Grand jury rips Florida’s DCF for ‘deliberately’ undercounting child deaths
Source: Miami Herald
Posted on Tuesday, 06.24.14
Grand jury rips Floridas DCF for deliberately undercounting child deaths
By Carol Marbin Miller and Audra D.S. Burch
cmarbin @MiamiHerald.com
A Miami grand jury accused state child welfare administrators Tuesday of intentionally and deliberately manipulating the investigation of child deaths due to abuse and neglect making it appear that fewer children are dying across the state.
In a 30-page report that explores whether the Department of Children & Families has improved since the 2011 death of 10-year-old Nubia Barahona, grand jurors found much that pleased them. But they also scolded the agency for what they described as a systematic attempt to conceal the true number of children whose lives are cut short.
The grand jury presentment, handed up to Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Gisela Cardonne Ely Tuesday afternoon, comes on the heels of a series of stories in the Miami Herald, called Innocents Lost. Details of the series are discussed in the report. In particular, grand jurors confirmed the Heralds findings that DCF had revised its definition of neglect, resulting in an artificial reduction in the number of children who died the past four years.
The report highlighted a several-paragraph excerpt from the series that detailed the deaths of four children in 2011 that DCF declined to verify as resulting from neglect. In one case, a 1-year-old boy drowned in a community pool during Memorial Day weekend while his mother texted friends away from the poolside. DCF said the mother was blameless because other adults at the pool were likewise failing to supervise their small children.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/06/24/4199002/grand-jury-rips-floridas-dcf-for.html#storylink=cpy