Foster care protester knows pain of losing a child

Crocker Stephenson

The Journal Sentinel

The handful of protesters who stood outside the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare on Wednesday morning carried posters demanding that foster children be protected and that those responsible for their safety be held accountable. Rob Whitman did not carry a poster. What he carried instead were the cremated remains of his 2-month-old son.

Whitman's son - named Robert but whom Whitman calls "Junior" - died Oct. 2, two days after the baby was removed from his home and placed in foster care.

"Two days," Whitman said.

Whitman, 37, had taken a bus from his south side apartment to the protest in front of the bureau's S. 13th St. office. He had 36 cents in his pocket. That was, he said, all the money he had left.

In his right arm, Whitman held a ceramic angel. The angel contained Junior's ashes. Less than an ounce worth, Whitman said.

In his right arm, he held a teddy bear that had belonged to Junior. He had dressed the bear in Junior's clothes. He held the bear the way one might hold a living, breathing infant child.

Whitman stood with the protesters for about a half-hour. The demonstration had been organized to decry the death of Christopher L. Thomas Jr., the 13-month-old whom police say was beaten to death last month by his foster mother and whose sister suffered months of torture, even as child welfare caseworkers periodically visited the home.

One woman held up a sign that read, "Foster Children Deserve to Live." Her 14-year-old foster son had made the poster. Another held up a picture of her granddaughter, who has been placed in a home the grandmother didn't trust.

"Help me!!!" her poster said.

"I'm too young to die."

Whitman went home to the modest apartment he once shared with Valissa Reynolds and their four children.

On Sept. 30, Reynolds was at the hospital undergoing a tubal ligation. Whitman was home with the kids. The oldest child, a 7-year-old boy, was at school. Reynolds called. Whitman packed the kids in the car and went to pick her up.

When they returned, he said, caseworkers were at the apartment. Someone, he said, had reported that his 3-year-old daughter appeared unkempt and had bruises on her legs. According to a medical examiner's report, the apartment was filthy. The four children were removed from the home, and a hearing was set at Children's Court.

On Oct. 2, the couple waited all morning for their case to be called. Then, shortly after noon, someone brought them to a conference room.

Three men were sitting at a table.

"They said our son Robert had experienced an issue in the middle of the night. He is deceased," Whitman said.

According to the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's office, the cause of Junior's death remains undetermined pending the results of toxicology tests. No signs of physical abuse were found. A medical examiner's report says the woman caring for Junior is an experienced foster mother who found the infant blue and not breathing the morning he died.

Child welfare officials said they are waiting for the medical examiner's full report before pursuing the matter.

When Whitman got home from the protest, Reynolds was tacking sheets in front of the windows to keep out the cold. He placed Junior's ashes and his bear in Junior's crib, which has been turned into a kind of shrine: Pictures, clothes, a diaper, a blanket, the sweat shirt Whitman was wearing when Junior was removed.

The reason for the sweat shirt, Whitman said: "I believe I can still smell him in it."