DCF FAILURES

Posted on Wednesday, 03.09.11

Senator demands answers in child deaths

The agency charged with protecting children in Florida and its new secretary are under fire after several high-profile child abuse deaths.

BY MARY ELLEN KLAS

Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau

TALLAHASSEE -- Sen. Ronda Storms told Gov. Rick Scott’s social services secretary Wednesday to “dispense with the niceties” and demanded he provide some answers to the recent troubling child abuse deaths that have exposed cracks in his agency.

“Welcome to your baptism by fire,’’ said Storms, the chairwoman of the Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee as David Wilkins stood before her committee for the first time. “You’ve had very difficult days and weeks and I respect that.”

Then she barreled ahead, asking him to explain what the state Department of Children and Families is doing to address the “horrible atrocities’’ surrounding the 10-year-old Miami twins tortured by their adoptive parents after being in state protective custody.

Wilkins, 50, a former global managing director for Accenture Health and Public Service, has only been on the job a month. Yet he’s had to confront the tragic death 10-year-old Nubia Barahona, of Miami, and the discovery of two Delray Beach siblings, 10-year-old Jermaine McNeil and 6-year-old Ju’Tyra Allen, whose bodies were found last week stuffed in suitcases and dumped in a canal.

Nubia’s body was found on Valentine’s Day in the flatbed of her adoptive father’s pest-control truck, drenched in toxic chemicals. Her twin, Victor, was found hours earlier in the pickup’s cab, burned by caustic chemicals, convulsing, but still alive. He is recovering at a therapeutic foster home after being released from Jackson Memorial Hospital’s burn unit. The adoptive parents, Jorge and Carmen Barahona face charges of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and child neglect. In the case of the Delray Beach siblings, police have a sole suspect in custody, but he has not been charged in connection with the deaths.

Wilkins said he traveled to Miami the day after Nubia Barahona’s body was found and said he encountered “finger pointing of all the different parties.”

“I realized the situation was much more complicated than I understood,” he said. “I believe an overall systematic failure contributed to this process due to outdated business processes, conflicting rules and responsibilities that exist in this agency, institutional lapses in quality, governance and accountability.”

But Storms interrupted Wilkins as he tried to describe the panel of social service experts he appointed to conduct an independent review.

“I appreciate what you’re saying but what I want to know is how will this be different?,’’ said Storms, a Republican from Valrico. “How many more investigations, how many more death reviews will we have?”

Wilkins promised to work “very aggressively” to reform DCF and he called the case “the defining moment of my early tenure.”

He said he wants to restructure the jobs of child protection investigators – the agency’s “first line of defense” – and enhance their tools and technology. He said he has worked side by side with them, but is concerned about their lack of experience. More than 56 percent of DCF investigators have less than two years experience and turnover is high — 64 percent — in three regions of the state.

Wilkins acknowledged DCF’s problems are deep. He said the limited training requirements “are misdirected” ecause they focus on case management and social work instead of “how to assess a situation.”

He offered no immediate remedy to address the current situation.The review panel’s report on the Barahona case is due out on Monday and Wilkins said he promises to adopt the recommendations.

Storms, however, said the agency failure goes beyond DCF. She blamed the Community Based Care agencies, a local organization contracted to handle the agency’s work.

“I’m tired of just throwing case workers under the bus,’’ Storms said. She said she agreed to give local groups more flexibility, but they “are not doing their job.”

She lambasted the groups for “having some gall” to ask the Legislature for exemptions from liability for negligence and chastised their executives. She then urged Wilkins not to defend them: “You should just duck and stay out of the way.”

Wilkins said he will use his business experience to improve the agency’s hotline and call centers, increase “community engagement” and keep the focus on accountability.

Storms then finished with a commendation and a plea. She thanked Wilkins for leaving a comfortable retirement from the private sector to work for the state.

“Please do not disappoint us,” she said. “Do not shrink away from the job. You have a short window of opportunity for goodwill … take that goodwill and exploit it.”

Abused tot's grandmother sues state over boy's death

01:30 a.m. HST, Mar 19, 2011

A 14-month-old boy who died from child abuse in military housing on Ford Island was hospitalized the day before due to injury, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday in state court.

One month before his death, the state Department of Human Serv­ices received an emergency report on its abuse hot line of severe and ongoing abuse of the boy, the lawsuit says.

