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Texas Girl Was Taken Away From Parents Because They Smoked Pot, Only To Be Killed in Foster Care
http://blogs.houstonpress.com/news/2014/11/placing_kids_in_foster_care_for_weed_cases_has_dire_consequences.phpLittle Alex Hill would have been turning four-years-old this Friday. But rather than celebrating their child's birthday, the toddler's parents have only the bitter consolation of seeing a judge in Milam County hand Alex's foster mother a life sentence for murder.
The life sentence is a small victory in the case of 2-year-old Alex, whose July 2013 death was caused by devastating injuries at the hands of her foster mother, 52-year old Sherill Small.
Alex was placed in Small's care in early 2013, after her father admitted to child welfare investigators that he had smoked marijuana while the child was tucked away in bed at night.
The life sentence is a small victory in the case of 2-year-old Alex, whose July 2013 death was caused by devastating injuries at the hands of her foster mother, 52-year old Sherill Small.
Alex was placed in Small's care in early 2013, after her father admitted to child welfare investigators that he had smoked marijuana while the child was tucked away in bed at night.
26 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Aside from the unbelievable reason to remove the child from her home, the state of Texas obviously places foster children in extreme danger by shifting their responsibility of a safe foster home to private agencies.
Small had been approved as a foster parent by Texas Mentor, a third party private agency who provides foster homes to the Texas Child Protective Services system. No mention was made of Texas Mentor's shady track record -- they had racked up over 15 violations by this point, according to the Dallas Morning News.
114 more violations would ultimately follow, but none of this information was shared with Hill. The first time he heard it, he was sitting in the courtroom listening to testimony on Alex's beating death.
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Turns out Sherill Small's third husband, Clemon Small, had a pretty legit criminal history, including multiple drug charges for marijuana.
During the home study portion of the couple's foster application, Clemon described himself as a recovering crack cocaine addict, and admitted to multiple drug charges. Small also admitted to the home study investigator that she had also been out of work for months. Rather, she made a living by keeping foster children.
Still, the report from the home study concluded that "the family is capable of providing a safe home environment," and Small was given the go ahead to provide foster care.
I can't believe people aren't up in arms about this.
[link:
| Rest in peace little angel
They deter children from reporting abuse!
I grew up in a household with Domestic Violence. One of those divorced (when I was 3), and then new live-in boyfriend situations. Live-in boyfriend had a bad temper that could and sometimes did become abusive.
I was a smart kid. I could have collected evidence, reported this, and probably legally forced him out of my life the day he would not let me pack a lunch before school (he alleged I was running late and would miss the bus, when I knew I was on time by my usual, daily schedule--he normally would've been working 3 hours earlier that day). He grabbed me by the head and punched me to prevent me from packing that lunch. I went to school hungry that day, with no lunch money, as he refused to provide any.
But I weighed reporting that against the horror stories like this that my state's Department of Children and Family Services was generating at the time, and concluded the risk I knew was less than the risk I didn't know. I told no one.
A couple of months later, that scumbag slammed a door shut on my mother's wrist and she had to go to the hospital. Yeah, at that point I gladly took a day off school to go to the county courthouse with Mom and provide testimony for a restraining order, because doing so would remove the threat from both our lives before ever reaching the abysmal DCFS.
What's even worse? There are abusers out there who actively use incidents like these to indoctrinate victims about how bad DCFS is, and they brainwash their victims into thinking that reporting will lead to worse because DCFS is that bad. Sadly in my case the only mention of DCFS incompetence came from the media, and the media horror stories alone, even without the abuser having to elaborate, deterred me from reporting my situation until Mom was in the hospital.
I grew up in a household with Domestic Violence. One of those divorced (when I was 3), and then new live-in boyfriend situations. Live-in boyfriend had a bad temper that could and sometimes did become abusive.
I was a smart kid. I could have collected evidence, reported this, and probably legally forced him out of my life the day he would not let me pack a lunch before school (he alleged I was running late and would miss the bus, when I knew I was on time by my usual, daily schedule--he normally would've been working 3 hours earlier that day). He grabbed me by the head and punched me to prevent me from packing that lunch. I went to school hungry that day, with no lunch money, as he refused to provide any.
But I weighed reporting that against the horror stories like this that my state's Department of Children and Family Services was generating at the time, and concluded the risk I knew was less than the risk I didn't know. I told no one.
A couple of months later, that scumbag slammed a door shut on my mother's wrist and she had to go to the hospital. Yeah, at that point I gladly took a day off school to go to the county courthouse with Mom and provide testimony for a restraining order, because doing so would remove the threat from both our lives before ever reaching the abysmal DCFS.
What's even worse? There are abusers out there who actively use incidents like these to indoctrinate victims about how bad DCFS is, and they brainwash their victims into thinking that reporting will lead to worse because DCFS is that bad. Sadly in my case the only mention of DCFS incompetence came from the media, and the media horror stories alone, even without the abuser having to elaborate, deterred me from reporting my situation until Mom was in the hospital.
fucking Texas