Thirteen cases of death abuse against children under the age of 11 have exposed vulnerabilities in New York's social safety network.
The New York Times reports a screenshot of the funeral of Eisen Emerson-Gonzalez.
Editor's note: So far this year, 13 children under the age of 11 have been abused and beaten to death in New York City. The New York Times published a lengthy report titled "These Children Have Been Killed." Could they have been saved? To explore the behind the scenes of these tragedies, the New York Chinese Information Network has compiled them as follows.
Source: The New York Times Editor: Alice; New Yorker
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Doctors never examined wounds and bruises on 4-year-old Jayce Eubanks;
Portrait of Jess Ubanks.
Child welfare workers failed to alert police to the black bruises around 7-year-old Julissia Batties' eyes;
Julia Battis's grandmother holds her picture.
Although Aisyn Emerson-Gonzalez had swollen eyes and a lump on his head, investigators hastily closed his case.
Portrait of Eisen Emerson - Gonzalez.
In the last weeks of the summer, all three children were beaten to death in their homes. Their deaths are part of a litany of deaths in New York City involving children who are the focus of child welfare agencies or police.
While the number of child homicides in New York City this year is close to that of recent years, the series of murders exposes vulnerabilities in the multi-agency safety net, from social workers to detectives. A wrong decision or omission can mean the death of a child. In recent weeks, city officials have examined how investigators skip steps, case tracking is slow or may be premature in ending abuse cases.
Several children even died after their cases had been reported to the city's "immediate response team," whose explicit mission was to protect children from abuse and "ensure timely, effective and coordinated collection of evidence," the forensic office said. The bodies of the three children, including Eisen and Jace, all had a mixture of old and new wounds known as battered child syndrome.
At a funeral home in Brooklyn at the end of September, 4-year-old Eisen lay in a small coffin in a white blazer with a toy truck at his head. Eisen's grandmother, Gilda Emerson-Celestin, said: "I was asking for answers, but I didn't get any answers. ”
In March, Aison, who lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, told investigators that his injuries were caused by a fall at school. Police said the school said he had not been injured at school, but his case was closed after doctors said the injuries matched the accident.
A neighbor said that four days before Julia's death, she had reported to authorities that Julia had told her that the black bruises around her eyes were caused by her mother.
In Harlem, last March, an alarmist reported hearing a child screaming and banging, but police did not knock on the door of the floor where 10-year-old Ayden Wolfe lived.
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In response to a New York Times question about these missteps, the city said last week it would make a series of reforms to look more closely at families reported as suspected of abuse and improve coordination between police and the New York City child welfare agency, the Administration for Children's Services (ACS).
Those changes include the appointment of a police supervisor to specifically supervise child abuse cases, which effectively reinstates a position he had cancelled a year ago; police visits to suspected cases of abuse when someone in the family has a history of domestic violence; and the reactivation of a cross-training program between the police department and the ACS, which the municipality stopped during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last week, at a city council hearing, Deputy Inspector Michael King, the commander of the Special Victims Unit, told members of parliament that an investigator in Jace's case had made "a mistake" by failing to submit a report that should have asked officers to visit Jace's apartment. In the future, he said, officers will conduct more surprise checks before closing the case, and will also conduct home visits if the child misses a medical appointment.
David A. Hansell, director of the Children's Services Administration, said in a statement that the changes "will better align our expertise in investigating the worst abuse cases with the capabilities of the NYPD" and "strengthen our ability to protect children and meet the needs of their families."
Director of the Children's Services Administration, David Hansel.
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Safe Horizon is a nonprofit organization that operates centers that interview children suspected of abuse and sometimes undergo physical examinations. The agency said in a statement that it would focus more on "which injuries have medical significance" and that at one center, when the examination "cannot be carried out immediately," the injuries to children will be discussed with a medical panel.
Child welfare case workers in New York City process more than 1,000 reports of abuse and neglect each week — from dirty clothes and prolonged non-eating to broken arms. While experts who study child abuse say there are often more and more violent incidents before death, it's easier to look back and see how tragedies could have been avoided than to predict that deadly dangers are imminent.
In recent years, child welfare agencies have stepped up their efforts to reunite families rather than send children to foster care, but they are under pressure. According to lawyers for parents in the system, the agency devotes much of its limited resources to investigating reports of abuse, which are often made by estranged partners, which can lead to unnecessarily taking children away from home. However, if the agency downplays reports of abuse, it risks putting children at risk.
Anthony Wells, president of the union, which represents the agency's caseworkers, said: "Child welfare is the only institution that is expected to have 100 per cent success stories. ”
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The work of the Immediate Response Team was defended by child service officials, which was expanded in 2017 to include a coordinator, case manager and liaison with prosecutors.