Brayden Elizah McVeigh died Sept. 18, 2009. The Hono­lulu medical examiner said McVeigh died from brain injury caused by "abusive head trauma."

The boy's father, Matthew McVeigh, 26, is awaiting Navy court-martial proceedings for allegedly causing his son's injuries and death. He was a Navy diver assigned to Pearl Harbor at the time. The Navy has since reassigned McVeigh to other duties.

Brayden's maternal grandmother is suing the state and the boy's father for allegedly causing the boy's death.

Terri Polm said the Human Serv­ices Department should not have returned Braden and his older sister to their parents; its Child Welfare Serv­ices Branch had taken custody of the children when Brayden suffered a broken arm and other injuries at the age of 5 weeks. She also claims the state did not adequately monitor the children's care after it returned the children to their parents and failed to investigate the emergency report or the cause of Brayden's hospitalization.

Polm, who lives in Texas, is also fighting for custody of Brayden's now 4-year-old sister, who is in foster care in Hawaii.




A 14-month-old boy who died from child abuse in military housing on Ford Island was hospitalized the day before due to injury, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday in state court.

One month before his death, the state Department of Human Serv­ices received an emergency report on its abuse hot line of severe and ongoing abuse of the boy, the lawsuit says.

Brayden Elizah McVeigh died Sept. 18, 2009. The Hono­lulu medical examiner said McVeigh died from brain injury caused by "abusive head trauma."

The boy's father, Matthew McVeigh, 26, is awaiting Navy court-martial proceedings for allegedly causing his son's injuries and death. He was a Navy diver assigned to Pearl Harbor at the time. The Navy has since reassigned McVeigh to other duties.

Brayden's maternal grandmother is suing the state and the boy's father for allegedly causing the boy's death.

Terri Polm said the Human Serv­ices Department should not have returned Braden and his older sister to their parents; its Child Welfare Serv­ices Branch had taken custody of the children when Brayden suffered a broken arm and other injuries at the age of 5 weeks. She also claims the state did not adequately monitor the children's care after it returned the children to their parents and failed to investigate the emergency report or the cause of Brayden's hospitalization.

Polm, who lives in Texas, is also fighting for custody of Brayden's now 4-year-old sister, who is in foster care in Hawaii.


http://www.justice4caylee.org/t11368-brayden-elizah-mcveigh-14-mos-sept-09-ford-island-military-housing-hi#639384

State grapples with its child protective services

THE ISSUE: DCF reacts to rash of fatal child abuse cases.

March 21, 2011

Here we go again. Another series of press conferences by Florida's top child-welfare administrators left to explain the horrific deaths of young children, deaths that might have been prevented if the people and programs responsible for protecting abused children hadn't missed the obvious signs.

Granted, Florida Department of Children & Families Secretary David E. Wilkins and his staff are in a tough spot. The deaths of 10-year-old Nubia Barahona of Miami Dade County and, to a lesser degree, 10-year-old Jermaine McNeil, and his sister, 6-year-old Ju'Tyra Allen, in Palm Beach County, have put a harsh spotlight on the state's abilities to uncover child abuse and to provide rehabilitative services once that discovery is made.

Unfortunately, the department's reaction — staff dismissals, the promise of improvements and particularly the remorse — sounds all too familiar, and unsatisfyingly frustrating. Worse still is the reality that DCF has little leverage over the network of community-based care organizations that conduct the lion's share of Florida's child welfare services.

Ideally, Florida's child protective and child welfare system is supposed to work like this: DCF, or through contracts it has with various sheriff's offices, receives and investigates child abuse and neglect cases. The results of those probes are then turned over to local community agencies under contract with DCF to provide a safe environment and family support services to help troubled youngsters.

DCF, initially, was responsible for oversight of these local groups,
which offered the promise of more efficient and responsive services in
contrast to the days long agoof the old state Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services.

Over the years, though, community-based care groups like Child Net Inc. in Broward County and Our Kids Inc. in Miami-Dade County lobbied state lawmakers for new procedures that made them less accountable to DCF's oversight.

Many of the fiscal and quality assurance oversight responsibilities are now contracted out to private firms, and DCF has seen its oversight of contracts brokered by these organizations diminished in recent years.

