Today’s Star Tribune article by Chris Serres is a painful example of how we treat other people’s children.
Twin girls beaten with bats, starved, raped and chained over 12-15 years on the 4200 block of 17th Av South in Minneapolis. Over 50 police calls to the home, developmentally disabled and pregnant in high school.
“The neighbors knew. The police knew. The county knew. We all knew…But nothing was done.”
“How many times the county received reports of abuse and neglect remains unclear” (from the star tribune article).
These horrors are not uncommon. It’s how 4 year old Eric Dean was tortured to death after 15 ignored reports of abuse by mandated reporters and how 6 year old foster child Kendrea Johnson died by suicide and how my 7 year old CASA guardian ad litem case child was prostituted over 2 years and 49 police calls to her home where gun fire and prostitution were the reason for the police calls.
I’m just one of hundreds of volunteer MN CASA guardians and I know dozens of these stories. It’s awful.
When you meet one of these children it can make you wonder about the values we claim to have. Lots of talk about religion and values but too many dead, tortured and prostituted 4 year olds for that to be true.
My first visit to a 4 year old CASA case girl was at the suicide ward of a hospital.
Governor Dayton’s task force on child protection has accomplished many things, but the institution of child protection is still seriously overwhelmed.
A few days of working in child protection will show you that It’s not fair to blame social workers for these tragedies. It’s like blaming cops for not stopping crime or teachers for failing students.
Better reporting, more transparency and accountability would help we the people know the ground truth for traumatized at risk children in our community. That might save more children from this horror.
You can let your state rep and other law makers know that other people’s children matter and you expect them to support funding and programs to stop this abuse.
It doesn’t take long to make a phone call or send a note and it might help and the session starts now.
Safepassagemn.com (join the club)
