Friday, February 24, 2012

Almost a Dozen Children Removed from One House

This story is about 11 children found in a home that lived almost two dozen people! When police came to the house on a physical abuse call to a child they walked in and investigated the house. The 8 out of 11 children were all staying in the back room that had the windows boarded up with ply wood and there were zero lights in the room. It was 2:00 PM but the room appeared to be as dark as 2:00 AM. The children ranged from a 4 month old infant to 11 years old. Some of the children were put in restraints to stay in their beds, some were held with leash type straps so that they were only allowed to go a certain distance from their beds, and none of the older children attended school. Also the 2 infants that were living at the house were taken to the local hospital because they had signs of Pneumonia and poor living quality.  All the children have been removed from the house because of this situation and that the adults they were living with were unsafe.
The children all had the same legal guardian, Tanda Marsh-Smith, and most of them were her grandchildren. In the 1980s when Marsh-Smith had her grandchildren living with her, the children got taken away because she was also previously accused of physical and sexual abuse to her grandchildren. Why they would allow her to have more children is beyond me. Also living in the house was Marsh-Smith’s son who was 34 years old. He was also a registered sex offender who had the permanent address the same as the 11 children but he was not at the home when police showed up.  Great environment and role models for these children.
The 10 adults that live in this home that were there at the time got interviewed and none of them saw any problem with the way the children have been treated! The reasoning behind the restraints on the children was because it was for their safety. I don’t think safety is supposed to mean isolated especially for young innocent children. When the police were at the house they made no arrests This alone blows my mind. These people have treated these children so poorly and have ruined the “learning years” of their lives, yet they are still sitting at their home where the children once lived! The officer said they are bringing it to the Grand Jury but the time between the children being taken out and the time that they will have to go to court, they can run. Run so that they aren’t found and they can go on with their normal lives.  I think the officer in this situation took the easy way out because I do believe that every one of those adults should be at least in jail for holding until their court date.
One has to wonder about the judgment of these adults, whether it be the role of the grandmother, uncle, or even other adults coexisting in the chaos. When the police questioned the adults and everyone deemed the situation fault should have been given to these adults as well. The endangerment of the child, the health of these children is extremely questionable and even their development. It is also extremely strange and a huge red flag that any children were put back in this woman’s care. Does the state not check? Where are the employees of the state that are supposed to assist in preventing these situations? What about a parole officer or something for this 34 year old man who is a registered sex offender? What a disgusting joke for a set up. There has to be some sort of expectation by these individuals, but a large expectation from the state as well. There becomes a fine line and that I understand is perceived opinion-but when children are living in quarters that animals wouldn’t be able to label healthy is a problem. Also, were they getting food stamps or any other type of government aid due to this many children? There should be some sort of result from that as well. We may hold individuals to a certain standard, but the police that came and were able to investigate without any arrests makes me nervous for what other faulty decisions could have been made and potentially answers the question of where was the state. There is paperwork and signatures required for everything these days-how were almost a dozen children all connected in one way shape or form lost amongst the system? What standards are we actually holding others too? As a neighbor how would you feel knowing this occurred next door? 

6 comments:

  1. I can not believe that something like this is even happening in this day in age. I agree with you that there should have been paper work that was showing this families situation. I also can not believe that the neighbors did not know of this situation. If I knew my neighbor had 11 kids but never once saw them outside I would be suspicious. But I guess someone outside of that family had to have called the police because the 10 people in there found nothing wrong with the way the kids were being treated. I feel like the police should have been at that home years earlier to help the kids and they also should have acted more harshly.

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  2. Wow this is really sad, I can’t believe people could actually do that and think there is nothing wrong with it. It makes absolutely no sense that they said the restraints were for safety.. if they really wanted those kids to be safe they would have gotten them out of that house to somewhere where they could actually be taken care of like children should be. I also do not understand how none of these people were arrested for child neglect..? How could a police officer walk into that situation and then walk out without serving the children justice by punishing the people who did this to them? If I lived next door to this, I would be absolutely disgusted and feel horrible that this was going on right next to me and I had no idea, when I could have done something to help those children sooner.

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  3. This story blows my mind. First of all, how were any of these people in the household even surviving in such a chaotic, unhealthy atmosphere. It is crazy how they were able to restrain all these children, all at once, all the time. I know if I was stuck in that household, I would have found a way out, but that is besides the point. I cannot wrap my head around how on Earth did an individual who is a registered sex offender get away with living in a home with 11 children. This just makes me think that being registered is all on paper and no actual action is taken against these individuals. It is obvious no house checks were ever taken place for this offender. A terrible story this is, but thankfully these children have been somewhat arrested, and hopefully the adults in this case are all arrested and charged with something!

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  4. I feel like the neighbors must have had to know that something suspicious was going on. I imagine that even if they were absolutely clueless that they would feel awful. I think any decent human being should feel bad for those poor children. The conditions in which they were kept are awful. I think it is beyond cruel that they were tied up and/or restrained to their beds. I also think it is a shame that none of them have been able to go to school. Due to the animosity of the grandma, those 11 children will be effected for the rest of their lives. I feel that someone should have been checking up on the sex offender to make sure he was staying in an environment free of children, let alone 11 of them. I think the state is mainly at fault here for allowing the grandmother to have children there after some had already been taken away in the 80's (especially after such serious allegations of physical and sexual abuse against the children). The fact that there were other adults involved in the situation who seemed okay with the way the children were being treated is very discouraging and looks bad for society as a whole.

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  5. Wow that is horrible, I can't believe they still allowed the grandmother to have kids after she got them taken away the first time. For them to say that the restraints are for safety they must be smoking crack, because they are held as prisoners. For the cop not to do anything he should be fired because he was not doing his job. For the state not to do anything with the guy being a sex offender staying in the house with 11 kids is also messed up, and should of not been taken lightly. Overall a great story, but we as a society need to do better.

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  6. This is one of the worst cases of child abuse that I have heard of. Children often slip through the cracks of system that allows abusers such as their grandmother to regain custody of children. In an ideal society anyone accused of child abuse and sexual abuse would continuously be investigated and followed up on. However the case loads that social workers and other people in the criminal justice have can allow something like this to happen. What also amazes me is that none of the neighbors noticed anything out of the ordinary. There were so many people living in that house it is astonishing that no one noticed what was going on. The fact that their caretaker was their blood relative was something that upset me. It is not an excuse but many foster families have the mentality that because the children that are sent to them are not their blood relatives that they can treat them horribly. It shows that there are just evil people in this world. Children are defenseless beings who can't defend themselves so they are victims that are innocent.

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