So it was disappointing, at best, to hear Secretary Wilkins this week ask Our Kids Inc. for a "corrective action plan" as part of his list of new initiatives to improve the system. It's particularly disappointing because a panel Wilkins himself appointed to examine the mistakes leading up to the death of Nubia Barahona felt it was being stonewalled by Our Kids officials and their subcontractor responsible for case management services, including Barahona's.

"The incoming secretary should undertake a review of the quality of the services performed by Our Kids and its subcontractors," the three-member panel that authored "The Nubia Report" concluded. "Our Kids receives about $100 million per year from DCF to perform contracted services. This investigation has raised concerns about the quality of some services delivered by Our Kids and its subcontractors."

No question DCF faces a host of challenges. Inadequate funding remains a problem, but so, too, are those recent bills passed by the Legislature and signed into law by the governor that have weakened the state's oversight of the local community groups that have child-welfare contracts with DCF.

Wilkins' recommendations, ranging from a review of the agency's hotline operations to hiring more caseworkers, are almost mandatory at this point, but DCF must seek further changes if it hopes to get the best out of community-based care reform.

Asking state lawmakers to help DCF maintain current spending for child protective programs helps, but obtaining more statutory authority to ensure local community-based organizations improve their operating standards would amount to a significant improvement.

DCF officials should take a different course and break out of what's become an all-too-familiar refrain following a tragic child death. Rilya Wilson, Gabriel Myers and now Nubia Barahona, Jermaine McNeil and Ju'Tyra Allen — all unfortunate incidents in a child welfare system that, at the moment at least, seems anything but.

BOTTOM LINE: DCF must be given more oversight of its contractors.

Re: MARCHELLA PIERCE - 4 yo (2010) - Brooklyn/NYC NY



by TomTerrific0420 Today at 12:54 pm
Two child welfare workers were charged in the death of a child under
their care - the first such prosecution in the city's history, officials
said Wednesday.Authorities said an Administration for Children's Services case worker failed to visit the Bedford-Stuyvesant home where 4-year-old Marchella Brett-Pierce was found dead in September.The worker, Damon Adams,
was also accused of falsifying records after the girl died weighing
just 18 pounds. Adams' direct supervisor, Chereece Bell, was charged for
not monitoring his work on the case.The ACS workers both
resigned a month after the girl's death. They each face criminally
negligent homicide charges and were expected to be arraigned late
Wednesday.The Brooklyn District Attorney's Office also announced Wednesday that the girl's grandmother, Loretta Brett, SNIP


http://www.justice4caylee.org/t8183-marchella-pierce-4-yo-2010-brooklyn-nyc-ny#640488

Law & Disorder: Ex-child abuse investigator pleads guilty to misconduct

Prosecutor doesn't plan to ask for jail time, just wants her accountable.

March 29, 2011 -


Anderson

A former state Department of Children and Families investigator in Jacksonville has pleaded guilty to falsifying a child abuse record.

Quakeita Leisha Anderson, 28, resigned from the agency last year amid an investigation into the bogus report. She closed a child abuse case without making a standard follow-up visit, even though she justified it by reporting she made the visit.

The same family became subject to another child abuse investigation based on a hotline tip a month later.

Anderson pleaded guilty to official misconduct last week. She had been scheduled to go to trial this week.

She is scheduled to be back in court for sentencing April 25.

Prosecutor Richard Komando said he was mostly concerned with holding Anderson accountable and does not plan to ask for jail time.

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2011-03-29/story/law-disorder-ex-child-abuse-investigator-pleads-guilty-misconduct#ixzz1I11jtiIa

Child welfare head says panel will review Barahona case


By Mike Clary, Sun Sentinel

3:06 p.m. EST, February 21, 2011


MIAMI— David Wilkins, secretary of the Department of Children & Families, said thousands of pages of documents spelling out how a Miami couple, Carmen and Jorge Barahona, came to be foster parents, and then adoptive parents, of four children. One of them is dead and her 10-year-old twin is in intensive care.

Reeling from what he called "the ongoing horror of what the Barahona children faced," the head of the state's child welfare agency announced Monday that an independent panel will investigate what may be one of the worst child abuse cases in Florida history.

