Bureaucracy failed abused boy, 5

[Contrary1]

Second tip to hotline gets results. At least this child was still alive when they finally decided to investigate. What the hell is wrong with these people? :grr:


"LOS ANGELES - The little boy's body was a study in pain. He was covered in cigarette burns, including to his genitals. He couldn't fully open his hand because it had been burned on a stove. His tooth was broken with a nerve exposed. And he had been made to sit in his own urine and feces, authorities say.

As the 5-year-old remains hospitalized by kidney failure brought on from malnutrition, two county supervisors are blaming welfare and law enforcement agencies for missing earlier chances to rescue the child from what police say were months of "unbearable psychological and physical abuse."

The case came to light after a woman called a hotline June 4, saying the boy told her at a commuter train station that his mother had burned his hand on top of a stove.

Summoned to a county Department of Children and Family Services office, authorities say Starkeisha Brown brought her baby sitter's healthy 4-year-old son and daughter and tried to pass them off as her own..."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080620/ap_on_re_us/boy_torture

[MichiganVote]

1. Heartbreaking.

[Whoa_Nelly]

2. Hopefully, prison will not be kind to her

or her girlfriend :grr:

[stray cat]

3. The woman who called the hotline was a hero for acting

[ben_meyers]

4. This is unfortunate, but the anti-gay marriage folks

are going to be creating an advertising campaign out of this incident for the fall ballot initiative.

[Jed Dilligan]

5. I can't even imagine what would make a person decide to

stub out a cigarette in her own child's crotch. I've seen some truly hideous shit in my own life but that is just beyond the beyond. The rage in that woman's eyes is terrifying.