Child Protective Agencies fail again and three more lives Ruined

To say that we all do not make mistakes is an understatement but to listen to those in the child protective trade, you would think that they were so professional in their duties that when they leave the bathrooms and you go after them all you would smell is roses.  Now we all know that following anyone who uses public facilities, that smell is definitely not that of a rose.

I call your attention to an article titled “Documents: Girl, 15, who shot brother, 16, suffered abuse” written by Jason Dearen for the Associated Press.  In this article it is reported that “A 15-year-old girl who fatally shot her 16-year-old brother suffered years of abuse, including being locked in a room for weeks at a time with only a blanket and a bucket to use the bathroom, according to police reports and interviews.  The shooting at a small white house off a dirt road in rural north Florida happened Monday while the children's parents were away for work. The father, a truck driver, and his wife, who often goes with him, left the 16-year-old boy to watch over the 15-year-old, her 11-year-old sister and their 3-year-old sister, police said. The parents left Sunday and were due back Tuesday.  Sometime Monday, the 15-year-old girl was locked in her room by her brother, police said. After the boy fell asleep, she talked her 11-year-old sister into unlocking her door.  The older girl knew her parents kept a pistol in their room, but they had locked their door. So the girl went outside and used a knife to remove an air conditioner from her parents' bedroom window. She climbed in while her 11-year-old sister kept watch and grabbed the gun out of a pink bag and loaded it, police said.  The girl went back inside the house, telling her young sisters to get in the closet, she told police. She turned her head and fired at her sleeping brother in the living room, and he screamed "Help! Help!"  She buried her head in a pillow for a while and upon returning to the living room, the girl found her 3-year-old sister trying to wake her dead brother, according to the police report.  She fled with her 11-year-old sister, leaving the 3-year-old behind, police said”.

This could not be the first time that the parents went on a long haul and left these children at home with the baby, to me; the most disturbing thing was what was reported in this article toward the end.  “Police documents released Wednesday said the girl's uncle was convicted of molesting her in 2010. They also say the children's mother discovered the siblings having sex in 2011. Authorities and child welfare officials investigated, but no one was charged”.  So let me get this straight, the parents left the kids with the uncle and the uncle had sex with the oldest daughter and only after getting him convicted did that stop.  Authorities then must have believed that their job was done but did not keep up with the necessary services that molested child will need which means they never stayed in contact with the family.  This left mom and dad with the thought that they did not have to modify their actions.  One would have thought that finding out that your brother or brother-in-law was molesting your daughter should have been enough to do that but then maybe that’s what makes us different.  Still discovering the sibling having sex could have added to the thought of altering your actions but guess not.  Refusal to educate yourself on what the damages could be is one thing but to add fuel to the fire by leaving a weapon on the premises and teaching your children how to load and fire it is something totally different.  Why would authorities not find out if a weapon was in the house even during their investigation of the molestation?

Bottom line a 15 year old girl will relive that moment of killing her brother and being molested for the rest of her life.  The 11 year old girl will have to live with knowing about it and having unlocked the door provided she wasn’t molested by the uncle or anyone else for the rest of her life.  The 3 year old will forever be scarred by trying to wake up her brother, wrapping her mind around her sister killing him, the absence of the only family she has ever known and questioning why the absence of the mother and father.  Three lives directly affected and God only knows how many more will be affected indirectly because a “normal” life cannot ever be in those three future.