David Wilkins, secretary of the Department of Children & Families, also announced the release of thousands of pages of documents that could help spell out how a Miami couple, Carmen and Jorge Barahona, came to be foster parents, and then adoptive parents, of four children. One of them is dead and her 10-year-old twin brother is in intensive care.

"It has been a week since this tragedy became public and the pain and shock has not begun to wear off for this department, our partners or this community," said Wilkins. Gov. Rick Scott named him to head DCF just three weeks before the tragedy began to unfold.

At a press conference Monday, Wilkins said caseworker Andrea Fleary, who on Feb. 11 visited the couple's home in response to a hotline tip that the twins were bring abused, has been put on paid administrative leave.

Three days later Nubia Barahona was found dead, her body discovered in a bag in the back of Jorge Barahona's truck parked alongside Interstate 95 in Palm Beach County.

In the cab of the truck was Nubia's twin, Victor. He had been doused with a caustic chemical, and is now a patient in the burn unit at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

Wilkins said Monday that Victor Barahona's condition is improving, and, "We are optimistic about his recovery."

Jorge Barahona, 53, told police he had intended to kill himself. He is being held in the Palm Beach County jail, charged with attempted first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse.

A children's court judge last week ordered his wife Carmen, 60, to have no contact with Victor or the two other surviving adopted children. DCF placed the three children in what the agency calls "therapeutic foster care" while they continue to attend public elementary school in southwest Miami-Dade.

At the press conference, Wilkins said the independent review of how the department handled the Barahona case would run concurrent with criminal probes of the couple by police in West Palm Beach and Miami-Dade County. DCF is also conducting a review, he said.

Named to the review panel, which is to report by March 11, were David Lawrence, former Miami Herald publisher and children's advocate; former U.S. Attorney Roberto Martinez, and Jim Sewell, former assistant commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

The panel will be holding public hearings, the first scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday at DCF's Southern Regional Headquarters, 401 NW 2nd Ave., Miami.

Changes in DCF procedures are expected, Wilkins said. He cautioned, however, "No government agency can prevent those very few who have lost the core values of humanity from performing inhumane acts."

N.J. paid $7M to settle lawsuits from three abused foster children




Published: Monday, April 25, 2011

TRENTON — Nate was 8 years
old when he first accused his foster mother of abusing him. But it took
several complaints over a number of years before state child-welfare
investigators could prove she was abusive and move him to another foster
family.

Then the boy was abused again in another foster home — this time by his foster mother’s son.

“He was taken from his mother at a very young age. He was in 22
different places over the course of his life,” said attorney Joel Garber
of Voorhees, who represented the boy and his adoptive family in a
lawsuit against the Division of Youth and Family Services. “This kid has
been through it all.”

Nate, now 17 and living in Colorado with his adoptive family,
received $1.2 million last year from the state to settle the suit.

It was part of the nearly $7 million New Jersey paid out last year to
settle lawsuits brought on behalf of three foster children harmed in a
system created to protect them, according to information from the state
Attorney General’s office. The state admitted no wrongdoing.

The foster care lawsuits represent 15 percent of the $51.7 million
the state paid out in 317 suits last year. But attorneys and child
advocates say these lawsuits are among the most tragic because DYFS acts
as the de facto parent when children are removed from abusive or
neglectful homes. The agency is responsible for screening, training and
monitoring foster parents.

The lawsuits were paid after New Jersey spent more than $1 billion
beginning in 2003 to overhaul its child-welfare system under the
supervision of a federal judge.

With DYFS supervising more than 7,000 children living in licensed
foster and group homes, advocates and attorneys say it would be unfair
to use any one case to indict an entire system. But they also say these
cases should raise red flags — and be used to correct flaws.

“DYFS, like everything else, is run by human beings and everyone
makes mistakes. The problem is when they make a mistake it’s a
devastating mistake because they are dealing with extremely important
issues,” said attorney Jeffrey Advokat of Morristown, who represented
another boy sexually abused by his foster parents in Hudson County from
1996 to 1998. The state settled that case for $4.5 million last May.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE:

• Editorial: Negligent, not criminal behavior by child welfare

• Report says DYFS has improved, but continues to struggle to meet basic goals

• DYFS fails to meet federal requirements for reuniting foster children with families, report says

• DYFS to pay $4.5M to N.J. boy who was sexually abused by foster parent




“While these are individual cases, I would hope that DYFS is looking
at them — as they should for all child death and serious injury cases …
to identify any problems in practice that must be fixed to prevent
similar cases in the future,” said Cecilia Zalkind, executive director
of Advocates for Children of New Jersey.

