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DSS Let Haleigh Down
Posted by Raven on March 4th, 2006
The committee investigating where things went wrong with Haleigh Poutre case came to this conclusion:
The state Department of Social Services violated the law when it failed to report Haleigh Poutre’s repeated injuries to the district attorney’s office, a legislator probing the brutal case said yesterday.
Members of the Special Legislative Committee on Foster Care told House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi (D-Boston) this week that DSS ignored a law requiring it to notify the DA in cases of “serious physical injury” to any child.
The law is intended to ensure that trained investigators determine whether the abuse amounts to a prosecutable crime. In Haleigh’s case, her adoptive mother deceived DSS by claiming that Haleigh’s injuries were self-inflicted.
One of the hallamrks of abused children is the parents’ repeated claim the child did it for attention or is accident prone. Haleigh had been to an ER so many times- a pattern had been established. Someone should have taken notice.
“Nobody ever gets fired and nobody ever gets punished,” said the committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Marie J. Parente (D-Milford). “If what happened to this girl had happened to a grown-up, somebody would be indicted.”
DSS had received 16 reports of severe abuse or neglect involving Haleigh, now 12, before her adoptive mother and stepfather brought her unconscious to Noble Hospital in Westfield on Sept. 11. Days after she lapsed into a coma, her parents, Jason and Holli Strickland, were arrested and charged by Hampden County prosecutors.
Someone, or many need to be held accountable for this. 16 reports, severe abuse??? Come on!
