Dad beats 10-year-old son unconscious for being "possessed" (Najran, Saudi Arabia)

In a country where fathers' rights are institutionalized--and mothers' rights are nearly non-existent--child abuse is rampant.

http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=20120905135071

Father beats ‘possessed’ son unconscious

Last Updated : Wednesday, September 05, 2012 3:43 PM

Saudi Gazette report

NAJRAN — A 10-year-old boy in Sharoura was whipped unconscious Saturday by his father who claimed his son had been possessed, Al-Watan newspaper reported Tuesday.

The victim, identified as Osama, returned home after the first day of school after the summer break, only to be assaulted by his father, who then took him to the emergency ward at Sharoura General Hospital.

The incident came days after another child in Sharoura was beaten to death by his father while disciplining him.

Najran police spokesman Maj. Abdul Rahman Al-Shamarani told Al-Watan that police were contacted by the hospital where the child was being treated for his injuries and investigators were dispatched to deal with the incident.

Al-Shamarani said the 38-year-old father, who was not identified, confessed that he beat his son because he had apparently been “touched” by demons.

The child’s father was detained and the case was referred to the Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution for further action, said Al-Shamarani.

The child sustained severe bruises on his back and abdomen and was moved to the hospital’s pediatric ward, said Saleh Bin Saad Al-Mouens, director of Health Affairs in Najran.

Al-Mouens added the victim’s case was also referred to the hospital’s committee for domestic violence, while the local social service department has been contacted.

Chairman of the local family protection committee Abdullah Al-Barigi said he has formed a specialist team to investigate the case.

Al-Watan reported the child’s father had taken his son to a sheikh a day before the incident, claiming the boy was not responding to him and that he thought his son had been tainted by demons.

The sheikh suggested the father take his son to a hospital as he did not see any signs that the child had been “possessed.”

Dad "not sure" why he threw 3-month-old daughter off bridge (Newark, New Jersey)

Dad SHAMSID-DIN ABDUR-RAHEEM is a lying @$$wipe. That is all.

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Father-Testifies-Deadly-Baby-Bridge-Toss-Shamsid-Din-Abdur-Raheem-168077916.html

NJ Dad Accused of Baby's Bridge Death Testifies

Shamsid-Din Abdur-Raheem told jurors he was not sure why he tossed his daughter off the Driscoll Bridge

Thursday, Aug 30, 2012 | Updated 8:51 PM EDT

A man accused of throwing his 3-month-old daughter off a New Jersey bridge testified at his murder trial Thursday that the child was already dead when he tossed her into the Raritan River.

The Star-Ledger of Newark reports that http://bit.ly/SWWJ2y Shamsid-Din Abdur-Raheem told jurors Thursday that his infant daughter fell to the floor and hit her head during a tussle he had with the baby's maternal grandmother at the woman's East Orange home on Feb. 16, 2010.

Abdur-Raheem admitted taking the child from the grandmother and fleeing with her in his car down the Garden State Parkway.

Abdur-Raheem says he became upset when he noticed the child wasn't breathing and appeared dead.

He told jurors he was not sure why he then tossed his daughter off the Driscoll Bridge.

"I placed her in a (blue) knapsack, rolled down the (passenger side) window, and pushed her out," he said. "I tossed my daughter off the bridge. I don't know why."

When Deputy Attorney General Andrew Fried asked him to demonstrate using a book, Abdur-Raheem refused at first, then took the book and held it for a few seconds before throwing it onto the floor. He then started to cry.

Abdur-Raheem faces murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, endangering the welfare of a child and aggravated assault counts. His trial is in its second week.

Earlier in the week, a state forensic anthropologist testified the skull fractures found on the baby were made at or about the time of death but they were caused by a significant fall and not one of four feet or less.

Abdur-Raheem testified Thursday that he and the baby's grandmother struggled and that the baby fell and hit the back of her head.

Dad accused of pouring scalding water on 15-month-old son; dad has prior history of domestic battery (Ocala, Florida)

Tigers seldom change their stripes. Are we really that surprised that a father with a prior history of domestic battery and child neglect dumped scalding water on his toddler son? And yet authorities always act "amazed" when somebody acts in a way that's consistent with his past history and habits.

Dad is identified as CHRISTOPHER WELLING.

http://www.cfnews13.com/content/news/cfnews13/news/article.html/content/news/articles/cfn/2012/8/19/ocala_father_accused.html
Ocala father accused of pouring scalding water on toddler


Christopher Welling was denied bond after deputies said he poured scalding water on his 15-month-old son.


Last Updated: Sunday, August 19, 2012


MARION COUNTY --
An Ocala father has been denied bond after deputies said he poured scalding water on his 15-month-old son.

Christopher Welling was arrested Saturday after a woman brought the toddler to Children's Express Clinic in Ocala, with severe burns on his face, chest and groin area.

This is not the first time the 36-year-old has been arrested.

He's currently on probation for domestic battery and was arrested for child neglect last year.

Deputies at the Marion County Jail said Welling has been "uncooperative" and is currently on suicide watch.

Welling told investigators that he did not burn his son, saying the little boy accidentally poured the hot water on himself.

Dad accused of abusing 1-year-old son, son's mother (Brooksville, Florida)

Appears that this is nothing new for dad BRANDON LEE DANIELS. He has a long history of being a dickhead.

http://www2.hernandotoday.com/news/hernando-news/2012/aug/10/domestic-violence-allegation-made-against-convicte-ar-460521/


Domestic violence allegation made against convicted child abuser

By TONY HOLT | Hernando Today
Published: August 10, 2012 Updated: August 10, 2012 - 3:05 PM

BROOKSVILLE --
A man whose criminal record includes child abuse and battery arrests has been accused again of inflicting violence.

This time the victims were his girlfriend and their 1-year-old son, according to the Hernando County Sheriff's Office.

Brandon Lee Daniels, 35, of 11003 Knuckey Road, was arrested Thursday afternoon on charges of domestic battery and child neglect.

Deputies said the suspect attacked his girlfriend after she grabbed their child out of Daniels' arms, fled from the yard and hid behind some bushes along Bailey Hill Road.

Daniels walked down the street screaming for his girlfriend to give him his wallet, according to an arrest report.

The girlfriend's brother was behind him driving Daniels' SUV telling him his wallet was in the vehicle, but Daniels continued screaming for his girlfriend, deputies said.

When Daniels found his girlfriend, she still had her son in her arms. He tried forcing her into the SUV and started punching her in the head and grabbing her leg, according to the sheriff's office.

While battering his girlfriend, he shoved her against the SUV and the couple's child hit his head on the window, deputies said.

The woman got into the vehicle with her son and her brother drove away, leaving Daniels behind, according to the report.

Neither the woman nor her child required medical attention, but deputies said both of them sustained bruises during the incident.

Daniels was booked shortly before 1 p.m. at the Hernando County Jail. He was charged with an additional count of violation of probation.

He was convicted November 2011 on a charge of child abuse. Daniels decided – on the day of his scheduled trial date – to plead guilty and accept the state's offer of one year of probation and 50 hours of community service.

His conviction was related to an arrest 10 months earlier in Weeki Wachee. Daniels had struck a girl three times with an open hand after she had refused his orders to clean her room. He told authorities the girl had thrown a stuffed animal at him and kicked him.

Deputies said the girl suffered bruises on her left and right thighs and on her left jawbone.

Daniels said he was enforcing discipline. The sheriff's office never disclosed whether the girl was Daniels' daughter.

Other requirements of his plea agreement from last year included random drug screenings, prohibition from visiting bars during his one-year probation and participation in a batterer's intervention program, according to court records.

Daniels was arrested in March 2010 on a domestic battery charge, but the case was dismissed a month later. In February 2007, he was convicted of DUI.

Dad murders mom, two others over "custody arrangements;' abducts 4-year-old daughter (Quincy, Pennsylvania)

Another violent control freak dad. This time three people are dead. And once again, we see that child custody is just a means for terrorizing the victim; dad  KEVIN CLEEVES then "closed the deal" with a mass slaughter. Do you think in all this that his daughter's best interest ever crossed his sicko brain for even one second? Of course not. It's all about Daddy and his terroristic treatment of others. That's all it ever is.

Question: Who gave a father who was this volatile visitation rights with a child? Was this court-ordered? How much you want to bet that this father has a criminal record and/or a history of domestic violence, and some judge deliberatly put mom and anybody else in dad's "way" in danger? If there was a judge in all this, let's see the name(s).

http://news.yahoo.com/3-shot-dead-pa-girl-taken-found-safe-135829942.html
3 shot dead in Pa.; girl taken, found safe in Ohio
Associated Press – 1 hr 31 mins ago.. .

QUINCY, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania man confronting his estranged wife about custody arrangements for their daughter shot the woman to death and killed her boyfriend and his mother, then fled with the 4-year-old girl before the two were found about 250 miles away in Ohio, authorities said.

Kevin Cleeves, 35, of Waynesboro was charged Saturday with three counts of criminal homicide and was awaiting an extradition hearing in the Friday night deaths of 25-year-old Brandi Cleeves, 28-year-old Vincent Santucci and 55-year-old Rosemary Holma.

