Results tagged “child abuse” from Crime & Courts

Sometime in the next few days when you have a spare 20 or 30 minutes, spend some time with Danielle. Her story of neglect, deprivation and, eventually, hope, is beautifully captured by a reporter and photographer for the St. Petersburg Times in Florida. It will make your stomach and heart ache. Be sure to check out the audio and video components, as well.

There wasn't even an twinge of surprise in me when I saw a report in the Los Angeles Times this morning that the Dept. of Children and Family Services investigated allegations in 2005 of possible neglect of a young boy, but closed the file without follow-up. Now, that boy is 5-years-old and clinging to life - his mother, her live-in girlfriend and their babysitter all charged this week with corporal injury to a child and child abuse. They allegedly held his little hands to a burning stove, scorched his body with burning cigarettes and nearly starved him to death.

 

One of the hardest parts of this job is hearing, daily, about the incredibly violent, horrible and disgustingly mean things people do to each other. It only gets worse when the victim is a child or a baby. Anyone who has ever loved a kid would have a hard time sitting through such testimony. During these trials, while trying to write accurate and coherent notes, I sometimes can't see past the tears rimming my eyes or concentrate because of the heaviness in my chest. You just can't imagine.

This week, the ominously-named Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a division of the Center for Disease Control, released a report that found that one in 50 U.S. infants are victims of nonfatal abuse or neglect during a year period. The study focused on babies younger than 1 year, and also found that a third of the 91,000 infant victims were one week old or younger.

The authors defined abuse or neglect as everything from failing to provide basic care to physical, sexual and psychological maltreatment.

I'd rather be unemployed than write another story about a defenseless baby being hurt or killed.