In Child Abuse, Police May be the Last to Know

              In child abuse, police
may be the last to know
By DON WAITT
Of TheJimes^Staff
There was suspicion surrounding the
injuries that led to the death of 9-month-old
Jimmy R. Collins, but the Allendale
infant was in the grave more than two
weeks before Shreveport police learned
of that suspicion. By then, Jimmy's
mother had already been arrested on a
charge of cruelty to her second child, a
2-year-old daughter.
The Aug. 14 death of Jimmy R. Col-lins
from head injuries has raised some
probing questions about just who is
responsible for notifying police about
infant deaths where foul play is sus-pected.
And it has raised some questions
about the ability of different agencies to
work together toward a common goal.
In the case of Jimmy, it was more
than two weeks after his death before
Shreveport juvenile investigators began
their investigation. Even then, they
learned of the death not from respon-sible
officials, but instead after arrest-ing
his mother on a charge of cruelty to
her other child.
And it was several days after Jim-my's
death before the Child Protection
Center, the state agency that had been
investigating the case while Jimmy was
still alive, even learned that the infant
had died, according to Times contacts.
"Due to an unfortunate set of circum-stances
and events, the death of the
child got shifted from one place to
another, but it never found the proper
home," said Assistant Caddo District
Attorney Steve Waller. "It was one of
those things where everybody did what
they were required to do, but they didn't
tell anybody else about it."
The problem, as pinpointed by
Waller, is a lack of communication and
coordination between the Caddo-
Shreveport Child Protection Center and
the investigators in the Shreveport ju-venile
division. Referring to the death
of Jimmy as an example, he said,
"There are some real problems. This is
not just a one-shot deal that got messed
up."
Shreveport juvenile officers have
been investigating the death of the 9-
month-old infant for the past few weeks
and are awaiting a written coroner's
ruling on cause of death before turning
their findings over to the Caddo Parish
District Attorney's office for review.
Caddo Coroner Dr. Robert Braswell has
tentatively ruled cause of death as
being from head injuries.
It must be noted that the death is still
being considered an accidental death
while it is under investigation and that
no criminal charges have been filed in
connection with the case.
Sgt. Ken Lewis, supervisor of the
Shreveport police juvenile division, said
Jimmy's mother was arrested on Aug.
30 after witnesses told police they had
seen a wipian beating a young girl in
Allendale at about 2 a.m. Evelyn Jean
Collins, 25, of 604 Lawrence was
charged with cruelty to her 2-year-old
daughter land released on $3,500 bond.
She has retained private counsel and is
scheduled to be tried on the cruelty
charge.
Lewis said his investigators de-termined
fhat Jimmy and his sister had
been living with two adults at Ms.
Collins' residence. He said Ms. Collins'
2-year-old daughter has since been
placed with the Child Protection Cen-ter.
"The authorities have stepped in,"
said Waller. "There has been action
taken regarding the protection of that
child." 1
While questioning Ms. Collins,
Shreveport juvenile officers learned
that the woman's infant son had died at
LSU Medical Center on Aug. 14 after
being admitted for treatment on July
23. Lewii said Ms. Collins told the
attending physicians that her child had
suffered head and rib injuries after
falling off a bed.
The doctors questioned Ms. Collins'
explanation of the injuries, Lewis said,
and so contacted the Child Protection
Center, a! state agency under the De-partment
of Health and Human Re-sources,
which began its own investiga-tion.
However, officials at the center
did not notify police about the case even
after the infant had died, Lewis claims.
Identification officers at the Police
Department were notified, however,
when the Jcoroner's office conducted an
autopsy, ^fter photographing the child,
the identification officers advised juve-nile
investigators of the case, but Lewis
said his officers apparently overlooked
the report.
