A 17-month-old's family and the public need to know how and why she died

The Sacramento Bee

No one knows how Tamaihia Lynae Moore died, but the foster mother of the Sacramento toddler has been arrested for her murder. That puts Child Protective Services, the county agency charged with protecting abused and neglected children and the agency that placed Tamaihia into foster care, in the spotlight once again.

In September, Sacramento County's Child Death Review Team reported an alarming spike in the number of Sacramento children dying from abuse and neglect last year. There were 24 such deaths in 2006 up from 11 in 2004 and 17 in 2005. Of the 24 who died last year, 11 were known to CPS because they'd been the subject of abuse reports. But unlike Tamaihia, most of those children died in their own homes. Members of death review teams speculated that a county policy that favored keeping family units intact may have led to more deaths.

That certainly was not the case with this latest child death. Tamaihia was removed from her mother and placed in foster care at birth because she tested positive for exposure to cocaine. She was returned to her father but was placed in foster care again a little over a month ago.

Now the agency's oversight after the child was removed from her father's home is under scrutiny, and rightly so.

Tamaihia's aunt and grandmother say that twice in the two weeks before she was found dead at her foster mother's home, they alerted CPS to problems. After a visit with the child on October 7, relatives reported that she was dehydrated and malnourished.

The aunt and grandmother say that after a second visit on Oct. 20, they told authorities that the child's condition had deteriorated and begged that she be taken to a hospital. Two days later the little girl was dead.

Her foster mother, Tamecka Walker, has been arrested for murder. Two other foster children, both under the age of 3, were removed from Walker's home.

Walker's parents insist their daughter is innocent. They also say their daughter had asked CPS to place Tamaihia elsewhere just days before she died.

No one disputes that protecting children from abuse and neglect is a difficult job or that the social workers who perform that service are dedicated, hard-working professionals. But when they remove a child from a family, the county assumes full responsibility for the child's welfare. And when something goes terribly wrong, as it did in this case, there are questions to be answered and actions to accounted for.

Tamaihia is dead. Her family and the public deserve to know what happened -- and what is being done to keep a similar tragedy from occurring in the future.