Jury awards abused kids $6.2 million State found negligent in case

ANNIE FLANZRAICH
The Associated Press.


http://www.theolympian.com/news/story/126874.html


SEATTLE - A King County Superior Court jury ordered the state to pay $6.2
million Tuesday to four siblings who were repeatedly abused in foster care
for six years, the latest in a string of legal troubles for the state
Department of Social and Health Services.

The jury deliberated for three days following the three-week trial, which
centered on whether the state was negligent in licensing and monitoring
the Seattle and Tacoma foster homes where the children stayed.

Most of the Williams siblings' abuse occurred between 1993 and 1998, while
they stayed at the Seattle home of Pearl Hall, evidence showed. Hall, now
deceased, beat the children with extension cords, belts and shoes. Her son
Paul, a teenager at the time, sexually abused the three oldest children,
said Kathy Goater, an attorney for the children.

In 2001, Paul Hall was convicted in King County Superior Court of child
rape and child molestation in the case.

Robert Williams, now 16, ran away to a supermarket to avoid another of
Pearl Hall's beatings in July 1998, when he was just 7 years old. Police
found him there and a few days later the four were moved to a home in
Tacoma.

They stayed at the Tacoma home from 1998 to 1999, and were beaten there as
well, court documents showed. After 1999, the children were removed from
foster care and sent to live with relatives.

The siblings - two boys and two girls - are now 13 to 19 years old.

"It is deeply regrettable that these children had to suffer abuse in a
home that should have been a safe place," DSHS spokeswoman Kathy Spears
said. "We did try to resolve this matter prior to trial, but the
settlement negotiations did not bring us close enough to resolution."

The state attorney general's office is weighing whether to appeal, Spears
said.

In 2004, the state agreed to overhaul its foster-care system to settle a
case brought by Jessica Braam, who lived in 34 foster homes by the time
she sued in 1998. An oversight panel was assigned to work with DSHS in
improving foster parent training and support, preventing unsafe placements
and making other changes, but the state has been sued several times in
recent years.

Last month, the state agreed to pay $290,000 to settle a lawsuit accusing
the state of negligence in the case of an 8-year-old foster child sexually
abused at a foster home in Ellensburg in 2002. In April, a
multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed in Yakima County blamed state social
workers for ignoring warnings that could have avoided abuse that left a
6-year-old girl brain damaged and partially blind.

Goater's co-counsel, Becky Roe, said she had never seen a group of
children who so badly slipped through the system's cracks, and she hoped
the verdict Tuesday would encourage the state to get its act together when
it comes to protecting foster children.

"They are supposed to be monitoring and complying with their own policies,
and they weren't," Roe said.

The siblings did not see a case worker for the first 18 months after they
were placed into foster care, evidence showed. After that, different case
workers sporadically monitored the children until March 1996 when a steady
case worker was finally assigned, Roe said. At the time, foster children
were supposed to be visited every 30 days. At a news conference, the
oldest of the four children, De'Arra Williams, 19, praised her brother
Robert for running away to the supermarket and changing their lives.

"He saved us," she said.







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.

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...