Keep that in mind when you are reading the responses he gave to questioning.
Los Angeles Times Reader Comment:
When you see a child out in public being physically, emotionally, or verbally abused, it is your duty to step in and interfere.” -Be Strong
The great-grandmother of a 5-year-old South Los Angeles boy at the center of torture and abuse allegations noticed about a year ago that he had scratches across his back. When she asked him about it, the boy replied:
“A dog attacked me.”
Another time, Barbara Moreno saw a large knot on his forehead. he told her.
“I fell down some stairs”
Despite the evidence, several people in the boy’s life said in interviews Thursday with The Times that they could not bring themselves to believe he was being abused.
“It could have been a dog or something,” said Donna Hunter, 39, who took care of the boy while his mother, Starkeisha Brown, served two separate terms in state prison in 2003 and 2006.
In retrospect, after authorities this week charged Brown and two other women with ritualistically torturing and abusing the boy, Hunter wondered why she hadn’t acted.
“I don’t really know what I was thinking,” she said.
Authorities allege that the boy was subjected to extreme and sustained abuse for more than a year, including being burned with cigarette butts on his body and genitals, hung from a doorjamb by his wrists and whipped, left to sit in his own urine and feces, malnourished and severely burned on his hands, which were held to a hot stove.
Los Angeles County child welfare officials didn’t learn about the abuse until earlier this month, when they received a tip from a concerned citizen who heard the boy at a Metro Green Line train station say
“she put my hand on top of the stove.”
The case has prompted outrage from some officials, who argue that county and state agencies should have been able to protect the child better.
The county Department of Children and Family Services had looked into allegations of neglect in 2005, but ultimately concluded that the charges could not be sustained.
On Thursday, county supervisors called for a broad-based investigation into county and state agencies whose supervision — or lack of it — failed to detect the boy’s plight.
Supervisor Gloria Molina said the county inquiry would not only focus on “the communications breakdown” within the Department of Children and Family Services, but also among the more than half a dozen county and state agencies — including court, probation, parole and other law enforcement officials, as well as the county departments of health, mental health and social services — that all had information relevant to the boy’s situation.
“The process didn’t protect the child,” Molina said. “There could have been triggers across the board.”
The boy has been receiving medical treatment since authorities took custody of him June 9. He has been hospitalized in stable condition and could be released as early as next week.
Family members and friends described the boy as “joyful” before the abuse and said he loved French fries and chicken nuggets and was intelligent for his age.
Hunter, a family friend, showed pictures of the boy with a toy drum set she had bought him for Christmas and another picture of her cradling him.
“There’s no excuse,” she said of the abuse.
Hunter said she first took in the boy in August 2003 when Brown was sent to prison for robbing an elderly woman. She kept the boy at her apartment north of Watts until Brown was released in early 2005.
During the period, the boy sometimes stayed with his great-grandmother who lives nearby, Hunter said.
When Brown went back to jail in 2006 for shoplifting, Hunter took the child again until his mother was released in January 2007.
After Brown’s release, she and Krystal Matthews, 21, came and stayed in Hunter’s apartment with the boy.
Eventually, Hunter said, Brown found a new place to live.
“All she had to do was give him back,” Hunter said.
Moreno, 73, the boy’s great-grandmother, described Brown as a “violent person” who had been in a gang since she was 9 years old and would “curse you out something awful.”
Sometimes when she and Brown were with the boy, Moreno said, she noticed things that bothered her.
If the boy was hungry, Brown would say, “If I don’t have nothing to eat, he don’t have nothing to eat,” Moreno said.
There were other warning signs as well, she said. When Moreno would come over to Brown’s house to visit the boy, he would always be “hid, not there, or asleep.”
By then, Brown was living with her son and Mathews in a small South Los Angeles apartment.
Brown, Mathews and La Tanya Monikue Jones have each been charged with abusing the boy.
Molina and Supervisor Mike Antonovich drafted an ordinance that would focus on how to better share automated information about clients served by county departments and other governmental agencies, recommend changes to state laws that prohibit the sharing of information between agencies and set up formal protocols for managing such information.
Officials from the Department of Children and Family Services have said they cannot act without a formal complaint.
But there were other problems, Molina said.
Brown was the subject of an arrest warrant in March 2007 for a parole violation — but authorities could not find her.
Molina and others have noted, however, that she still managed to receive welfare benefits during that time.
Molina said she thinks the Department of Children and Family Services should have been informed about the arrest warrant.
Officials also have noted that Brown was a known gang member who as a minor served time in the California Youth Authority for battery and as an adult was convicted of robbery and petty theft.
Antonovich said he was concerned about Brown’s classification by state parole officials as a low-level offender and wondered whether she should have been categorized differently as high-risk, given her criminal background.
“Half of his life was spent in unthinkable conditions,” Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said of the boy. “He’s scarred for life, both physically and mentally, and someone should pay the price.”
Anyone interested in making donations for the 5-year-old boy can contact Michael Wrice of the county Department of Children and Family Services at (213) 739-6202.
***All bolding mine. ****
The Forty-Five Minute Hour 