Pennsylvania state police said in an affidavit that Cleeves told relatives he had been trying to contact his wife to make arrangements to pick his daughter up and went to Santucci's house in Quincy Township to make sure the girl was safe.

Police said Cleeves saw his wife, Santucci and the girl in a car and confronted the couple in the driveway but was ordered off the property.

Authorities said he then opened fire around 9 p.m. Friday, shooting Santucci in the car and then his wife when she jumped out, and finally the older woman as she ran toward him. Police said he took the girl and fled, later telling authorities he was trying to get to a relative's house in Michigan.

An Amber Alert was issued in which authorities said Cleeves should be considered "armed and dangerous as well as suicidal." The alert was canceled hours later, on Saturday, after police in Austintown in northeastern Ohio, outside Youngstown, said the car was spotted in a hotel parking lot off Interstate 80 and later stopped in the parking lot of the Weston Plaza on Route 46, where Cleeves was arrested without incident.

"His 4-year-old daughter was located in the vehicle and was unharmed," police said in a statement.

Court records did not list an attorney for Cleeves, who was in the Mahoning County Jail, police said.

A detective with the Austintown Township police department in Ohio told The (Chambersburg) Public Opinion that an extradition hearing was scheduled for Monday.

Dad who took 2-week-old baby told ex-wife he wouldn't return her (Missoula, Montana)

Notice that this couple was already divorced with a 2-week-old (newborn) baby. This suggests two likely scenarios: either he dumped her while she was pregnant (i.e. he's a scumbag) or she left him while she was pregnant. The vast majority of pregnant women want nothing more than stable nest, so not many leave their partners at this time unless under real duress.

The fact that he would "allegedly" force his way into the mother's house, shove her out of the way, and take the baby, especially an infant this young, AND tell her he wasn't going to return said infant, suggests a vengeful, abusive sicko. Yet another reason why single mothers need full custody from conception. It's ridiculous that they have to file for custody for the babies they just gave birth to--just to prevent control freak jerks from exploiting the baby to hurt them.

Dad is identified as VINCENT SEGUVIO.

http://www.kpax.com/news/father-who-allegedly-took-baby-told-ex-wife-he-won-t-return-child/

Father who allegedly took baby told ex-wife he won't return child

Posted: Jun 18, 2012 5:23 PM by Irina Cates - KPAX News
Updated: Jun 18, 2012 5:38 PM

MISSOULA - In court Monday afternoon, prosecutors said the father who took the two-week old baby from his ex-wife told her he wasn't going to bring the little girl back.

Prosecutors said Vincent Seguvio, 23, texted his ex-wife that he wouldn't return the baby, and told her that involving law enforcement was a mistake.

Seguvio is charged with burglary and parenting interference, while his mother, Nancy Butcher, is facing an accountability for parenting interference charge.

Last Wednesday, Seguvio allegedly forced his way into his ex-wife's home on Sherwood Street, pushed her out of the way and took the child.

Seguvio's mother waited outside in the car for Seguvio to come out and the two of them drove away with the baby.

The mother told police she and Seguvio didn't have a parenting plan, but she filed for full custody after the baby was born.

Seguvio and his mother were picked up in Kalispell as they were going in to file for custody of the child.

The judge set bail for Segovia and Butcher at $100,000 each.

Dad kills mom during child custody exchange; 13-year-old son calls 911 (Grove City, Ohio)

Courts continue to put mothers and children in harm's way. Dad is identified as JEREMY ROBERTS.

Wondering about Dad's previous record of domestic violence, and whether the courts just chose to ignore it and give him joint custody anyway....

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/06/12/4555602/police-ohio-boy-reports-dad-stabbed.html

Police: Ohio boy reports dad stabbed, killed mom
The Associated Press
Last modified: 2012-06-12T13:56:15Z
Published: Tuesday, Jun. 12, 2012 - 5:51 am
Last Modified: Tuesday, Jun. 12, 2012 - 6:56 am

GROVE CITY, Ohio -- A central Ohio man killed his ex-wife outside an apartment when she arrived to pick up their two children, and their 13-year-old son called an emergency dispatcher to report the stabbing, police said.

The boy called 911 after the slaying Sunday morning in Grove City, just southwest of Columbus.

"My dad just killed my mom. He just told me to call you guys," the boy said in a recording of the call. "He just ran out and killed my mom, and she's laying in the grass in front of our apartment."

As the dispatcher called for officers to respond to the scene, the boy pleaded for police not to harm his father.

"Please, guys, don't do anything to him in front of me, please," he said. "He has no weapons."

The boy apparently then handed the phone to his father, who told the dispatcher that he didn't intend to harm anyone else and that the only weapon he had was a knife that was left outside with the body. He asked if he could kiss his children, told them he loved them, then said he was going to the front door to meet the police.

Officers found 36-year-old Candice Roberts of Grove City dead in a grassy area, covered by a blanket. Her ex-husband Jeremy Roberts, 38, was standing nearby and was arrested.

He's charged with murder and made his first appearance Monday at Franklin County Municipal Court. Bond was set at $250,000 cash or surety. He remains in custody at the county jail.

Jeremy Roberts' next court date is scheduled for June 20. He was appointed a public defender, but court records didn't list an attorney.

A relative who answered the woman's phone told The Columbus Dispatch police had advised the family not to comment.

Dad wanted for assaulting mom, kidnapping 10-month-old son whom he abandoned after car wreck (Oceanside, California)

Dad is identified as EMILE PIEDRA.

http://www.fox5sandiego.com/news/kswb-parolee-wanted-in-kidnapping-of-infant-son-20120612,0,1740711.story

Parolee wanted in kidnapping of infant sonEmile Piedra (fox5sandiego.com / June 12, 2012)


2:35 p.m. PDT, June 12, 2012
OCEANSIDE, Calif. -- Police released a photo Tuesday of a parolee wanted in connection with an assault on his estranged wife and the kidnapping of his infant son.

Police said they went to the 1700 block of Oceanside Boulevard on the afternoon of June 2 to investigate a report of an assault and kidnapping. A woman at the residence said that her estranged husband, 38-year-old Emile Piedra, attacked her and drove off with their 10-month-old son.

Piedra was wearing a GPS tracking device, and police tracked him to California Street in Vista. The suspect drove off when he saw police arrive, but he crashed into two other cars when he crossed Santa Fe Drive, according to police. He ran from the accident on foot, leaving his son in the car, police said.

The infant suffered moderate injuries and an 11-year-old child in one of the cars was also hurt. Both were taken to Scripps Children's Hospital, where they were treated and release, police said.

Piedra is 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighs 140 lbs. and has a shave head. Anyone with information about him should contact the Oceanside Police Department.

Dad confesses to killing baby found in fridge (Houston, Texas)

The "fridge killer" dad has finally been identified: JOSEPH MOULTON. This guy has a history of attempted murder, drug abuse, and domestic assault. He was left with the care of a helpless baby. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what happened next. This is what happens when infants and children are left in the "care" of violent criminal men: they are abused or killed.
No doubt there are those who will condemn this mother for her "choice"--which wasn't really much of a choice at all given the circumstances. But judges and custody evaluators make similar decisions all the time, and nobody holds them accountable when the children are murdered.

 http://www.click2houston.com/news/HPD-Dad-confesses-to-killing-baby-found-in-fridge/-/1735978/12544762/-/advlyuz/-/index.html

HPD: Dad confesses to killing baby found in fridge

Published On: May 03 2012 03:47:17 PM CDT
Updated On: May 03 2012 05:53:32 PM CDT

HOUSTON - A Houston man confessed to killing his 6-month-old son before putting the baby's body in his refrigerator.

Investigators said Joseph Mouton, 57, was high when he killed his son, Joseph. They said once he came down from the high, he wrapped the baby in a blanket and put the boy in the freezer in his apartment in the 7100 block of Beechnut Street.

He made a suicidal call to police on Wednesday at 8 a.m. Mouton appeared unresponsive. Sources told KPRC Local 2 that he tried to kill himself by overdosing on pills. He admitted to killing his child as he was being loaded onto a stretcher, officers said.

The baby's cause of death has not been released.

Mouton, a veteran, has been in trouble with the law in the past.

In 1988, he served eight years in prison after pleading guilty to attempted murder charges. In 2004, he served time again for drugs.

Then, in the fall, around the time the baby's mother was about to give birth, he was convicted and served 30 days behind bars for beating her up.

The baby's mother moved to Clear Lake to stay with family after breaking up with Mouton. She told police that she didn't have any money to care for the boy, so she left him with his dad.

Mouton's neighbors were shocked at the crime.

"He was a happy father, a loving father. There were no signs that anything was going wrong," neighbor Evette Williams said.

Dad arrested for throwing 3-month-old daughter from porch (Akron, Ohio)

Dad is identified as CARL C. HONORABLE. Seems he was drunk and pissed at mom, so naturally he takes it out on the baby....

http://www.fox19.com/story/17313062/akron-man-slapped-with-charges

Akron dad arrested after throwing baby daughter from porch
Posted: Apr 02, 2012 1:01 PM CDT
Updated: Apr 03, 2012 9:11 AM CDT

AKRON, OH (WOIO) - A 28-year-old Akron father facing a number of charges after tossing his baby daughter from a porch.