At least one of the three victims endured abuse before the 2003 court
order. But another case that settled last year — the June 7, 2006,
death of 21-month-old Xavier Jones, who swallowed a bottle of methadone
that belonged to a relative living in the foster home — occurred
afterward. The state has already publicly acknowledged mistakes in that
case.

The state paid $800,000 to Xavier Jones’s family. The family’s attorney did not return calls seeking comment.

According to a 2007 report by the now-defunct Office of the Child
Advocate, DYFS failed to regularly communicate with Xavier’s foster
mother. She made repeated requests to have children removed because she
couldn’t handle their care, to which DYFS “did not always respond,” the
report said.

In a response statement on its website, the department said Xavier’s
caseworker supervised too many children. The state closed the foster
home, and also pledged to “re-emphasize in our training for prospective
and ongoing resource parents the need for proper medication storage.”

Lauren Kidd, spokeswoman for DYFS’ parent agency, the Department of
Children and Families, declined to discuss any specific cases. But in
general, Kidd said, “Changes have begun to take hold since the reform.”
The department “has been able to recruit and license more foster parents
and focus on appropriate, timely and thorough investigations.”

Judith Meltzer, the court-appointed monitor of New Jersey’s reform
effort, praised DYFS for recruiting 7,000 new foster parents since 2005,
and for completing the vast majority of abuse investigations in foster
care within 60 days.

But Zalkind said these cases call into question the adequacy of foster-care abuse investigations.

“What concerns me is that system problems that put kids at risk in
the past have presumably been addressed (by the reforms),” Zalkind said.
“With all these positive changes, why are there cases in which the
basic safety of children in (foster care) placement — to be free from
abuse or neglect — is still at risk?”

Allegations of abuse and neglect in foster homes, schools and other
institutions are investigated by a different team than the employees who
investigate complaints against a child’s parents. This team, the
Institutional Abuse Investigations Unit, has delved into more than 3,000
allegations a year, with one-third of them against foster families,
Kidd said.

The percent of allegations confirmed against foster parents or
caregivers in other “institutional” settings — such as day care centers,
camps and schools — is very low. In 2009, the unit confirmed 2.75
percent of all allegations, down from 7.6 percent in 2006.

Overall, the rate of substantiated abuse and neglect is 0.14 percent
in New Jersey, Kidd said. That’s nearly three times lower than the
national average of 0.5 percent, according to Fred Wulczyn, a research
fellow at Chapin Hall, a child-welfare think tank in Chicago.

While Advokat said he feels there has been some improvement in the foster care situation, there clearly is more work to be done.

Garber, the attorney for Nate and his adoptive family, is not as
optimistic about DYFS’ progress. He said the lawsuit “woke me up to how
the system doesn’t work. … In foster homes, it’s too hard to police
what’s going on.”