The upshot was that Jimmy Collins
died on Aug. 14 from suspicious injuries,
but days went by before the investiga-tion
was picked up again by the Child
Protection Center, or even started by
Shreveport police. What follows is a list
of points d uring the case where notifica-tion
was, or was not, made:
• According to Louisiana state stat
utes, doctors, hospital personnel, teach-ers
and sccial workers are required by
law to notify the parish child welfare
unit "OR' the police about suspected
child abuse. In the case cited, the LSU
Medical Center physicians did notify
the Child Protection Center. However,
they did not notify police. Joe Miciotto,
an LSU Hospital administrator, ex-plained
that the hospital's legal obliga-tion
was met by notifying the parish
agency.
Upon the death of the infant, the
hospital notified the Caddo Parish cor-oner,
meeting its legal obligation con
cerning a suspicious death. Miciotto
again noted that the hospital was not
required to notify the Child Protection
Center or the police about the death,
• The same Louisiana statute re-quires
the Child Protection Center to
investigate a complaint of child abuse
and then forward its report to the
district attorney. Waller said he did
receive a report of the investigation
while the infant was alive, but that he
heard of the infant's death from the
center's investigators days after the
death.
At no time, either before or after the
infant's death, did the center's in-vestigators
notify juvenile police in-vestigators,
Lewis said. The state law
does not require them to do so.
Charlyne Langton, a supervisor at the
Child Protection Center, said it has been
her impression of the center's policy
that the district attorney would notify
police about possible child abuse, not
the center's investigators.
But Waller disagrees. "We have peo-ple
who take agency policy decisions
and interpret those to be more powerful
than the law," Waller said. "Upon the
death of the child, certainly the police
should have been brought in."
Waller acknowledged that state law
and the Child Protection Center's policy
call for reports to be sent to the district
attorney, but he said the center should
also report possible criminal violations
to the police.
"If there's some misinterpretation
over there, it needs to be cleared up,"
Waller said. "If a child dies and it's
abuse, you're not talking about child
abuse. You're talking about homicide."
Waller said the center's investigators
fail to realize that the state statute in
question deals with suspected abuse and
neglect of a child. A child, he said, can
be neglected, and possibly abused,
without a criminal violation occurring.
Waller reasons that when the center's
investigators suspect a criminal vio-lation
has occurred, the state statute
becomes moot and the investigators are
obligated to notify law enforcement
authorities.
"When they stumble upon a crime,
yes, they can report it to the district
attorney," Waller said, "but they also
have an obligation to get the informa-tion
and cooperate with the police."
Waller, saying that the center has
undergone numerous staff changes over
the years, is somewhat sympathetic. "I
think many of these workers are kept in
a state of confusion by policy directives
from Baton Rouge, by what their super-visors
tell them, by what police tell
them and by what I tell them."
Another factor to consider, Ms.
Langton said, is that the Child Protec-tion
Center's responsibility is to protect
the child and keep him from becoming a
repeabvictim. The pursuing of criminal
charges is the responsibility of police,
she said.
But in the Jimmy Collins case, Lewis
argued, it was a matter of notification,
• . • • • • .-
I
It-
(Times photo bv Lee Shivelv)
Responsibility in child abuse cases unclear
not responsibility for criminal in
vestigation.
• The state statute also requires that
police notify the Child Protection Cen-ter
about possible child abuse cases. In
this particular case, the center knew
about the case before police, but Lewis
said his office is good about notifying
the center of such cases.
However, the confusion about
notification in the infant's death even
lapsed into the interdepartmental poli-cy
of the Shreveport Police Depart-ment.
Shreveport police were notified
of the death by the coroner's office, but
that notification was lost somewhere
between the identification officers who
photographed the body and the juvenile
investigators. Said Lewis, "There's
fault all the way around. We have to
take our share of it."
As Waller noted, all five links in the
informational chain — the hospital, the
child welfare unit, the coroner, the
district attorney's office and the police
— did what they were required to do by
law. But, he said, by following the letter
of the law, the black print on the white
pages, the end result was a lack of
communication, and an infant whose
death went unnoticed by investigators
for several days.
In such a case, conjecture is easy. But
there is one hypothetical question that
begs to be asked. Since more than two
weeks elapsed between the death of
Jimmy and the beating of his sister,
could the authorities, had they been
acting quicker, stopped the beating of
the sister?
Answered Waller, "It's possible."