Police say Carl C. Honorable came home intoxicated and got into a verbal argument with his baby's mother on March 24th.

Honorable went into the house and put their three-month-old daughter into her car seat without using the seat belt and brought her out onto the front porch. He continued to argue with the baby's mother and said that he was leaving with the baby.

Honorable then threw the baby off the top step of the porch onto the ground. The baby rolled out of the car seat onto the ground. The baby was transported to Akron Children's Hospital for treatment.

While in the hospital, the child was found to have a broken left leg that occurred prior to being tossed on the ground. Additional charges are expected.

Honorable is facing Felonious Assault, Felony Child Endangering, Domestic Violence and Criminal Damaging charges.

Authorities: Dad stabs mom with ice pick, abducts 18-month-old daughter (Little Rock, Arkansas)

No doubt the fathers rights people will assure us that Daddy RALPH WALDO MORRISON III just wanted some quality parenting time....

http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/apArticle/id/D9TSSPBG0/

Authorities: Arkansas toddler abducted by father after he stabbed her mother with ice pick

By ALLEN REED Associated Press - LITTLE ROCK, Ark.

Authorities are searching for an Arkansas man suspected of abducting his 18-month-old daughter after crashing his car into the girl's mother's and then beating and stabbing the woman with an ice pick.

Arkansas State Police issued a missing child alert Sunday for Zahkairi Morrison. Witnesses told investigators that the girl's father, 28-year-old Ralph Waldo Morrison III, drove head-on into her mother's car near the town of Tollette on Sunday. The witnesses, who include two women that were in the car with the girl and her mother, Amaria Webster, said Morrison beat Webster and stabbed her in the shoulders and neck with an ice pick before fleeing with the child into some nearby woods.

Webster was treated at a hospital and released, Howard County Sheriff Butch Morris said Monday.

Authorities said Morrison fled to Columbus and then to Fulton by hitching rides from at least three motorists, and that they think he is now driving west toward Texarkana or California in an old Oldsmobile Cutlass four-door sedan. He is wanted in Sunday's attack on four counts of aggravated assault and one count each of second-degree battery and kidnapping.

No one answered repeated phone calls Monday to Morrison's home. Authorities say he is 5 feet 8 inches tall, black and has tattoos on his arms and shoulders. Zahkairi is also black, has beads in her braided hair and was wearing a blue and pink shirt and shorts when she was taken. She is 2 feet tall and weighs 25 pounds.

Dad with extensive criminal history (including domestic violence) accused of killing 7-week-old daughter (North Fort Myers, Florida)

Dad STEVEN CANTRELL is a walking disaster. Yet the State of Florida just let him slide along, never really holding him responsible for his criminal actions. So you leave a father with an extensive history of violence alone with a newborn child--what do you think is going to happen? Well, that's what happened....

http://www.nbc-2.com/story/17250730/2012/03/25/father-accused-of-killing-7-week-old-daughter


Father accused of killing 7-week-old daughter

Posted: Mar 25, 2012 5:45 PM CDT Updated: Mar 26, 2012 9:35 AM CDT

NORTH FORT MYERS, FL -
A North Fort Myers man is charged with killing his seven-week old daughter, according to deputies.

On March 23rd, around 4:05 p.m., deputies responded to 18601 Palm Creek Drive in North Fort Myers after getting a 9-1-1 call about an unconscious infant.

When they got to the scene, deputies learned the child had been taken to the hospital.

Because of the nature of the injuries, detectives from the Major Crimes Unit were notified and sent to the hospital.

Deputies say medical evidence and information from emergency room workers showed the child suffered severe head trauma, including multiple skull fractures. Officials with the ER said the child, Jada Cantrell, died as a result of her massive traumatic head injuries.

Jada lived at home with her mother, father and grandfather.

Detectives say the baby was at home alone with her father, 21-year-old Steven Cantrell, at the time her injuries occurred.

When questioned, Cantrell allegedly gave detectives conflicting explanations about what happened to the infant.

Deputies say none of the explanations Cantrell gave were plausible.

Based on the documentation of the scene, recovered evidence, witness statements and the victim's documented fatal injuries, detectives arrested and charged Steven Cantrell with one count of First Degree Felony Murder.

Cantrell has had frequent encounters with law enforcement. He was arrested in February on a probation violation; the month prior Cape Coral police arrested him for giving a false ID to an officer. He pleaded 'no contest' and appears to have been sentenced to 'time served,' but it's not clear from State Attorney's Office website records.

In November 2010, he was charged with robbery in Lee County. That case was dropped at the request of the victim.

In August 2010, he was arrested for aggravated assault and property damage. The State Attorney's Office chose not to file formal charges.

In September 2009, Cantrell was arrested by deputies for robbery, burglary, grand theft auto, theft, trespassing and probation violation. He pleaded 'no contest' to the robbery and trespassing. There was no information on the other charges.

In July 2009, he was arrested by deputies for resisting an officer with violence, giving a false ID to a deputy, resisting an officer without violence and domestic violence battery. Cantrell pleaded 'no contest' to resisting without violence and domestic battery. There was no information on the other counts.

Custodial dad arrested after 2-year-old son placed on life support (Stockton, California)

Kudos to reporter Leigh Paynter for covering this story. Most of the time, the backstory to these abuse cases is totally ignored. Not this time. Now we find out that a case we started following just recently involved not just an abusive father, but an abusive father who OBTAINED FULL CUSTODY despite a history of domestic violence. We also see how the protective mother was charged with felony kidnapping for trying to protect the child, and ultimately "reunited" with the abuser dad in order to try to protect the child. For her trouble, she was regularly assaulted while the authorities continued to ignore her pleas. This happens way more often than the mainstream press lets on.

The dad is identified as TUSHAMBI EVANS.

http://centralstockton.news10.net/news/crime/95664-2-year-old-life-support-after-fathers-abuse

2-year-old on life support after father's abuse

Submitted by Leigh Paynter, News10 San Joaquin Valley Reporter

Saturday, March 24th, 2012, 6:45pm

STOCKTON, CA - A 2-year-old boy is on life support after he was severely beaten by his own father, according to Stockton police.

The boy's mother said she had been warning law enforcement and the court system for months that she and her son were being abused.

Friday night, Oakland police notified the Stockton Police Department that a child arrived at Oakland Children's Hospital with life threatening injuries and the father's story was suspicious.

Stockton police arrested the boy's father, Tushambi Evans, 28, and charged him with felony child abuse. Evans was arrested at a home on the 500 block of 6th Street where his wife said she and her son endured months of physical abuse.

"The baby would sit right here, he'd feed him, but the baby would throw it up and he's pick up the throw up and make the baby eat it," mother Jamela Evans said.

Jamela Evans said she's known her husband since the sixth grade, but the abuse started after their son, Tushambi Evans Jr, was born. Jamela Evans said she left her husband last May, but through legal actions, he ended up with full custody of their son.

Jamela Evans said she ran off with her son once, but was arrested for felony child kidnapping.

She moved from their home in Vallejo to Stockton, but invited Tushambi Evans and their son to come back and live with her. She said the abuse started to escalate in recent weeks.

"He was slapping the baby, hitting the baby on the back, dropping the baby on his head, throwing him against the wall like he was a doll," Jamela Evans said. "It started getting worse and worse. If I was to intervene in what he was doing, I'd get jumped on. I'm bruised up right now from him jumping on me."

Jamela Evans showed a bruise on her chin she claims is from being punched by Tushambi Evans.

According to Jamela Evans, her husband found out that she was secretly recording his abuse Thursday night and attacked her. She said she ran to a neighbor for help, but Tushambi Evans took off with her car and her son. It wasn't until Saturday morning that she learned what happened to her little boy.

"I was told that my son was dead when he arrived at the hospital, but that doctors revived him," Jamela Evans said. "He's now on life support, but may have brain damage."

She said she's praying her son survives his injuries and grieves for not being able to protect him.

"I hope he doesn't hate me. I hope he doesn't think his mama didn't want him," Jamela Evans said. "He's probably wondering why he's not with his mama."

Tushambi Evans was booked in San Joaquin County Jail. Jamela Evans' other children are in custody of Child Protective Services while the investigation continues.

Death penalty sought for custodial dad accused of raping, killing 14-year-old daughter in 2006 (Stanislaus County, California)

For once we have a reporter who refuses to ignore the sordid history behind this crime. Most of the time, the long backstory is forgotten or omitted as a murder case goes to trial. But here, we even go into the family court's role in granting this criminal father custody. So kudos to Mark Gomez.

What can I say about custodial dad MARK EDWARD MESITI that I haven't said before? Except that I hope he finally fries for what he did to this girl.

http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_20163088/death-penalty-sought-father-murder-former-san-jose

Death penalty sought for former South Bay man accused of killing his daughter
By Mark Gomez

Posted: 03/13/2012 09:07:03 AM PDT
March 13, 2012 5:3 PM GMT Updated: 03/13/2012 10:03:19 AM PDT

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against a former South Bay man accused of killing and molesting his 14-year-old daughter in 2006, just months after a Santa Clara County judge awarded him custody.

The Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office said in court Monday it will seek the death penalty against Mark Edward Mesiti, 44, who is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting his daughter Alycia from July, 2005 through May, 2006, according to the Modesto Bee.