CPS messes up, now a child is dead



In her final days of life, Janie Buelna lay in agony. Her
hands were tied behind her back so she couldn't touch her scalded legs.
She was gagged, presumably so she wouldn't cry out.
Authorities do not yet know who killed Janie, just a month before she
would have turned 2. But one thing seems clear. Janie Buelna should be
alive today.
The Department of Economic Security isn't talking. But a highly
placed source inside the agency says the blame for Janie's death rests
squarely with Child Protective Services.
“We could have averted this,” the official told me. “There's no way
we could say we didn't have responsibility in this. It's just not
humanly possible.”
The caseworker, a 10-year CPS employee, has been fired, according to records obtained by The Arizona Republic. Her supervisor, a nine-year veteran, is on paid administrative leave. Meanwhile, CPS is continuing to investigate.
That's an encouraging sign in an agency more known for breaking out a whisk broom and lifting up the rug than cleaning house.
The same week that Janie died in March, CPS got a new boss.
Department of Economic Security Director Clarence Carter vowed at the
time that he would get to the bottom of what happened.
It appears he meant it.
Janie was 11 months old in March 2010, when CPS was called. She and
her 3-year-old brother were living in a west Phoenix apartment with
their 44-year-old grandmother Juanita Rodriguez, her 33-year-old
boyfriend Humelio Dominguez-Vazquez; and Christopher Lopez, 27.
According to the report, the grandmother had slapped Janie, leaving her face swollen and bruised, and it wasn't the first time.
“Grandmother has a history of Child Protective Services involvement
in Las Vegas, Nev,” according to the report, released this week in
response to a public records request.
CPS caseworker Timiadi Edogi was promptly dispatched but it would be
eight days before the grandmother allowed her to see the children. You
can guess what Edogi found.
“The kids look healthy,” she wrote. “The kids were clean and were dressed well.”
Edogi noted that there was no previous CPS history and wrote that
both Rodriguez and the children's mother — who is homeless but drops in
occasionally — are “mentally and emotionally capable” of caring for the
children.
“Parenting practices,” she wrote, “appear to be adequate.”
Unfortunately, appearances can be deceiving, as she might have realized had she actually done a thorough investigation.
Had she checked with Nevada CPS, she would have learned that Rodriguez lost custody of her own six children in 2004.
Had she done the required criminal background check, she would have
discovered that Rodriguez served 13 months in a Nevada prison, for
attempted child abuse. And she would have discovered that one of the men
living in the house had lost custody of his own children.
Instead, she found no evidence of abuse and no reason to check back. Ever.
According to DES personnel records, Edogi went on medical leave in
April 2010 and Janie's file sat untouched until her return four months
later.
DES records indicate that her supervisor never questioned why the
case wasn't properly investigated and didn't reassign it when Edogi went
on leave. He closed the case in December 2010.
Three months later, Janie was dead. Scars covered her body, too many
to count. Her teeth were broken and her forehead was deformed. She had a
severe burn to her leg, one that went untreated because Rodriguez
didn't want to alert CPS.
Turns out the adults in the apartment were methamphetamine addicts
and the children had been starved and beaten. They were locked in a
pantry or buckled into their car seats for hours on end. They were
forced to stand in a corner – on their heads.
A few days before Janie's death, a visitor, believed to be the
child's mother, stayed the weekend. She would describe Janie lying on a
mattress, bound and at times gagged, in pain from the untreated burns.
The visitor left three days before Janie died, never calling for
help. Family members tell me CPS is now allowing the mother visitation
with her son, who is in foster care.
Rodriguez and her two friends have been charged with child abuse. A
spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office says they have not
yet determined who killed Janie.
Edogi was fired on April 22. DES Acting Assistant Director Veronica
Bossack cited a pattern of improperly investigated cases, including
reports of physical and sexual abuse.
In her response to DES, Edogi wrote that Rodriguez “withheld
important information” from her and that she “lacked the appropriate
information” to contact Nevada CPS.
The supervisor, meanwhile, has been accused of lax oversight in this and seven other cases. The Republic
is not naming him because no final determination on his actions has
been made. In his response, he calls the charges unfounded, noting that
his unit is understaffed and investigates 100 cases a month. He calls
the girl's death “a very unfortunate incident.”
“I … understand that when unfortunate events such as these occur,
there is an underlying political factor that rises to the forefront and
demands some time (sic) of misplaced sense of exacted punish (sic)
against someone we can vilify and disparage as blame worthy,” he wrote.
Or put another way, when a baby like Janie could have been saved and
should have been saved, we ask the very reasonable question:
Why wasn't she?
http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/LaurieRoberts/128975

You have to read it to believe it. Then you still might have trouble.

http://www.justice4caylee.org/t14012-vyctorya-sandoval-2-yo-los-angeles-ca#702890

Get Tough on Sex Offenders. Fight to Protect Our Children


Mark Bello

Posted by Mark Bello

August 08, 2011 1:44 PM

A King County judge has dismissed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the city of Tacoma, Pierce County and the state of Washington by the family of a girl who was kidnapped and murdered by a sex offender four years ago during a fireworks display behind her home.

The lawsuit alleged:

• the county and state negligently supervised a sex offender after a prior conviction for a sex crime; had they done their duty, the sex offender would have been deported after his first sex offense.
  
• the city mishandled issuing an Amber Alert because the on-duty police officer fell back to sleep instead of issuing the alert.
  
• that Child Protective Services and the Sheriff's Department did not do enough to investigate a claim of child abuse made against the sex offender in the years before he killed the girl.
  
