Attorney General Pam Bondi's office said there was not "legal sufficiency" to remove Ezekiel Mathis from the home. (Photo courtesy of Pam Bondi.)
By Ralph De La Cruz
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
“Agency Fails Another Child,” read the headline in Saturday’s St. Petersburg Times, referring to the Department of Children and Families.
With all due respect to the Times’ headline writers, I think they got it wrong. The headline should have read: Agencies Fail Child. Read the story and you’ll realize this was a travesty that involved folks at the highest levels of multiple agencies.
A 13-month-old, Ezekiel Mathis, was thrown against a dresser, then beaten by the 6-foot-10 boyfriend of his mother.
Horrible story made almost unbelievable by the fact that it happened nine days after Hillsborough County Circuit Judge Tracy Sheehan ordered Ezekiel’s two-year-old sister removed from the home after she appeared in court covered in bruises.
Sheehan, who appears to be the only hero in this horrific failing of the child protection system, also issued a written order that the Hillsborough Sheriff’s Department check on the welfare of Ezekiel and determine whether he should also be removed.
And the Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office made that determination, asking Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office for permission to remove Ezekiel from the home.
Three times they asked. Three times Bondi’s office said there wasn’t “legal sufficiency.”
How about a judge’s written orders? An abused two-year-old sister? Those things don’t provide legal sufficiency?
The Attorney General’s office said in an e-mail to the Times that Ezekiel had shown no signs of abuse.
“We requested additional information from the Sheriff’s Office,” the e-mail read, “and no further information was provided to us. The Sheriff’s Office did not elevate the issue to the regional director of DCF, which is an option in all cases.”
Are you kidding me?
If that kind of bureaucratic gobbledy-goop had come from a Democratic attorney general, the entire Republican super-majority legislature would be up in arms, calling it coddling and demanding an investigation. And they’d be right. The governor would be demanding heads.
And that should be the reaction now — despite Bondi’s standing as a loyal Republican. The Florida Fraternal Order of Police, the Florida Police Chiefs, and Latino Officers, all who endorsed Bondi, should demand accountability. And so should Hillsborough Sheriff David Gee, who also lent his support to Bondi.
DCF, which seemed to be less at fault than Bondi’s office, took the blame. I guess old habits die hard.
This kind of legal peek-a-boo is why Florida continues to be a leader in how not to protect its children.
Cases such as Rilya Wilson, the 4-year-old who was “lost” by DCF in 2000, and Nubia Barahona, the 10-year-old who was killed this year after being continually abused since her birth, get the attention.
But in my view, Ezekiel’s case is worse than any of them. Because in Ezekiel’s case, multiple agencies — numerous adults appointed as protectors of children in trouble — all knew he could be in trouble.
A judge even issued a written order.
But despite the efforts of everyone involved, the Attorney General’s office found they didn’t have “legal sufficiency.” And nine days later, a 13-month-old is dead as the result of blunt trauma to the head and body and lacerations to the liver and spleen.
This illustrates why, despite investigations and changes at the highest level of DCF, the problem of child fatality due to abuse and neglect continues to rise in Florida.
In 1999, the Florida state legislature created the Florida Child Abuse and Death Review Committee, which is tasked with reviewing all deaths resulting from child abuse and neglect.
In 2005, there were 94 deaths to investigate.
Last year, they investigated 192.
In 2005, 60 percent of fatalities had prior involvement with DCF.
In 2009, 36 percent of fatalities had prior involvement with DCF.
Which shows that, as in Ezekiel’s case and contrary to what has become the popular myth in many press reports and public perception, the problem isn’t DCF-centric.
And the committee is well aware of the complexity of child fatality cases, of the many factors that can be involved. That’s why the 2006 report’s top recommendation was that state statutes be tweaked so that the committee could review all child fatalities. Their concern was that neglect and abuse may be underreported.
So what was the 2010 report’s top recommendation?
That state statutes be tweaked so that the committee could review all child fatalities.
Yep. Four years. And legislators couldn’t pass the committee’s top recommendation. And they didn’t pass it this year. Seems lawmakers were too busy making sure adolescent boys keep their pants pulled up and considering whether to make the barking tree frog the official state amphibian.