Editorial: We need some answers
MediaNews editorial
HOW COULD something like this happen? The foster care system failed Jazzmin Davis, the 15-year-old Antioch girl who died last week after suffering severe abuse for more than a year. It would be a double tragedy if officials fail to figure out where the system broke down.
An independent investigator should be appointed to interview child welfare workers from San Francisco, police and school officials from Antioch and Contra Costa prosecutors to figure out what went wrong. Right now, there's too much conflicting information that must be sorted out.
Jazzmin was underfed and had suffered beatings, whippings with belts and cords, and burns from hot irons. "If you were to imagine images of malnourished people in the Third World and combine that with people who had been whipped and beaten and bore scars and lacerated flesh from those beatings and applied all that to the body of a 15-year-old girl, then you would come close to the body of Jazzmin Davis," said Deputy District Attorney Harold Jewett. Jazzmin's twin brother, Jason, suffered similar abuse, although, thankfully, he's still alive.
The twins' foster mother and aunt, Shemeeka Davis, 37, was charged Friday with murdering Jazzmin and torturing and abusing both of the twins. She is being jailed in lieu of $1.5 million bail.
Jewett says the abuse had been going on undetected since at least June 2007. What happened in that time is unclear: Officials from San Francisco, where the children entered the foster care system, say a case worker visited them as recently as March, conducted extensive interviews and saw no cause for concern; but Antioch police say they cannot confirm a visit since September 2007.
San Francisco officials say the case worker saw a current school report card for Jazzmin during the March visit; but Antioch school officials say the girl stopped attending in June 2007.
The conflicting accounts must be investigated. San Francisco supervisors should take the lead. If they won't, then Contra Costa supervisors or the county's grand jury should intervene.
Without a public accounting, we cannot have confidence that the foster system is protecting the very children it's designed to care for.