December Sad Stories

All Adults Are The Protectors of All Children.

This page is a gathering of child abuse articles during the month of December – find your state/community here.

These children needed our help to have a safe and loving holiday season.

21 December 2015: Oregon

After a $15 million settlement was recently accorded to nine “medically fragile” children, Oregon child protective services face national scrutiny. The children, between the ages of 48 hours to three years, had been placed in the home of James Earl Mooney through the foster care program of the Department of Human Services, who then proceeded to sexually abuse the children. The Oregon Department of Human Services was sued for negligence, as it failed to perform an adequate mental and physical evaluation of Mooney.

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2015/12/21/dhs-settles-child-abuse-case-15-million/77722080/

21 December 2015: California

The recent discovery of two dead children in a storage unit in Redding, California captivated the nation and again highlighted the appalling issue of child abuse homicide. An initial police investigation has found that the perpetrators did not only kill the two children, a 3-year-old girl and a 6-year-old boy, but also physically abused three other children, a girl aged nine and twins aged twelve. Although social workers had visited the home of the perpetrators four times between September 2014 and August 2015 on the basis of general negligence investigations, the children remained with the couple.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article50969395.html
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-redding-child-abuse-murder-20151217-story.html
December 14 B.C.Canada CBS report on child protection system failures, lack of accountability, leadership, funding, training, and transparency. This Canadian report is a powerful and instructive for U.S. states. It is far more direct than Americans are used to (authors note).

6 December 2015: Pennsylvania

An official investigation into Pennsylvania’s child abuse hotline has found that over 25% of calls are dropped or remain unanswered due to a statewide budget impasse and a related “hiring freeze,” which has left the call center understaffed. The Department of Human Services had implemented a wide array of reforms to Pennsylvania’s handling of child abuse cases following the 2011 Jerry Sandusky case.

http://www.sharonherald.com/opinion/columns/more-dropped-calls-at-child-abuse-hotline-as-auditor-investigates/article_8ac2e52c-948d-568b-9d48-a92f001c42b4.html

7 December 2015: Oklahoma

Family and Children’s Services in Tulsa is urging its counselors to encourage victims of sexual child abuse to speak out against their predators and make use of several new programs that were put into place to address the issue of child abuse, including the Child Abuse and Trauma Services. The announcement comes after the organization reported that one in five girls under the age of 18 is subject to sexual child abuse and that many predators remain at large because victims refuse to speak about the abuse.

http://ktul.com/news/local/counselors-say-more-families-should-talk-about-sexual-child-abuse-to-prevent-future-harm

8 December 2015: Connecticut

Barbara Chaiyachati, a pediatrician at Yale – New Haven hospital, has recently published a paper entitled, “Gray Cases of Child Abuse: Investigating Factors Associated with Uncertainty,” which emphasizes the rise in deaths related to child abuse and child neglect in the US. The report emphasizes the need for pediatricians to distinguish between injuries that occurred accidentally and those that occurred as a result of child abuse and neglect.

Research highlights “gray cases” in child abuse

8 December 2015: Oklahoma

Tulsa Assistant District Attorney Sarah McAmis has stated in a recent interview that, “2015 has been an awful year for child abuse and child-abuse murder cases,” after nine children under the age of two died this year as a result of child abuse. The Tulsa Police Child Crisis Unit claims that all nine cases demonstrate a certain pattern with the perpetrator usually not being the child’s parent and experiencing either unemployment or “some type of frustration,” which leads to the abusive behavior.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/crimewatch/an-awful-year-for-child-abuse-and-child-abuse-murder/article_b8200f57-9ece-531f-9314-7712bca752c1.html

WHIO

Preble Co. sheriff investigating child’s death

WHIO

Sheriff Mike Simpson confirmed Tuesday afternoon that last weekend, a child was taken by ambulance from a home in 5000 block of Lexington Road, …

Preble Co. sheriff investigating child’s death – MyDaytonDailyNews

Author: Mike Tikkanen