• So now he’s calling on U.S.  Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate what’s been happening in Michigan
• “The most important right, constitutionally and God-given right we have is to be able to raise our children. So that’s why I’m going to the attorney general right now to see how we can keep our families together,”  Rep. Hansen Clarke, (D) 13th District, told 7 Action News Investigator Heather Catallo.

• Testimony under oath in the Godboldo case revealed that probation officers inside the court would routinely stamp Presiding Juvenile Court Judge Leslie Kim Smith’s name onto the removal orders.  By law, a judge must review the CPS workers allegations of abuse, and then sign the order.

  After we reported on the rubber stamping that legal experts say is against the law – the court stopped doing it.  But we still asked the court and DHS to tell us how long it had been going on, and how many children were taken from their parents illegally.  Judge Smith was not interested in answering our questions.
• we shouldn’t be penalizing women because they’re struggling financially by taking away their children

• DHS Director Maura D. Corrigan issued this written statement:

  “The department welcomes a dialogue with Rep. Clarke, as we do with all legislators.  We can assure the representative that despite his concerns based on a small number of local cases out of the nearly 100,000 child welfare cases the department investigates each year statewide, that DHS focuses solely on the welfare of the child without regard to race.”

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• Wendrow spent 74 of his 80 days in jail in the one-man cell.
• Thal spent five days in jail, accused of ignoring the abuse.
• Their children -- a severely disabled teen girl and a mildly autistic boy -- were put in separate juvenile homes and kept apart from their parents for 106 days.
• Sgt. Tara Kane was in charge of the investigation, as head of the Police Department's youth bureau. It was her first day in that position, and she had never handled a child sexual assault case. She didn't have any training in autism and had never heard of facilitated communication.

• Cynthia Scarsella, an $18-per-hour teachers aide, was the girl's facilitator, the one guiding her hand. She had been assigned to the job at the beginning of the fall 2007 semester.

  Scarsella, who holds a high school diploma, completed one hour of facilitator training the summer before. She said in a deposition that she had "no idea" whether what the girl was typing was true and had no interest in trying to verify it. And she said she didn't know anything about autism.

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• Born To Serve

     

  United States, EnglishEducation

   

    "The answer to missed educational opportunities; oppressive contracts and unaccountability horror stories; racism; poverty; and hate-based ideas festering into terrorism, is the responsible development of entities ... that standardize access, standardize procedures, and standardize services