At least 786 children died of abuse or neglect in the U.S. in a six-year span in plain view of child protection authorities — many of them beaten, starved or left alone to drown while agencies had good reason to know they were in danger, The Associated Press has found.
To determine that number, the AP canvassed the 50 states, the District of Columbia and all branches of the military — circumventing a system that does a terrible job of accounting for child deaths. Many states struggled to provide numbers. Secrecy often prevailed.
Most of the 786 children whose cases were compiled by the AP were under the age of 4. They lost their lives even as authorities were investigating their families or providing some form of protective services because of previous instances of neglect, violence or other troubles in the home.
Now first, if these kids were SHOT, we’d sure be hearing about it every day, and calling for banning guns, or reforming laws….but that’s because “Progressive” put all their faith in the .gov that did the incompetent work.
Hey, but we should ban guns, and just trust the .gov to protect you…because they sure did protect these kids…
To be fair, CPS (or whatever acronym a given state uses) is often limited in what they can do in the short-term. The parents, as bad as they may be, do retain their rights to due process and presumption of innocence, and CPS has to honor them.
In addition, at least around here, CPS may take the direct actions but the decisions behind them are signed by a judge (with all the inherent flaws a single-person accountability spectrum provides), and sometimes bad decisions let kids fall through the cracks.
Still, as sad as these stories are, I’d hate to imagine a world where the rights to due process and presumption of innocence don’t exist.