Prosecutors stated in court documents that they are seeking the death penalty because of the age and vulnerability of the victims, Mesiti's lack of remorse and evidence of his other crimes, according to the Bee. Prosecutors in Stanislaus County have added allegations that Mesiti sexually abused two other girls, one age 8 and the other 16 and 17, according to a criminal complaint obtained by the Bee.

The Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office could not immediately be reached for comment.

Alycia Augusta Mesiti-Allen was 14 when she vanished in August 2006, months after a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge granted custody of the girl and her older brother to Mesiti, who at the time had a lengthy criminal history. After winning custody of his children, Mesiti moved to Ceres, a small town located near Modesto in the Central Valley.

At the time of Alycia's disappearance, Mesiti told Ceres police the girl ran away during a camping trip with friends and her pet.

Her body was discovered in March, 2009 by cadaver-sniffing dogs in the backyard of Mesiti's former Central Valley home.

Alycia and her brother, now an adult, were placed in Mesiti's care by the family court in November 2005. During the previous seven years, court records show, Mesiti had been convicted of state and federal charges, including bank fraud and drunken driving. He also was charged with domestic violence and ordered to attend anger-management classes after pleading guilty to a lesser charge.

During the nine months Alycia and her brother lived with Mesiti, police and child welfare workers fielded repeated warnings of danger in their Ceres home. Beginning in 2005, the children's court-appointed lawyer, Jonnie Herring, reported her concerns, recommending only a supervised, temporary placement with Mesiti due to "sufficient issues and risks to these minors." In 2006, she reported that Mesiti had failed to comply with court orders to enroll his children in school and remain in touch.

Alycia's disappearance was not elevated to a homicide investigation until a longtime detective on the case retired and a Ceres investigations supervisor ordered up a fresh round of interviews. Police obtained a search warrant for Mesiti's former Ceres home, which he is said to have abandoned a few months after Alycia vanished, and discovered her remains buried in the backyard.

Days later, Ceres and Los Angeles police arrested Mesiti in a Los Angeles apartment and found evidence of a meth lab. Mesiti was convicted in Los Angeles County of manufacturing methamphetamine in May and sentenced to five years at North Kern State Prison, according to the Bee.

Report: 4-month-old baby killed by dad could have been saved (West Bromwich, England)

The killer dad is identified as DANNY WARE.

http://www.newstoday.co.uk/5465/2012/03/four-month-old-baby-could-have-been-saved/


Four-month-old baby could have been saved
By News Today·March 10, 2012·
A four-month-old baby boy who was violently shaken to death by his father could have been saved if hospital staff and police had followed child protection procedures, a damning report revealed on Thursday.

Tragic Jayden Warr suffered “catastrophic and unsurvivable“ brain injuries after he was attacked by dad Danny Warr in 2009.

Warr, 27, was jailed for four-and-a-half years after he was convicted of manslaughter last year.
A serious case review into Jayden’s death revealed medics failed to alert the authorities after the tot was admitted to hospital three weeks before his death when he stopped breathing following an apnoea attack.
Six hours before he was rushed to Sandwell General Hospital, police were called to the family home in West Bromwich, West Mids., after his desparate mum Rebecca Lloyd made four 999 calls claiming Warr had attacked her.

Sandwell Safeguarding Child Board slammed hospital staff for failing to contact social services when the boy was admitted and concluded his death was “predictable and survivable” .
They also warned other vulnerable children were at risk because child protection agencies had failed to implement vital changes to working practices.

Alan Ferguson, an independent child protection expert, wrote: “It is my primary conclusion that the death of AS [Jayden] was predictable and preventable had robust child protection procedures been implemented by staff at the hospital where he was admitted on the occasion of his apnoea attack.

“Where the cause of such an attack cannot be satisfactory diagnosed or explained, as was the case here, then hospital staff should have considered abuse as a possible issue, and at the very minimum, should have discussed the case with the designated nurse or doctor for safeguarding children.”
Doctors discharged Jayden at at the end of May 2009 despite failing to identify the cause of the apnoea attack.

On June 18 he was rushed back into hospital with massive brain injuries and was transferred to intensive care at Liverpool’s Alder Hey Hospital.

Tragically he died six days later on June 24 when doctors switched off his life support machine after he suffered irreversible brain damage.
The report found staff failed to make sufficient checks which would have revealed the lad’s family was known to social services.
If staff had checked the family background they would have discovered they had been the subject of a core assessment by social workers four months earlier.

Mr Ferguson added: “If the hospital had made a formal referral under child protection procedures, that assessment would have come to light.

“And it would have been revealed that only six hours before AS’s hospital admission, there had been a serious domestic abuse incident (four calls to 999 at 2.30am), an incident fuelled by excessive alcohol intake.“

Warr denied killing his son but was found guilty of manslaughter after a trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court last February.
Jayden’s family had first come to the attention of social workers in 2008 after West Midlands Police raised concerns about domestic violence.
The five-month assessment subsequently carried out by social workers which concluded no further action was to be taken was ‘superficial’, the review said.

The report stated: “A properly conducted and robust assessment at this time would have revealed a significant level of concerning information about both parents and mother’s extended family which could have prompted a very different outcome to AS’s [Jayden] first hospital admission in 2009.”

The review also said there had been failings by West Midlands Police officers and local midwives, which “seemed likely to be as a result of systematic failure… whereby safeguarding children is not at the forefront of everyone’s thinking.”
It also noted that a child safeguarding nurse at Sandwell General Hospital was “struggling to meet her responsibilities” due to “capacity/workload issues”.
Jayden’s devastated grandparents and Warr’s parents, Debbie and Lee Warr, from Great Barr, Birmingham, on Thursday spoke of their anguish.

Debbie, 45, said: “A part of all of us died with Jayden that day. We will never be the same again.
“He looked very poorly and there were lots of tubes and machines making bleeping noises.
“The nurse said he might be able to hear us and feel us touching him so we took it in turns to hold his hand and talk to him.
“Various family members came to visit and things went on like this until the 23rd of June when a doctor asked to speak to us in private.
“She told us that Jayden’s brain had suffered catastrophic damage and he would not be able to survive without the life support machine.
“She said he was deteriorating and that soon the machine would have to be switched off. I felt I had been punched in the stomach.
“We both believe Danny did something that night.”

The family is setting up a charity in memory of Jayden to raise awareness of shaken baby syndrome.

Sandwell General Hospital on Thursday refused to comment.

Dad takes 1-year-old daughter hostage, threatens to "harm" her (Pasay, Phillipines)

UNNAMED DAD gets pissed off at Mom, takes 1-year-old daughter hostage and threatens to  "harm" (kill) her. Police SWAT team called in, and finally rescue child after Dad gets intoxicated and passes out.

Sorry, the fact that this POS lost his job has nothing to do with this scenario. This is pure Daddy Drama driven by pure Daddy entitlement.

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/breaking-news/2012/03/11/father-holds-daughter-hostage-pasay-210623

Father holds daughter hostage in Pasay

Sunday, March 11, 2012

MANILA -- A hostage drama in Pasay City ended peacefully after responding policemen managed to "overpower" the suspect after he dozed off during the nearly three-hour stand-off.
Suspect Carlos Suarez grabbed his one-year-old daughter after he engaged his live-in-partner, Renalyn, in a heated argument after he arrived home at 955 Higgins Street, St. Andrew, Barangay Maricaban around 9 a.m. Sunday.

Fearing that he might hurt her, Renalyn sought the help of barangay officials but they were kept at bay by the suspect who immediately brandished a samurai (sword) and grabbed his daughter while threatening to harm her if they entered their residence.

Personnel from the Pasay Police Special Weapons and Tactics (Swat) immediately responded to the scene and cordoned off the area while negotiation with the suspect to surrender and release his daughter started.
Chief Inspector Joey Goforth, chief of the Pasay police Station Investigation and Detective Management Section, said the stand-off only ended around 12:25 p.m. after the Swat team took advantage when its members saw the hostage-taker fell asleep.
The suspect fell asleep because he was intoxicated, Goforth said. The Swat team entered the house through its window and safely recovered the child and handcuffed the suspect.

No one was hurt during the standoff but authorities brought the suspect's daughter to a hospital for medical examination.

Suarez was taken to the police station to face the necessary charges.
The suspect's live-in partner said Suarez was despondent after losing his job as a barangay driver. (AH/Sunnex)

The Southern Poverty Law Center on the Fathers Rights Movement (USA)

A must read.

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2012/spring/a-war-on-women

Intelligence Report, Spring 2012, Issue Number: 145

Leader’s Suicide Brings Attention to Men’s Rights Movement

By Arthur Goldwag

After 10 years of custody battles, court-ordered counseling and imminent imprisonment for non-payment of child support, Thomas James Ball, a leader of the Worcester branch of the Massachusetts-based Fatherhood Coalition, had reached his limit. On June 15, 2011, he doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire just outside the Cheshire County, N.H., Courthouse. He was dead within minutes.

