Commentary: UB Viewpoint - Why can't Maryland protect its young?
Commentary: UB Viewpoint - Why can't Maryland protect its young?
Apr 1, 2005
William H. Cole IV
The Daily Record
The tragic death of young Roy Lechner Jr. recently is yet another vivid reminder that Maryland has many notable failures in its ability to adequately protect our vulnerable young people.
In 1999, I sat as a member of the Maryland House Judiciary Committee and listened intently while representatives of the Department of Human Resources and Social Services explained that there would never be another Shamir Hudson or Rita Fisher. Both of those deaths were so heinous and brutal that you wondered how those children survived as long as they did.
In Hudson's case, there had been nearly two dozen reports to Worcester County Social Services alleging child abuse. Teachers at the young boy's school worried about the many bruises and wounds on his body. The woman who abused Hudson was initially his foster parent; that is, until she was allowed to adopt him.
In October 1998, Worcester County Circuit Court Judge Theodore R. Eschenberg Sr. called the Hudson case the saddest and most brutal case I have witnessed in my years on the bench. - The system whose mission it is to protect children has failed miserably. He then imposed a 30-year prison sentence on the abuser.
The Rita Fisher case was equally disturbing. A third-grader who weighed only 47 pounds when she died in June 1997, Fisher had been systematically starved and beaten by her mother and others in the home. She suffered more in her short life than imaginable.
Ciara Jobes was 15 years old when she died in 2003, weighing only 73 pounds. She was routinely beaten and starved by her guardian, Satrina Roberts. Roberts - who, according to court records, was diagnosed years ago with bipolar schizophrenic disorder - had been receiving Social Security disability for nearly 10 years. Nonetheless, she was granted guardianship of Jobes in 2000.
After that death, Department of Social Services spokesman Norris West told The Sun, It's a big mistake to think that government can save all the children, all the time. What we've learned from this is that we need to give everyone ownership of child welfare. We need to get the message out [that] when you see a problem in the system, [you must] report it to DSS.
In the case of Roy Lechner Jr., DSS had plenty of reason to be concerned. The boy's mother, Denise Lechner, had been previously convicted of abusing him when they lived in Ohio. A woman who had lived in the Lechner home claims to have reported the mother's abuse of her son to Social Services on numerous occasions. Media reports state that the 3-year-old was often locked in his bedroom without food or water for up to 10 hours and one neighbor alleges that she found him wandering the streets alone in the middle of the night.
Denise Lechner's attorney told The Sun, From what I've been able to gather so far, there are a lot of good people trying to do good things, but somehow the system just wasn't working with this situation.
Every year in the Maryland General Assembly, there are dozens of bills introduced to fix some small portion of the social services system. Piece by piece, the legislature has attempted to provide added safeguards to protect our vulnerable children. Over the years, the legislature has attempted to improve communication between agencies and between the branches of government.
This year is certainly no different. Unfortunately, the system didn't work for Rita Fisher, Shamir Hudson or Ciara Jobes. Why should we be surprised that it didn't work for Roy Lechner Jr., either?
William H. Cole IV, the associate vice president for institutional advancement and city relations at the University of Baltimore, wrote this column for The Daily Record. The opinions expressed are his own.