Official faces abuse charge
Accusations against a Newport News juvenile detention official prompted
four separate city and state investigations.
BY JENNIFER LATSON
247-4731
October 11, 2007
http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-37200sy0oct11,0,363987.story
NEWPORT NEWS
A juvenile detention official accused of assaulting one of his young
detainees kept his job even after social services investigators placed
him on a child abuse registry meant to prevent him from working with
children, a Daily Press investigation has found.
James E. Fox, who was responsible for an average of 18 juveniles at the
city's detention center on 25th Street in Newport News, was accused of
choking a teenager who escaped in April. Fox kept his job until Sept.
20, and is scheduled to go to court on an assault charge Friday.
The incident and its aftermath have prompted at least four separate city
and state investigations into Fox's conduct and the way the charges
against him were handled.
The probation officer who first filed the abuse report says that while
Fox kept working, she was pressured to revoke her complaint.
UNAUTHORIZED ARREST
Pamela Robinson says she went to an apartment complex with Fox on April
17 to track down a 15-year-old detainee who had run away during a field
trip a week earlier.
In 13 years as a juvenile probation officer in Newport News, Robinson
said, she had never before been asked by the head of the detention
program to accompany him on a search for a missing detainee.
In the program that Fox has headed for the last three years, teens
between the ages of 14 and 18 are held in juvenile detention for up to
six months. The teens have been convicted of crimes serious enough to
warrant jail time, but are not considered violent. They are given
schooling in detention, and allowed to go on occasional, chaperoned outings.
According to the program's written policy, teens aren't allowed on an
outing before they've served at least 30 days in detention. But this
detainee, whom the Daily Press is not naming because of his age, was
allowed on an outing with another boy and an adult guard after he had
been in the program less than two weeks, his mother said.
The 15-year-old, who has a history of arrests, was serving time for
unauthorized use of a vehicle - he had taken a friend's grandmother's
car on a joyride, said the family's attorney, James Carter.
While on the outing, the boy got away from his chaperone and was missing
for more than a week - until Fox got a tip that he was staying in a
friend's apartment.
Robinson said Fox asked her to go with him to the apartment complex that
afternoon. He brought handcuffs along, but no key, she said.
The detention program's policy includes a provision for handling
runaways that does not mention chasing them down. If a detainee runs
away, the policy says, "staff will file a runaway report and contact the
court to file an escape petition and request a detention order for the
resident's apprehension by the police."
When Fox and Robinson got to the apartment complex, they spotted the boy
in a courtyard, and Fox chased him to the stairwell of one of the
apartment buildings, Robinson said.
There, she saw him shove the boy against a wall and grab him by the
throat, squeezing hard.
Then Fox knocked the boy onto the stairs, kneeled on top of him and
pulled the teen's hands back to handcuff him. The teen was gasping and
saying that he couldn't breathe, Robinson said.
"It shocked me," she said. "(The teen) is a little guy. He never
resisted, except to say no. "
When Fox cuffed the boy, the bracelets were clamped so tightly that the
skin began to swell around them, Robinson said, and because Fox had not
brought the key with him, they stayed on that way for the next hour and
a half - the time it took for administrative processing and to get the
boy to a police station to be arrested. Fox was not authorized to use
handcuffs on a detainee, city spokeswoman Kim Lee acknowledged this week.
When Robinson got home that night, she called the state's child
protective services hotline to report the incident as child abuse.
THE AFTERMATH
Although social services officials began investigating the complaint
against Fox in April, the city's internal investigation did not begin
until Aug. 6.
Efforts to reach Fox have been unsuccessful, and his attorney declined
to comment on the case. Calls to the city manager and the head of the
city's juvenile services department were referred to Lee.
Robinson plans to testify against Fox in court on Friday, although she
said she felt pressured to withdraw her complaint against him from the
start.
Her boss, Aderon Gibbs, the director of juvenile probation and parole in
Newport News, called her into his office the day after she filed the
complaint.
"He said I might want to call CPS back. He said, 'Say you thought about
this and that maybe it wasn't as bad as you thought,' " Robinson said.
"I said 'No, it was excessive force.' He said, 'You need to think about
our working relationship with these people.' " The 40-year-old mother of
four said she fears her job is in jeopardy because of the stance she has
taken.
Gibbs said he wasn't trying to pressure her into changing her statement,
and that he just wanted her to take the time to reflect on her choice
after having slept on it for a night.
"She made this report before she talked to me, and I wanted her to
realize the consequences it would have," he said this week. "I wanted to
give her the opportunity that, in the light of day, if it doesn't rise
to that level, now's the chance to talk about it."
When she stood by her statement, he said, he supported her.
It took nearly two months for child protective services workers to
finish their investigation into the case.
A June 14 letter from the Newport News Department of Social Services to
the juvenile detainee's mother said investigators ruled the case
"founded," and that Fox's name would be entered in a state child abuse
database for the next three years. The database is not accessible by the
public, but lets employers screen job candidates who would interact with
children.