In a lengthy “Last Statement,” which arrived posthumously at the Keene Sentinel, Tom Ball told his story. All he had done, he said, was smack his 4-year-old daughter and bloody her mouth after she licked his hand as he was putting her to bed. Feminist-crafted anti-domestic violence legislation did the rest. “Twenty-five years ago,” he wrote, “the federal government declared war on men. It is time to see how committed they are to their cause. It is time, boys, to give them a taste of war.” Calling for all-out insurrection, he offered tips on making Molotov cocktails and urged his readers to use them against courthouses and police stations. “There will be some casualties in this war,” he predicted. “Some killed, some wounded, some captured. Some of them will be theirs. Some of the casualties will be ours.”

For people who associate the men’s and fathers’ rights movements with New Age drum circles in the woods, the ferocity of Ball’s rhetoric, the horror of his act, and, in particular, the widespread and blatantly misogynistic reaction to it may come as something of a revelation. When the feminist Amanda Marcotte, a bête noire of the men’s rights movement, remarked that “setting yourself on fire is an extremely effective tool if your goal is to make your ex-wife’s life a living hell,” a poster at the blog Misandry.com went ballistic. “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” he raged. “She is evil and such a vile evil that she is a disease that needs to be cut out of the human [consciousness] just like the rest of the femanazi ass harpies.”

It’s not much of a surprise that significant numbers of men in Western societies feel threatened by dramatic changes in their roles and that of the family in recent decades. Similar backlashes, after all, came in response to the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement, and other major societal revolutions. What is something of a shock is the verbal and physical violence of that reaction.

Ball’s suicide brought attention to an underworld of misogynists, woman-haters whose fury goes well beyond criticism of the family court system, domestic violence laws, and false rape accusations. There are literally hundreds of websites, blogs and forums devoted to attacking virtually all women (or, at least, Westernized ones) — the so-called “manosphere,” which now also includes a tribute page for Tom Ball (“He Died For Our Children”). While some of them voice legitimate and sometimes disturbing complaints about the treatment of men, what is most remarkable is the misogynistic tone that pervades so many. Women are routinely maligned as sluts, gold-diggers, temptresses and worse; overly sympathetic men are dubbed “manginas”; and police and other officials are called their armed enablers. Even Ball — who did not directly blame his ex-wife for his troubles, but instead depicted her and their three children as co-victims of the authorities — vilified “man-hating feminists” as evil destroyers of all that is good.

This kind of woman-hatred is increasingly visible in most Western societies, and it tends to be allied with other anti-modern emotions — opposition to same-sex marriage, to non-Christian immigration, to women in the workplace, and even, in some cases, to the advancement of African Americans. Just a few weeks after Ball’s death, while scorch marks were still visible on the sidewalk in Keene, N.H., that was made clear once more by a Norwegian named Anders Behring Breivik.

On July 22, Breivik slaughtered 77 of his countrymen, most of them teenagers, in Oslo and at a summer camp on the island of Utøya, because he thought they or their parents were the kinds of “politically correct” liberals who were enabling Muslim immigration. But Breivik was almost as voluble on the subjects of feminism, the family, and fathers’ rights as he was on Islam. “The most direct threat to the family is ‘divorce on demand,’” he wrote in the manifesto he posted just before he began his deadly spree. “The system must be reformed so that the father will be awarded custody rights by default.”

The manosphere lit up. Said one approving poster at The Spearhead, an online men’s rights magazine for the “defense of ourselves, our families and our fellow men”: “What could be more ‘an eye for an eye’ than to kill the children of those who were so willing to destroy men’s families and destroy the homeland of men?”

‘The Homeland of Men’

The men’s rights movement, also referred to as the fathers’ rights movement, is made up of a number of disparate, often overlapping, types of groups and individuals. Some most certainly do have legitimate grievances, having endured prison, impoverishment or heartrending separations from genuinely loved children.

Jocelyn Crowley, a Rutgers political scientist and the author of Defiant Dads: Fathers’ Rights Activists in America, says that most men who join real (as opposed to virtual) men’s rights groups aren’t seeking to attack the family court system so much as they are simply struggling to navigate it. What they talk most about when they meet face to face, she says, are strategies to deal with their ex-partners and have better relationships with their children.

But Molly Dragiewicz, a criminologist at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and the author of Equality With a Vengeance: Men’s Rights Groups, Battered Women, and Antifeminist Backlash, argues that cases in which fathers are badly treated by courts and other officials are not remotely the norm. The small percentage of divorces that end up in litigation are disproportionately those where abuse and other issues make joint custody a dubious proposition. Even when a woman can satisfactorily document her ex-husband’s abuse, Dragiewicz says, she is no more likely to receive full custody of her children than if she couldn’t.

The men’s movement also includes mail-order-bride shoppers, unregenerate batterers, and wannabe pickup artists who are eager to learn the secrets of “game”—the psychological tricks that supposedly make it easy to seduce women. George Sodini, who confided his seething rage at women to his blog before shooting 12 women, three of them fatally, was one of the latter. Before his 2009 murder spree at a Pittsburgh-area gym, he was a student — though clearly not a very apt one — of R. Don Steele, the author of How to Date Young Women: For Men Over 35. “I dress good, am clean-shaven, bathe, touch of cologne — yet 30 million women rejected me over an 18 or 25-year period,” Sodini wrote with the kind of pathos presumably typical of Steele’s readers.

Other movement adherents have forsworn sex altogether, or at least romantic relationships and marriage; the acronym they use for themselves is MGTOW, for “Men Going Their Own Way.” “If you are willing to marry a woman — any woman — in the West then you must also be willing to become the next murder-suicide story when she threatens to file for divorce, steal your kids out of your life and extort you for every current and future dollar you will ever earn,” wrote one commenter at The Spearhead. “If a man kidnapped your children, stole your home, your wallet and your bank account, you’d be more than willing to kill him in self defense. Why is it any different when ex-wives do it with the full force of the law behind them?”

Some take an inordinate interest in extremely young women, or fetishize what they see as the ultra-feminine (read: docile) characteristics of South American and Asian women. Others, who have internalized Christian “headship” doctrine, are desperately seeking the “submissive” women such doctrine celebrates. Still others are simply sexually awkward, and nonplussed and befuddled by society’s changing mores. The common denominator is their resentment of feminism and of females in general.

“It’s ironic,” the feminist writer Amanda Marcotte observes. “These [misogynist Web] sites owe their existence to feminism’s successes. At some point in the last couple of years, the zeitgeist hit a tipping point where female power — Hillary Clinton’s, Rachel Maddow’s, even Sarah Palin’s — stopped being questioned. Being sexist has become less acceptable than it used to be. This makes some men particularly anxious.” At the same time, of course, domestic violence and sex crimes are much more likely to be prosecuted than they were even a decade ago. Shelters, social services and legal aid are more available to most battered women than in the past.

But some experts argue that men’s rights groups have been remarkably successful. The groups, says Rita Smith, director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, “have taken over the way courts deal with custody issues, particularly when there are allegations of abuse,” largely by convincing them that there is such a thing as “Parental Alienation Syndrome” (PAS). (PAS is a supposed clinical disorder in which a child compulsively belittles one parent due to indoctrination by the other — frequently leveling false allegations of abuse. It is not recognized as a clinical disorder by either the American Psychiatric Association or the World Health Organization.) Citing studies that show that false domestic abuse accusations against men are far less common than men’s groups and PAS enthusiasts claim, Smith says the groups nevertheless have “been able to get custody evaluators, mediators, guardians ad litem and child protective service workers to believe that women and children lie about abuse.”

Threats and Abuse

One kind of abuse that is undeniable is the vilification of individual women on certain men’s group websites. The best example of that may be Register-Her, a registry of women who “have caused significant harm to innocent individuals either by the direct action of crimes like rape, assault, child molestation and murder, or by the false accusation of crimes against others.” The site was set up by Paul Elam, the blogger behind A Voice for Men, less than two weeks after Ball’s suicide. “If Mary Jane Rottencrotch decides to falsely accuse her husband of domestic violence in order to get the upper hand in a divorce,” Elam boasted on his Internet radio show, “we can publish all her personal information on the website, including her name, address, phone number … even her routes to and from work.”

Under a headline reading, “Why are these women not in prison?” the site features photos and information about some 250 alleged malefactors, including notorious women like Lorena Bobbitt and Tonya Harding, although Elam hasn’t made good on his threat to publish home addresses or phone numbers. Many of those listed received prison sentences for various crimes, but large numbers were acquitted in court, while others were never accused of any lawbreaking. A well-known feminist, for example, is listed for “anti-male bigotry,” which is compared to racism.

Elam’s site can be frightening to its targets. In one case, he offered a cash reward to the first reader to ferret out a pseudonymous feminist blogger’s real name. In another, Elam singled out a part-time blogger at ChicagoNow who describes herself as a “vegetarian park activist with two baby girls.” The woman’s mistake was to write about her discomfort with male adults helping female toddlers in the bathroom at her daughter’s preschool. The blogger conceded that she was being sexist, but wrote that “I’d rather be wrong than find out if I’m right.”

After the woman was listed, she was widely attacked on men’s movement sites. “I don’t always use the word ‘cunt’ to describe a woman,” one poster raged, “but when I do it’s because of reasons like these.” Shocked, the “Mommy blogger” took down her original post and apologized for her “demonization of men.”

