument at the Vanderburgh 4-H Center. The gathering will move to Shelter No. 1 if it rains.
Those attending are asked to bring their own candles and royal blue balloons. The balloons will be released simultaneously. Everyone is welcome.
For more information, call (812) 664-8033.

SACRAMENTO COUNTY SUPERVISORS URGED TO BRING IN OUTSIDE CONSULTANT

Dozens pack board chambers over child protection agency

 

http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/1744516.html

ShareThisBy Marjie Lundstrom and Sam Stanton
mlundstrom@sacbee.com
Published: Tuesday, Mar. 31, 2009 – 4:06 pm
Last Modified: Tuesday, Mar. 31, 2009 – 4:26 pm

Sacramento County supervisors are being urged this afternoon to bring in an outside consultant to help oversee changes in the troubled Child Protective Services agency, but some officials are saying no change is needed in the leadership of CPS despite a critical new review of the agency.

Jim Hunt, the interim head of the countywide services agency, told the board that he agreed with a recommendation in an auditor’s review of the agency that someone be brought in to work with CPS leadership to improve the agency.

There is an “urgent need to have an outside group involved,” Hunt said.

His remarks came at the start of what may be hours of testimony and comment about an audit of CPS, which found systemic failures of leadership, poor morale and training and a sharp increase in the number of children who died on CPS’ watch.

The board chambers was packed with CPS officials and workers, as well as parents who are involved with current CPS cases and were waiting to speak.

Alyson Collier, head of the county’s CPS Oversight Committee, agreed that an outside consultant should be brought in to help change the agency’s direction, but she said that no change in leadership is needed at the helm of CPS because that would slow down progress. It would be “an error in judgment to change the leadership team,” she said, echoing comments from county executive Terry Schutten, who told The Bee last week that problems at CPS are related to policy and not leadership.

The review of CPS was ordered last July in the wake of a series of revelations in The Bee about problems inside CPS and a sharp increase in child deaths.

The auditor, MGT of America Inc., found that 13 deaths or near-deaths of children had occurred between 1997 and 2007, while there had been 10 such incidents in the last 15 months alone.

Supervisor Susan Peters asked the auditors why the death rate had shot up, but the reviewers said they did not have specific answers.

Lynn Frank, the county official who oversees CPS, then began telling the board about the difficulties of social workers’ jobs and about how painful it had been for CPS to be the focus of negative attention in recent months.

“The department as been as concerned as the general public has about the deaths of children in 2008,” Frank said.

CPS Director Laura Coulthard followed Frank, telling the board that she “welcomed” the recommendation for an outside consultant to help her repair problems at the agency and characterizing the MGT review of CPS as a positive report.

“This report really validates improvements we have under way,” she said.

Coulthard added that the workload for employees has gone up in the past year but said the agency was nonetheless concerned any time a child dies.

“We certainly recognize one missed opportunity to save a child is one too many,” she said.

The MGT review found that in seven child deaths studied CPS workers failed to follow policies correctly and that in four of the deaths they missed opportunities to take actions that may have resulted in the children being saved. The audit cautioned that there was no way to say for certain that those children would have been saved.

The report is the latest critical look at the agency. The county grand jury has been investigating CPS for months, and at one point had to send letters to all employees warning them that they must cooperate with the probe and should not let managers interfere.

In addition, a Bee investigation has found a series of problems, including the altering old files after one child was beaten to death. The Bee also found that 7 percent of CPS staff have criminal histories, with past problems ranging from charges or convictions for drug sales to theft and domestic violence.