"After careful consideration of the facts, this department found that
there was a preponderance of the evidence that (the teen) was physically
abused by James Fox," the letter states.
A few days later, Robinson said she got a call from Glenn Butler,
director of the social services department, asking if she wanted to
change the statement she had made to state investigators.
"He said, 'The Richmond CPS worker says you saw (the teen) being choked,
but that can't be right, is it? He must have told you about it, but you
didn't see it, right?' " Robinson recalled.
Butler referred calls from the Daily Press to Lee, who said his call was
part of a routine process.
"He did talk to the parole officer, but he in no way intimidated her or
suggested that she change her story," Lee said. "We take CPS complaints
very seriously and would not suggest to someone that they change a
complaint or not file a complaint."
On June 19, a second social services letter - sent to the teen's mother
and to Fox's boss, among others - retracted the findings of the first
letter and asked that anyone with copies of the first letter destroy them.
The reason for the retraction, stated in the letter, was that
"additional information (needed) to be obtained."
State social services officials said they were not familiar with similar
cases, in which a finding was retracted, but that it didn't violate any
state policy.
"Our guidelines ask that local agencies collect all the pertinent
information before they make their finding. Our policy doesn't have any
information about sending out a retraction," said Nan McKenney, policy
supervisor for Child Protective Services. "Since there's no policy, it's
probably not happening frequently."
Lee said the city social services office issues retractions whenever
there is evidence that an investigation was not conducted properly.
A third letter from the Newport News social services department was sent
Sept. 7, announcing the same conclusion as the first: that Fox had
abused the teen.
INVESTIGATIONS CONTINUE
Why Fox was kept on staff until Sept. 20 - five months after the child
abuse investigation began - is a question his boss, juvenile services
director Larry Robinson, declined to answer when reached by phone.
Larry Robinson - no relation to Pamela Robinson, the probation officer -
does not have a written policy in place to deal with employees facing
child abuse complaints or criminal charges, said Lee, the city spokeswoman.
Larry Robinson is accountable to a broadly written citywide policy
requiring department heads to investigate accusations of employee
misconduct. If the allegations affect an employee's ability to do his
job, the policy states, the department head has the option of
reassigning the employee or putting him on administrative leave.
Fox was not reassigned or put on leave.
The city manager began a sweeping administrative review Aug. 6 that
includes every city employee who played a part in the case, from
juvenile detention to the social services department, Lee said. That
review is still underway.
"We will be reviewing the actions of everyone involved to see that
policies and procedures were followed," Lee said. "This is not something
we take lightly. As soon as the city manager's office found out about
the charges, we immediately began the internal review."
The state Department of Juvenile Justice, which oversees juvenile
detention centers, is also reviewing the case to make sure Newport News
juvenile services officials met state standards, said Marilyn Miller,
the agency's detention specialist.
On Friday, Fox goes to trial in the Newport News Juvenile and Domestic
Relations court. The judge and the prosecutor are both substitutes
brought in from outside the city to avoid any appearance of bias, said
attorneys with the Newport News prosecutor's office.
Carter, the family's attorney, said he is considering filing a civil
lawsuit after Fox's criminal trial is over. Meanwhile, he said, he hopes
the case will lead to improvements in juvenile detention.
"If you're going to put young people in jail, you need to put them in an
institution that's going to play by the rules. If the institution
doesn't play by the rules, I don't see how they can impart that lesson
to the child."
Copyright © 2007, Newport News, Va., Daily Press
CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A
DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NSA / CIA
WIRETAPPING PROGRAM....
CPS Does not protect children...
It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even
killed at the hands of Child Protective Services.
every parent should read this .pdf from
connecticut dcf watch...
http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com/8x11.pdf
http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com
Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US
These numbers come from The National Center on
Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN)
Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS
*Perpetrators of Maltreatment*
Physical Abuse CPS 160, Parents 59
Sexual Abuse CPS 112, Parents 13
Neglect CPS 410, Parents 241
Medical Neglect CPS 14 Parents 12
Fatalities CPS 6.4, Parents 1.5
Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the very agencies that
are supposed to protect them and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per
100,000 children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse
and kills more children then parents in the United States. If the
citizens of this country hold CPS to the same standards that they hold
parents too. No judge should ever put another child in the hands of ANY
government agency because CPS nationwide is guilty of more harm and
death than any human being combined. CPS nationwide is guilty of more
human rights violations and deaths of children then the homes from which
they were removed. When are the judges going to wake up and see that
they are sending children to their death and a life of abuse when
children are removed from safe homes based on the mere opinion of a
bunch of social workers.
CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT
FAMILIES YEARLY NATIONWIDE AND COMING TO YOU'RE HOME SOON...
BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF
REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES
TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY
ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION...
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