It wasn’t enough. “You targeted fathers, and just fathers,” Elam rebuked her. “It strikes me that you have never really been held to account for any of your actions in life. It is quite likely that the concept of complete, selfless accountability is just completely foreign to you.” Over at the Reddit Mens Rights forum, another poster fumed: “This entire episode should be a warning to all those male hating feminists out there who believe that they are safe screaming their hate messages on the web. Finally, they are held accountable for their hate messages and finally the rest of the world will find out exactly what type of depraved people they really are.”

Amanda Marcotte, who is a prime Register-Her target, writes about men’s rights activists less than she used to. That’s not because she doesn’t take them seriously — they introduce too many “anti-woman, anti-child, pro-abuse, pro-rape ideas into the public discourse” not to — but because “they’re so doggedly mean. It becomes frightening after a while.” Marcotte says the registry may incite violence against its targets, especially because many angry male activists are active abusers. “They interact with their ideological adversaries online,” she says, “much as they do with their spouses and children: ‘I’ll give you something to cry about!’”

“I don’t know if Thomas James Ball ever visited this site,” Elam wrote on his blog when he started Register-Her. “What I do believe is, though, that he, if convinced to stay alive, would have been a hell of a soldier in this war.”

Soldiers in the War

The first shots in this so-called war on feminism were fired 22 years before Tom Ball’s suicide. On Dec. 6, 1989, Marc Lépine, a troubled 25-year-old computer student, strolled into the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, Canada, carrying a Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle and a hunting knife. He walked into a classroom, ordered the men to leave, and lined the women up against a wall.

“I am fighting feminism,” he announced before opening fire. “You’re women, you’re going to be engineers. You’re all a bunch of feminists. I hate feminists.”

By the time he turned the gun on himself, 14 women were dead and 10 were wounded; four men were hurt as well. The suicide note in Lépine’s pocket contained a list of 19 “radical feminists” he hoped to kill, and this: “I have decided to send the feminists, who have always ruined my life, to their Maker. … They want to keep the advantages of women … while seizing for themselves those of men.”

Today, that kind of rage is often directed at all women, not only perceived feminists. “Women don’t need the powers-that-be to get them to hate and use men,” the blogger Alcuin wrote recently. “They have always used men; maybe they have always hated us too.” Added another blogger, Angry Harry: “There are now, literally, billions of dollars, numerous empires, and millions of jobs that depend on the public swallowing the idea that women need to be defended from men.”

“A word to the wise,” offered the blogger known as Rebuking Feminism. “The animals women have become want one thing, resources and genes. … See them as the animals they have become and plan … accordingly.”

And many are quick to endorse violence against women. “There are women, and plenty of them, for which [sic] a solid ass kicking would be the least they deserve,” Paul Elam wrote in an essay with the provocative title, “When is it OK to Punch Your Wife?” “The real question here is not whether these women deserve the business end of a right hook, they obviously do, and some of them deserve one hard enough to leave them in an unconscious, innocuous pile on the ground if it serves to protect the innocent from imminent harm. The real question is whether men deserve to be able to physically defend themselves from assault … from a woman.”

For some, it’s more than just talk. In 2006, Darren Mack, a member of a fathers’ rights group in Reno, Nev., stabbed his estranged wife to death and then shot and wounded the family court judge who was handling his divorce.

That kind of violence continues right up to the present.

In Seal Beach, Calif. last Oct. 12, a day after Scott Evans Dekraai and his ex-wife had been in court to fight over custody of their 8-year-old son (Dekraai had 56% custody but wanted full custody and “final decision making authority” on matters of the child’s education and medical treatment), Dekraai walked into the hair salon where his ex-wife worked armed with three handguns. There, he allegedly shot seven women, six of them fatally; he also is accused of killing two men — the salon’s owner, as he attempted to flee, and a man in a car outside.

Michelle Fournier, Dekraai’s ex-wife, had testified that Dekraai was not taking his bipolar medicine and that he was suicidal and dangerous. If she had survived his rampage, she might have enjoyed having the last word about his propensity for violence. But she did not, becoming instead the latest in a long, sad line of victims of women-hating men.

Safety of children not always a priority for state in domestic violence cases (Lexington, Kentucky)

Kudos for Valarie Honeycutt Spears and a great article.

http://www.kentucky.com/2012/02/26/2084442/safety-of-children-not-always.html

Safety of children not always a priority for state in domestic violence cases
Posted: 12:00am on Feb 26, 2012; Modified: 1:14pm on Feb 26, 2012
2012-02-26T18:14:36Z

By Valarie Honeycutt Spears Herald-Leader

There were warning signs that Michael Utley was a danger to his toddler son.

Utley had been charged with assaulting the mother of his child 18 months before the Gallatin County man attacked his live-in girlfriend and then shot and killed their 3-year-old son and himself in February 2009.

When the mother attempted to drive her "trashed" partner home from a local bar in September 2007, Utley slapped her hard enough to give her a black eye as 17-month-old Owen James Utley sat in the back seat.

A state adult-protection worker substantiated "partner abuse." But social workers never considered Owen's safety, according to an internal review of the boy's death conducted by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, which handles child and adult protection in Kentucky.

Social workers should have formally assessed the "risk of harm" to Owen after the domestic violence episode, according to the internal review that focused on the handling of the case before the deaths.

That oversight was one of several problems related to domestic violence documented in internal reviews completed after children with whom the cabinet had previous contact died or were seriously harmed in 2009 and 2010.

A Lexington Herald-Leader analysis of the 85 reviews found that domestic violence in the family was mentioned in 48 of them and that an episode of domestic violence played a direct role in the injury or death of a child in five instances, including the death of Owen, who was killed shortly after his father had beaten his mother.

Among the shortcomings identified in the reviews:

■ Social workers don't always emphasize the safety of the child when domestic violence is discovered in a family.
■ Social workers sometimes fail to thoroughly assess whether domestic violence has occurred.
■ People living in some rural areas don't have convenient access to domestic violence shelters.
According to a 2011 report on deaths and near-deaths from child abuse and neglect in Kentucky, domestic violence was identified as a risk factor in 68 percent of cases from 2007 to 2011.

Another report released in January 2011 said studies have shown that there is an overlap of 30 percent to 60 percent between violence against children and violence against women in the same families.

In Kentucky, police must send the state a report of all incidents of domestic violence, and adult-protection workers are supposed to investigate those cases, although people are not required to accept the workers' help. Additionally, state regulations say that the cabinet must conduct an assessment to see whether a child is at risk of harm from domestic violence.

According to Jim Grace, assistant director of the cabinet's Division of Protection and Permanency, simultaneous child protection and domestic violence investigations are launched under a variety of circumstances, including if the child has been harmed, is prevented from leaving the premises by an abuser or is considered at risk of being harmed.

But cabinet officials conducting the fatality reviews said workers sometimes missed opportunities to protect children whose families experienced domestic violence.

For example, the cabinet's review of one 3-year-old's death raised questions about why the state found in a case involving the child's family that "there are no child-protection issues" even though a female relative told authorities, "I'm scared for my life and my child's life." The woman said she was being physically abused on a regular basis.

The review of Jeffrey B. Fields' death also questions whether a child-protection investigation should have been initiated after a report said, "Child has seen mother's paramour beat mommy up."

In the end, Jeffrey died in a traffic accident in 2010 when he was thrown from a car driven by a woman who was not his parent and who allegedly could not pass a drug test after the crash, according to the review of his death. There were previous reports of domestic violence in the child's family and the driver's family.

In an April 2009 case in Larue County, a child was taken to Hardin Memorial Hospital with 16 fractures and "multiple brain bleeds" and nearly died. A man in the child's home — his relationship to the mother was not made clear in documents — was criminally charged, and the cabinet found that the mother was neglectful for not protecting her child.

The review in that case noted that another child in the family was injured in 2007 during a domestic violence case involving the mother's previous boyfriend. That boyfriend assaulted the mother when she had an infant in her arms, cutting and bruising her and leaving a bruise and swelling on the baby's head.
The cabinet's review said staff should "continue to emphasize child safety and assessment" when conducting concurrent child-protection and adult-protection cases.

Grace said the cabinet is conducting training "on the dynamics of domestic violence and how it relates to a child's protection."

Once cabinet officials identify a systemic problem as a result of a fatality review, "there's the expectation that we would correct it," he said.

Shelters not always close

The death of Owen Utley also highlighted a lack of domestic violence shelters in rural portions of Kentucky.

After the initial 2007 report of domestic violence against Owen's mother, a social worker spoke with her about financial resources and alternative living arrangements that were available to her. But going to a shelter in her own community was not an option.

Ultimately, the cabinet's review said Michael Utley beat Owen's mother in February 2009 until she had two black eyes and cuts to her ear, and was missing chunks hair. When she ran to a neighbor's home for help, he killed the child and himself.

The "lack of shelter options in rural counties could be a deterrent to victims utilizing ... services," the review said.

Sherry Currens, executive director of the Kentucky Domestic Violence Association, said there are 15 regional shelters with a total of 466 beds, which are nearly always full. All 120 counties are served by a shelter, but some residents have to travel farther than others, Currens said.