Last month, Susan Morley, the children's services officer who oversees the teams, said in an interview: "The challenge is that it is difficult to identify these cases. If a child is injured in an accident, it can cause bruises – if someone pushes the child, it can be the same bruise; if the child is tripped, it is the same bruise. ”
Officials acknowledge that the core issue is a paradox in some cases: They decide to seek a physical examination, which may uncover signs of abuse, often based on how serious the child's injury may seem; but some injuries, such as cerebral hemorrhage or soft tissue injuries, may be invisible.
Officials at the agency also noted that medical examinations usually require the consent of guardians; while judges can order medical examinations, many judges do not do so if the child is not visibly seriously harmed.
New York City's reforms did not include an increase in the staffing of a police team that handles child abuse cases, which has about 75 detectives, many of whom are novice detectives known as "White Shield," which handles a total of about 7,000 cases a year.
Michael Osgood, a retired deputy police chief who led the Special Victims Unit for eight years and had sought more resources from his superiors, said in an interview that the department's detectives had little ability to handle child abuse cases. "Child abuse homicides have evolved over months and years and require advanced investigative skills to uncover them," he said. ”
Devora Kaye, a spokeswoman for the police department, responded that the special victim child abuse investigators were "experienced and well-rounded." She said many had experience preventing domestic violence and some had experience with child welfare.
Mr. Osgood added that the changes announced by the city are not reforms, but updates to failed practices. "They're saying, 'Oh, we have to put them [these failed practices] back,'" he said. ”
Barbara DelValle, 47, Jace Ubanks' grandmother, said the changes came too late and "fix what?" After all these children died – only now to be repaired? ”
She cited many cases in New York City over the decades in which missed signs before a child was abused to death, leading to a destabilizing child welfare. The list includes Elisa Izquierdo in 1995, Nixzmary Brown in 2006, Marchella Pierce in 2011 and Zymere Perkins in 2016. She said: "Everything they say is good, but I know it's not going to happen. ”
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Child welfare agencies typically receive and review reports of child abuse through national hotlines, and then assign what is considered the most serious cases — about 10 percent — to an immediate response team. A case worker and a patrol officer or special victim detective should visit the child within two hours.
Typically, the group takes the family to a child protection center organized by Safe Horizons. There, case workers, detectives, prosecutors, social workers and medical staff (if any) work together. The aim is to save traumatized children from the torture of several interviews.
On August 26, nursery staff reported that Jace's fingers were swollen and that his 5-year-old brother had other bruises. The two children were then interviewed at the Child Rights Protection Centre, where they both said they were injured while fighting each other. Police said Jace was referred for a medical examination but never showed up for an appointment. Jace's grandmother, Ms Del valle, said the family had never been told to make an appointment.
A law enforcement official said His case was closed when Jace died on Sept. 12. The results of the autopsy showed that his skull had been fractured some time ago, that his ribs had just been broken, that his stomach had been perforated and that his ears had been bitten. His mother's boyfriend, Jerimiah Johnson, 27, was charged with murder.
Jace's death came just hours after Eisen Gonzalez was found dead. No one has yet been prosecuted for his murder. The same goes for Julia's murder.
Two days before Eisen's death, 13-month-old Legacy Beauford bled to death from a wound to his abdomen. Police said after his death that he had also been sodomized with a toothbrush. In May and July, police were sent to his apartment four times after police reported possible abuse, but no signs of abuse were found.
Legsy's mother, Jessica Melendez, said in an interview that all the call was unfounded and that her neighbors called her because there were often several children in her apartment — her own children and her nieces and nephews — playing loudly and making noise.
Melendez's boyfriend, Keishawn Gordon, is accused of murdering Leghey, and according to a criminal charge, he told police he had been squeezing the child because he refused to stop crying. Mr Gordon said: "He's been vomiting. He was messing with me. ”
Keyshawn Gordon (left) and Leghey Boford Jr., who was tortured to death in 13 months.
Police said that in Aiden Wolff's case, police went to the floor where the policeman reported screaming and knocking, and he listened to the door but did not knock on the door. He tried to contact the police, but without success, and then left. Aiden died the next day. The department conducted a review of the officers' conduct and found that their conduct was appropriate. Aiden's mother's boyfriend, Ryan Cato, is accused of murdering him.
On August 10, when Julia Battis was beaten to death, police said the ACS did not tell them about Julia's eye circles while she was alive.
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So far this year, there have been 13 cases of abuse deaths in New York City for children under the age of 11, down from the annual average of about 15 in recent years.
Some experts feared abuse would ferment behind closed doors in segregated homes after the lockdown began last year, but Director Hansel said this spring there was no sign of a spike in abuse.
Still, for the loved ones of children who end their lives in unimaginable horror and pain, statistics don't provide comfort.
On the eve of Eisen's fifth birthday, his great-grandmother, Dena Emerson, replaced the preparations to celebrate with him in previous years with crying.
She said, "Enough, enough. My grandson's death is not unique. So many babies are being abused and killed. ”
Source: New York Chinese Information Network
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