• the government tried to hide its mistakes.
  

According to plaintiff attorney, Tyler Firkins, the original purpose of the case was two-fold.

To expose the significant errors and omissions that resulted in girl’s death and to change the laws regarding the various agencies and their duties to protect children and the public.

To create a higher duty of care for Child Protective Services and law enforcement when it comes to protecting children.

Sadly, it appears the little girl was dead within minutes of her disappearance, thus an Amber Alert would have been pointless. But, that was not the point; it was not whether the government entities had a right to protect the child, but rather whether they were negligent in releasing the Amber Alert in a timely manner.

In the lawsuit's discovery phase, Firkins asked Tacoma's lawyers the following question: "By year, how many unregistered sex offenders who failed to return verification forms were located by Tacoma after failing to return the verification form from 1998 to 2007?”

The city responded, "There are no records to indicate that such mailings ever occurred. The Tacoma Police Department has never done any mailings.”

This is in direct violation of the statute requiring law enforcement officers to verify the address of all sex offenders living in the area. When the city started “back-peddling” claiming they do track offenders, they were unable to define the tracking process.

Why wasn’t he deported after his first offense? Because he benefited from Washington State's protected "special sex offender" status, by pleading guilty to incest in the prior case, avoiding both prison and deportation. Washington's Special Sex Offender Sentencing Alternative (SSOSA) was created to encouraged prosecutors, judges, mental health professionals and even "victim advocates" to treat child sexual abuse as a psychological or medical problem, not a serious crime. Sexually abusing an innocent child it not a crime? How do you explain that to a parent?

I have read many comments that this was a frivolous lawsuit. Let’s assume for a minute that the case was financially worthless when filed, that it still is, and even if there is an appeal the plaintiff will not receive any monetary award. Does that mean is it "frivolous"? What if it changes a defective system? Wrongful death lawsuits are generally not filed to be a “frivolous” attempt to get rich by capitalizing on the death of a loved one. Usually, they are the only recourse to be able to highlight flaws in a system, enact change, and ensure that it doesn’t happen to another innocent victim.

The state has already enacted laws to monitor sex offenders more closely as a result of the girl's death, and Tacoma police changed their policy last year to give more people within the department the ability to issue an Amber Alert. It is unfortunate that it took a lawsuit to shake things up in the system so that significant changes are implemented. But, the system is still flawed because using the Amber Alert system is voluntary. It is up to the individual police agencies to decide whether to use the program. This marks a serious failure by a system the public depends on to monitor sex offenders.

Mr. Firkins wanted to shine a light on how defective the system is in protecting kids against sexual predators. His goal was on the errors and omissions that were committed; that an officer of the law, someone we count on to do everything in their power to protect us, behaved in a very irresponsible manner and should also be held accountable for his actions. The focus should not be that the child was already dead therefore an Amber Alert would have made no difference. The sleeping officer did not know that at the time. What happens the next time an Amber Alert is not released in a timely manner?

Firkins also wanted to show how important it is that laws are changed regarding the protection of children. Only by bringing this atrocity to the public light can changes be made. It could make a difference in the life of a child.

Isn’t it time we improve laws to protect our children? Shouldn’t we be able to count on our law enforcement and Child Protective Services?

For every moment we do nothing, we are putting children in harm’s way. I commend Mr. Firkins for his mission to fight for justice; to push for changes that could prevent similar tragedies. Mr. Firkins is a “hero for justice”.

Mark Bello has thirty-three years experience as a trial lawyer and twelve years as an underwriter and situational analyst in the lawsuit funding industry. He is the owner and founder of Lawsuit Financial Corporation which helps provide legal finance cash flow solutions and consulting when necessities of life litigation funding is needed by plaintiffs involved in pending, personal injury litigation. Bello is a Justice Pac member of the American Association for Justice, Sustaining and Justice Pac member of the Michigan Association for Justice, Business Associate of the Florida, Tennessee, and Colorado Associations for Justice, a member of the American Bar Association as well as their ABA Advisory Committee, the State Bar of Michigan and the Injury Board.

http://southfield.injuryboard.com/wrongful-death/get-tough-on-sex-offenders-fight-to-protect-our-children.aspx?googleid=292980

Another one.

http://www.justice4caylee.org/t15962-jacob-gibson-6-yo-phoenix-az