It's unlikely that shelters could expand their services without additional funding, she said, and domestic violence shelters in Kentucky got less state funding per resident in 2011 than in 1996.

Coordination lacking

Beyond the problems noted in the fatality reviews, there are other gaps, domestic violence victim advocates said.

Currens said she knows of instances when adult-protection workers have dropped a case after child-protection workers got involved. But both kinds of workers are needed to help the non-offending parent figure out "how to deal with the threat to the children," she said.

Coordination between advocates and cabinet workers has at times been lacking, advocates said.

Darlene Thomas, executive director of the Lexington-based Bluegrass Domestic Violence Program, said advocates are sometimes not told by cabinet workers about domestic violence incidents. In other cases, advocates who contract with the cabinet to provide victim services don't have enough staff to attend team meetings about the family.

Lisa Holmes, the director of a domestic violence shelter in Elizabethtown, was concerned recently that she couldn't immediately get an answer at an intake line for the local child-protection office.

Holmes said she was "scared to death" for the safety of a child whose mother decided to leave the shelter.

Police had brought the mother to the SpringHaven shelter after "her boyfriend told her that the best way to handle his anger was to beat her 3-year-old child. So he picked her up and threw her, and she has a bruise on her face," Holmes said, referring to the child.

Holmes was trying to confirm that the boyfriend was in jail and that the mother and child would be safe if they returned home.

Holmes said she thought it would help "if we were quicker and better at adjudicating domestic violence cases and women had the support of CPS (child protection workers) instead of being afraid of them."

Removing children

Advocates and child-protection workers are sometimes at odds about the best way to keep safe a child who has been exposed to domestic violence.

Members of Currens' group are concerned that the cabinet sometimes unfairly recommends that judges remove children from a domestic violence victim's custody under the theory that the victim is failing to protect the child.

As a matter of policy, the cabinet does not recommend removal of any child from a parent's home unless there is risk to the child's physical safety or well-being, cabinet spokeswoman Anya Weber said.

Recommendations are presented to the court, where the ultimate decision is made related to removal of the child, Weber said.

Thomas, the Lexington-based domestic violence advocate, said children should be protected from a parent who is a batterer. But she and other advocates said every attempt should be made to allow the child to remain with the non-offending parent.

The 2009 near-death of a 2-month-old girl demonstrates the difficult decisions that child-protection workers must sometimes make in cases of domestic violence.

A state review of the case noted that the cabinet substantiated neglect by the child's mother due to a "history of engaging in abusive relationships," not following through once she was granted domestic violence protection orders, and not being cooperative in previous law enforcement interventions involving domestic violence with the child's alleged abuser.

According to the review, the unidentified child was taken to the University of Kentucky Hospital in 2009 with a traumatic brain injury after her mother's paramour admitted to shaking her and handling her roughly.

Solutions

There are at least two legislative proposals this year to create task forces that would study the effect of domestic violence on Kentucky's children and come up with proposed laws for the 2013 General Assembly.

The sponsor of one proposal, Democratic state Rep. Joni Jenkins of Shively, said she worked in a domestic violence shelter for 10 years. She said expanding the services of domestic violence shelters would be beneficial.

"No kid gets beat in shelters. No kid gets neglected in shelters," she said.

Meanwhile, Sen. Mike Wilson, R-Bowling Green, and Rep. Johnny Bell, D-Glasgow, have introduced bills that would require the cabinet to assess the needs of children and custodial parents who have been exposed to domestic violence and to provide prevention services to help the child live at home. So far, neither bill has been considered by a legislative committee.

Other states have found success in having police, child-protection workers and domestic violence advocates working together on a team.

In Fresno, Calif., police Sgt. Daniel Macias is a member of the Children Exposed to Domestic Violence Team, which operates with a $200,000-a-year federal grant. The team's social workers and advocates, along with police detectives, investigate and provide services after domestic violence cases in which children are present, Macias said.

The team follows up with adult victims, Macias said, and "with the children, which are really the key to trying to stop the cycle of violence."

In Kentucky, Thomas said she would like to see collaborative efforts between the cabinet, which investigates allegations of abuse, and agencies that provide services for spouse-abuse victims to make sure families "have all available supports."

Having domestic violence advocates attend cabinet team meetings about individual families would help, she said.

But, Thomas said, "it all comes down to resources."

Deadbeat dad in "contentious custody battle" murders mom with 10-year-old son in next room; friends praise him as "devoted dad" who was "victim"--when will the crap ever stop? (Redondo Beach, California)

Once again, the media chooses to praise abusive killer dad RUSSELL GOLDBERG upfront as "generous" and "kind"--while neatly sidestepping the obvious: that "generous" and "kind" men don't mow down the mother of their children in cold blood, especially with their own child sitting in the next room. This is called delusion, folks, and it makes me sick that the media indulges and quotes these dumba$$es and their fantasy interpretations of reality again and again. In fact, we even hear how poor Daddy was the "victim" of the courts!

Victim! This deadbeat was living off Mom (alimony) because he refused to get a job and he had 50/50 custody! Sounds to me like the courts indulged him just fine! But despite all that, like most abusers, all he did was complain and badmouth the mom. He wanted to sit on his duff forever and whine and threaten, while Mom grew sick of his sh**. Finally she decided that Daddy's gravy train should dry up, and that she should reduce the contact that this moron had with the kids. And for good reason, as events would later prove. In reality, this guy did turn out to be a homicidal idiot. A fact which Daddy's enabling buddies choose to ignore. So who's assessment turned out to be correct, hmm? As the old saying goes, the proof is in the pudding.

So that's when Daddy's violent revenge fantasies kicked into full force, and he murdered the mother. Of course, we also mix in all the Daddy Drama trimmings: we kidnap the traumatized boy (then abandon him) and then do the full SWAT team standoff in the State of Utah, where Daddy was later found.

THEN AFTER ALL THAT, THE IDIOTS IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA GAVE "TEMPORARY" CUSTODY OF THE KIDS TO THE KILLER'S FAMILY. Revolting.

Who was really the victim of the courts here? Hint: It wasn't Daddy. In fact, I'd argue that the court's catered to and encouraged his narcissism and overall sense of entitlement by granting his lazy @$$ spousal support and all the rest.


http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_20040127

Bitter custody battle escalated into family tragedy in Redondo Beach

By Douglas Morino and Larry Altman
Staff Writersdailybreeze.com
Posted: 02/24/2012 07:44:26 PM PST February 25, 2012 7:57 PM GMT Updated: 02/25/2012 11:57:06 AM PST

Friends described Russell Goldberg as mild-tempered, generous and kind, a man who was dedicated to his two young children. He volunteered at their schools, photographed their sporting events, and emailed pictures to other parents.

"He was one of the most devoted fathers I have ever seen," Chris Robbins said.

But years into a difficult divorce and contentious custody battle, Russell Goldberg stunned his friends. On Wednesday, he shot his 45-year-old ex-wife, Margaret Duffy Goldberg, in her kitchen as their 10-year-old sat in the next room.

Goldberg, 49, later killed himself in his sport utility vehicle on a Utah highway.

"Russ was very distraught about his treatment in court," friend Steve Hemingway
said. "No matter what he said, they turned it around and used it against him. They took an emotional situation and stripped him of his dignity. They turned him into a monster. It's the family law court that turned this thing into a horrible crucible."

The couple's deaths did not put an end to the court battle over the children. On Friday, hours before friends would hold a candlelight vigil and place flowers in front of Margaret's Agate Street apartment, attorneys for both families found themselves in line at the same time at a downtown Los Angeles courthouse.

Each family and their attorneys filed paperwork seeking guardianship of the couple's 13-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son.

Already, Margaret's family members are upset that county child welfare officials placed the children with their father's sister, Robin Trusso, at her home in Redondo Beach.

"Giving the kids back to them is like giving the kids back to O.J.," said attorney Patrick DeCarolis Jr., who represented their mother during the lengthy custody dispute.

On Friday, Margaret Goldberg's sister, Maureen Duffy, petitioned Judge Mitchell Beckloff at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse to allow her to take the children home with Beckloff reviewed paperwork and agreed with a decision by the county Department of Children and Family Services to keep the children with their aunt in Southern California, said Trusso's attorney, Lisa Rosenthal.

"We need to let these children heal," Rosenthal said. "My client wants truly what is in the best interests of these kids."

Russell and Margaret Goldberg's marriage ended in divorce in 2009. The couple split custody of their children 50-50, but Margaret had recently sought to reduce her husband's contact with them.
"She was a high-class gal, got into a bad marriage, had a couple kids and couldn't stop him," DeCarolis said. "He was like a force of nature. He was just torturing her about the kids." DeCarolis said Russell tried to poison the children's minds against their mother, constantly criticizing her.

"The guy wouldn't take responsibility for any of his actions," DeCarolis said. "The guy just wouldn't stop with the criticism, with the things he was saying about the mother. He also wouldn't get off his rear end and get a job."

Margaret had enough and petitioned the court to change the custody arrangement.
Rosenthal said Margaret wanted Russell's custody reduced to zero, while he wanted to maintain what he had. "She decided to stop paying support," Rosenthal said. "I really don't want to speak ill of Miss Goldberg. May she rest in peace."

