With Multiple Calls to CPS Why Weren't These Children Kidnapped?
I read so many stories on here that would lead one to believe that Child Protective Service is a money grabbing hungry agency that would take people's children at the shake of a finger just to keep their agency funded. Yet time and again I read more horror stories like this one unfolding but fail to ever see blazing headlines in the local papers of parents claiming their children are kidnapped.
The mother of a 4-year-old boy who was murdered by her boyfriend is facing up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to failing to protect her child and lying to police.
Sonja Hernandez, 30, entered her pleas Monday in Kent County Circuit Court.
She was living in a Cutlerville mobile home park with her son, Giovanni Mejias, and boyfriend Elis Nelson Ortiz-Nieves in June 2017 when Giovanni died.
Ortiz-Nieves was arrested, charged and found guilty of the boy's murder. Authorities say Ortiz-Nieves delivered at least seven blows to the boy's head and there was evidence Giovanni had cigarette burns on his body. What killed him, however, was blunt force trauma to the abdomen. Ortiz-Nieves maintained that he was trying to save the boy even as he was being sentenced in January to spend the rest of his life in prison. https://www.woodtv.com/news/kent-county/murdered-boy-s-mom-pleads-to-lying-abuse/1249944398
According to Hernandez ex-boyfriend, David Onstott, of whom she had three children with before the relationship ended had made repeated calls to Child Protection Agency workers concerning the welfare of the children.
Court records show that David Onstott and Hernandez had a tumultuous relationship that did not survive despite having three children together. But he said he came to love the 4-year-old boy fathered by another man.
"When Giovanni was born, I was there. I cut his umbilical cord," Onstott said. "I raised him for about a year-and-a-half or so."
He said the 4-year-old was like a brother to his other children.
"He was a good little kid. Good little kid," Onstott said. "Full of life. Joked around a lot."
But Onstott and the woman did not stay together and she gained full custody.
He says things were OK until she met the man now in Kent County Correctional, Elis Nelson Ortiz. Onstott said after they were together he saw cuts and bruises on her children.
"I've called the cops have been involved, CPS multiple times have been involved, the schools have been involved," Onstott said.
There were calls that children were left alone at the Cutlerville mobile home. Onstott said the children were afraid of the boyfriend and their mother.
"Sonja was well aware. She was well aware of what was happening, because she told him that was his responsibility to whoop them," said Onstott.
He said he blames authorities for failing to act.
"I've told them multiple times that something's going to happen, eventually. Something's going to happen and nobody's listening," said Onstott.
Tuesday morning, authorities were called to a mobile home on N. Green Meadow Street SE near Division Avenue and 60th Street on a report of a child who wasn't breathing.
Emergency responders revived the 4-year-old boy, but he died at Helen DeVos Children's Hospital.
Authorities say the suspect was watching seven children under the age of 11 in the home at the time of the incident. It's unclear if Child Protective Services has taken those children into custody.
The Office of Children's Ombudsman is opening an investigation into how CPS handled prior involvement with the boy's family.
Capt. Bruce Ivie told 24 Hour News 8 the Kent County Sheriff's Department responded to multiple CPS-related calls at the home within about the last three years. https://www.woodtv.com/news/kent-county/boy-murdered-in-kent-co-ided-cps-watchdog-investigating/1003254441
Hernandez had five children, that would have been a easy thirty thousand dollar money grab for the money hungry CPS agencies, yet not far behind is this story:
The death of a Wyoming baby who was left alone for two days, strapped in a car seat in his home, is prompting a policy shift at the state agency accused of failing him. https://www.woodtv.com/news/target-8/w-mi-babys-death-prompts-more-oversight-at-cps/1232310752
Surely this can't be true! How can this be? A newborn? Why that'd be a instance grab of money and a bonus boot to all those thieving adoptive parents waiting with frothed breath just to get their hands on someone else's precious child.
Noah Johnson’s mom brought his lifeless body to a hospital on July 19, 2017. An autopsy showed the 6-month-old had severe diaper rash and had been dead for some time.
Police said Lovily Johnson, 22 at the time of her son’s death, admitted to leaving her baby boy alone over a period of days while she hung out with friends and smoked pot. She told police she checked on him once during that time, at which time she gave him a bottle and sang him a song.
This baby wasn't even six months old when CPS became involved, the assessment was the mother was a low to moderate risk to the baby, this surely doesn't seem like a case of hurry up and kidnap a infant though the likelihood that if they had he'd still be alive today would have outweighed any emotional pain the mother would have suffered compared to what this tiny baby went through.
The investigation of Noah's death was not the first time the state had contact with his family. CPS confirmed neglect or abuse of Noah on more than one occasion prior to his death. However, the standardized tool the state uses to assess threat to children always put the risk to Noah at low to moderate. Because of that risk level, workers closed the cases out without additional monitoring, though they first gave Johnson a list of resources she could call for help.
The workers involved with baby Noah's case no longer work for CPS, maybe they were fired for not properly following the Department of Health and Human Services guidelines on infant kidnappings.
"Kent County management reviewed the noted investigations with the involved supervisors in August 2017," wrote Michigan's Department of Health and Human Services in its response to the Ombudman's report.
"The involved workers (those who handled prior contact with Noah Johnson's family) are no longer employed with Kent DHHS. Additionally, Kent County will now require consultation with second line management for approval of Category III investigations (low to moderate risk cases) that involved a prior preponderance of evidence disposition."
I guess I couldn't sum up the end of this article much better than the Office of Children's Obudsman quote in the article for, as I said above, I continually see cases where parents were given guidance, chances and a child has died but I am still waiting for headlines of accusations of child kidnappings. If the evidence is there so should be the headlines.
“As (Noah Johnson’s death) is another instance of a family having multiple… investigations and a child has died, the OCO appreciates that any gathered data will be shared once available,” the ombudsman's office wrote in its report.
The truth is the poorly paid social workers who administer all of this are damned if they do and damned if they don't. There are people who should have their kids taken away but that does not happen and there are people who ought not to have their kids taken but they are. There are a lot of cases and a lot of kids and thus a lot of fuck ups.
That's part of why the turnover is so massive in that field.
Then there's the factor that, because they will be working around children, it's going to attract the wrong type of people.
Even in the best case, family courts are atrocious.
in many ways it is an impossible job, even if they were not understaffed and underpaid, there is no perfect solution in most cases. You always have to be on the lookout for perverts with anything involving kids.
@sunil7
you are right. every family who have child they need child protection.