During the last two years, a custody fight that should have taken two days extended to 15 hearings, DeCarolis said. In their last court confrontation Feb. 17, the couple argued about Margaret's decision to stop paying spousal support.

"I really liked her a lot," DeCarolis said. "She was just a great woman in that she was able to withstand this act as long as she did."

Five days later, Russell would strike.

Attorneys told the Daily Breeze on Friday that the couple's 10-year-old son was sitting on the couch in his mother's living room Wednesday morning when his father arrived.

His parents spoke in the kitchen. The boy heard the gunshots, ran to the kitchen and found his mother lying dead on the floor.

His father grabbed the boy. They climbed into his 2007 Saturn Vue and drove to his parents' apartment at the New Horizons retirement village in Torrance. Russell dropped his son off and raced away.

He got as far as Utah.

Nearly 12 hours after Redondo Beach police officers discovered his ex-wife's body, Utah Highway Patrol troopers spotted Russell driving north on Interstate 15 just outside Parowan, a small town in southern Utah.

After a brief pursuit, Russell hit a spike strip laid across the freeway. The SUV came to a stop in the middle of the rural highway.

A three-hour standoff ensued, but a SWAT team approaching the vehicle discovered that Russell was dead. Authorities told a Utah television station that they suspect Russell shot himself before the vehicle even stopped moving.

"It was probably somewhere right after he came to a stop there. The officers were a ways behind him," Beaver County Sheriff Cameron Noel told KCSG. "From the time they stopped him until the time they got in, there was no movement in the vehicle whatsoever."

A woman claiming to know Russell told KUTV that he might have been on his way to see her at her home in Herriman, just south of Salt Lake City.

Jacque Meadows, who said she met Russell through a mutual friend about three years earlier, said he became "very persistent, very aggressive" in the last month.

"Some of the messages, emails and Facebook stuff was a little bit inappropriate," Meadows said. "The fact that he was coming to Utah, through Utah, in this direction, creeped me out."

Nearly a year ago, Russell posted a Facebook message asking for legal help:
"Does anyone know a good Family Court Attorney that will feel bad for me and work Pro Bono?" he wrote. "I am losing my kids ... this is SERIOUS STUFF ... just asking."

"That's what he lived for, his kids," Meadows told the station. "That's all he wanted."

Friends said Russell helped his wife start a real estate property company, and while her business grew, his own suffered.

Russell, who sold book bindings, told the woman that money was important to his wife, and that she was using her resources to discredit him. She began dating a man she met through her work.

The divorce proceedings took their toll.

"I know this had been a long, drawn-out court proceeding," Robbins said. "It seemed to be handled in a pretty irresponsible manner by the lawyers."

Russell recently hosted a party at his Redondo Beach home for his daughter's 13th birthday. The girls were treated to makeovers and participated in a "murder mystery" performance.

His children visited with his parents, Arlene and Michael Klosk, who also acted as his attorney in the custody case.

The Klosks regularly attended their grandchildren's games. Arlene Klosk taught other parents how to knit on the sidelines, said a friend who did not want to be identified.

"They were a really close family," the female friend said. "The children love the grandparents and it was very clear they loved their father."

Michael Klosk did not return calls or a message left at his front door.

Pictures of the grandchildren, including some with their father and mother, covered their refrigerator door.

Friends knew Russell had a gun registered with the Redondo Beach Police Department. They did not believe he would use it.

DCFS social workers arrived at the Redondo Beach police station shortly after their mother's death to look after the children. Spokesman Armand Montiel said he could not specifically address the case, but officials normally conduct background checks and visit homes of relatives and friends to find a suitable place to temporarily house the children.

"The main thing is we understand the trauma that children go through when they experience loss and we don't want to add to it," Montiel said. "We want to minimize the terrible change they were going through."

DeCarolis said he begged DCFS officials to place the children with Margaret's best friend in Redondo Beach until their mother's sister could arrive from New York to take them home with her to Long Island.

Instead, "in the face of the lawyer begging them not to do this," DCFS officials "placed the children with the murderer's family," DeCarolis said.

"It just sickened me," DeCarolis said.

Rosenthal said the children prefer to remain in Redondo Beach and continue to go to school. "They want the parents to stop arguing," she said. "The kids are saying, `We want to stay here with our friends. We want to remain with people we know and people who won't judge us and people who won't talk about the case.' That's what's in the best interests of these kids."

The children became DCFS wards with their parents' deaths. DCFS officials could hold a hearing Monday in Monterey Park to determine their guardianship, or a probate judge on Friday in Los Angeles could determine their fate. An attorney was appointed to represent their interests.

"It's not about the parents. It's not about the anger of the relatives," said Rosenthal's partner, attorney Robert Levy. "It is about the children."

Abusive custodial father suckers in reporter with tales of woe (South Bend, Indiana)

Frankly, dad VICTOR MARQUIS strikes me as a classic abuser daddy bullsh**ter. It's all about how poor daddy suffered, how the family violence was all a "misunderstanding" and how HE was the True Victim of the domestic violence crowd and the state. And this reporter falls for it, apparently not realizing that this is EXACTLY how these guys frame the issues all the time.

And really, Virginia. We report as fact that Daddy "spanked" an adult woman when she tried to block him from "spanking" an adolescent daughter? This isn't swatting the butt of your toddler for running into traffic. This is obviously far different than actual "spanking," but you don't seem to be able to read between the lines at all. And then he "accidentally" knocked the mom down the stairs  just afterwards. Oh really?

That CPS messed up and that foster care is a disaster is no surprise, but that's an unrelated issue. It's a distraction from Daddy's own abuse and culpability here.

And then we hear how Mom "willingly" gave Daddy custody--which is a crock of bull in cases involving a violent abuser, but the reporter doesn't catch that either.

I have often heard that Indiana is essentially run by the fathers' rights sympathizers, and this seems to be more evident all the time. It is sure apparent that they control the mainstream media with fawning articles like this one, which sounds like it was basically written straight from a fathers' rights group media release.

http://www.wsbt.com/news/sbt-father-describes-hard-lessons-20120226,0,5201592.story

Father describes hard lessons
Family dispute gone wrong leads to girls taken from home.
By VIRGINIA BLACK

South Bend Tribune

7:24 a.m. EST, February 26, 2012

ELKHART — Victor Marquis remembers Sept. 13, 2007, as the day his disillusionment with his country began.

Marquis, a 47-year-old engineer whose two teenage daughters live with him, recalls that night in 2007 when they were taken away and mired in what he calls an unconstitutional system.

That night, Marquis says, the family was planning to attend an event that required wearing clothes that his older daughter, Victoria, resisted putting on.

Tensions between him and his now-ex-wife were already heading toward divorce, he says, and when 13-year-old Victoria refused to wear the outfit, Marquis became so angry he decided to spank the girl. His wife stepped in front of him to block him, he says, so he spanked his wife instead.

His then-wife ran downstairs and Marquis followed, he says, accidentally running into the girls’ stepmother and knocking her down some stairs.

Marquis says the woman was not injured and things calmed down, so he left to pick up his younger daughter. But when he returned, police were there.

The father was ultimately charged with felony domestic battery in front of a minor, which was reduced to a misdemeanor and led to a year’s probation.

But the incident also led to the girls being declared wards of the state, who spent almost 18 months in foster homes.

Marquis’ first attorney told him to agree with Child Protective Services that the children were in need of services and things would move more quickly; instead, he says, the situation became even more complicated.

Victoria, who is now 18, says one foster home had such a bad lice infestation that the girls suffered with the nits for six months. The other home, she says, housed other foster children who ate most of the available food, forcing the girls to appeal to a neighbor for sustenance.

Marquis says he attended individual and family therapy sessions, trying his best to comply with Department of Child Services wishes.

He attended anger management classes, he says, but they insisted that he admit to beating his wife.

“They wanted me to say, ‘I’m Victor Marquis, and I’m a batterer,’” he says. “I wasn’t a wife abuser. ... There were men in there who had beat their wives and still had their kids.”

The man running the program eventually testified that Marquis was in denial about what had happened, he says.

Even after he had hired a different attorney, Marquis says he wasn’t allowed to call his own witnesses, such as the girls’ mother, Sharon Marquis, to defend his parenting skills. Sharon had given him full custody long before the incident, she says, because of issues of her own.

Sharon Marquis and both girls say Victor has rarely lost his temper. But “I could have handled it differently, I admit,” he says now.

The judge stressed that it was against the law for him to tell anyone else about the case, he says, which added to the helplessness.

“They were feeling good about taking my kids away from me based on incorrect information, which I was never able to refute,” Marquis says.

“There’s no oversight,” he says, “and parents are minimized.”

Meanwhile, Victoria says that when she’d meet with her Court Appointed Special Advocate, what she told her was reported out of context in court.

She told the woman, “‘I miss my family,’” Victoria says. “‘My dad is a little crazy, but isn’t everybody a little crazy?’ She told the judge I said, ‘My dad is crazy.’ It was ridiculous. They didn’t really listen.”

The girls had to switch schools twice while living in the foster homes. Victoria says she’s less trusting — and more possessive of her things — than she used to be.

Her father is more bitter.

“This is not the country I grew up in,” Marquis says. “This is not the country I thought it was.”