The Child Protection eNewsletter

CDC study says 1 in 50 infants abused, neglected…

About 1 in 50 U.S. infants are victims of nonfatal child abuse or neglect in a year, according to the first national study of the problem in that age group. Read More The study focused on children younger than 1 year, and found nearly a third of those who had been abused or neglected were one week old or younger when the abuse or neglect occurred.

"It is a particularly vulnerable group," said study co-author Rebecca Leeb, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"We were struck by the fact there was a clustering of maltreatment with the very, very early age group." The researchers counted more than 91,000 infant victims of abuse and neglect in the period October 1, 2005 to September 30, 2006.

The information came from a national database of cases verified by protective services agencies in 45 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

About 30,000 of the cases involved infants aged one week or younger. About 68 percent of those cases were attributed to neglect.

Federal officials define neglect as a failure to meet a child's basic needs including housing, clothing, feeding and access to medical care. But the counted cases did not include new parents stumbling their way through breast-feeding or making other rookie mistakes.

"Things like abandonment and newborn drug addiction would qualify as neglect, not things like parents learning how to be parents," Leeb said.

Medical professionals identified about 65 percent of the maltreated newborns to protective services staff. The others came from law enforcement, relatives, friends, neighbors and from protective services staff. The results mirror what a study in Canada found, Leeb said.

Third-graders plot to hurt teacher…

A group of Georgia third-graders plotted to attack their teacher, bringing a broken steak knife, handcuffs, duct tape and other items for the job and assigning children tasks including covering the windows and cleaning up afterward, police said. Read More The plot by as many as nine boys and girls at Center Elementary School in south Georgia was a serious threat, Waycross Police Chief Tony Tanner said.

"We did not hear anybody say they intended to kill her, but could they have accidentally killed her? Absolutely," Tanner said. "We feel like if they weren't interrupted, there would have been an attempt. Would they have been successful? We don't know."

The children, ages 8 and 9, were apparently mad at the teacher because she had scolded one of them for standing on a chair, Tanner said. A prosecutor said they are too young to be charged with a crime under Georgia law.

Police seized a broken steak knife, handcuffs, duct tape, electrical and transparent tape, ribbons and a crystal paperweight from the students, who apparently intended to use them against the teacher, Tanner said.

Nine children have been given discipline up to and including long-term suspension, said Theresa Martin, spokeswoman for the Ware County school system. She would not be more specific but said none of the children had been back to school since the case came to light.

The purported target is a veteran educator who teaches third-grade students with learning disabilities including attention deficit disorder, delayed development and hyperactivity, friends and parents said.

The scheme involved a division of roles, Tanner said. One child's job was to cover windows so no one could see outside, he said. Another was supposed to clean up after the attack.

Experts said children that age are certainly imaginative and capable of creating elaborate games. But Dr. Louis Kraus, a child psychiatry expert at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, said he doubts they would have actually attacked. Read More

"The reality is it is highly unlikely they would have been successful at this," Kraus said. "Even if it had begun, it's unclear whether they actually would have followed through with it." Most premeditated acts of student violence in schools usually don't occur until high school, Kraus said.

Younger children have been known to bring knives or other weapons to school, experts said, but often it's more a matter of showing off or acting tough than part of a deliberate assault attempt. Most children under the age of 12 don't generally experience the kind of long-standing anger necessary for a premeditated crime, said Dan Mears, an associate professor at Florida State University's College of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

And finally,…

The killer of 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown, the malnourished, tortured girl whose case shocked New York City and prompted child welfare reforms, was sentenced to a maximum of 29 years in prison. Read More Stepfather Cesar Rodriguez, 29, was convicted of manslaughter and other counts last month in connection with the child's death. The child was bound to a chair, starved and forced to urinate in a litter box before she was killed. See vol6_iss12.

Arkansas' marriage-age crisis is over. Read More A law that mistakenly allowed anyone--even toddlers--to marry with parental permission was repealed by a measure signed into law by Governor Mike Beebe, ending months of embarrassment for the state and confusion for county clerks. Lawmakers didn't realize until after the end of last year's regular session that a law they approved, intended to establish 18 as the minimum age for marriage, instead removed the minimum age to marry entirely. See vol5_iss54 and vol5_iss56.

A judge took a jury's recommendation and sentenced a former grocery store stocker to death by injection for killing a 10-year-old girl in a cannibalistic fantasy. Read More McClain County District Judge Candace Blalock approved the death sentence for Kevin Ray Underwood in the killing of the man's neighbor Jamie Rose Bolin. See vol6_iss19.

Probation for a convicted sex offender charged with raping a 6-year-old boy in a library was revoked Thursday after the judge watched a videotape of the child saying it was like being attacked by a "T-rex and an alligator." Read More Corey Saunders, 26, is accused of raping the boy January 30 while the child's mother worked on a computer just outside the room and less than 10 feet away at the New Bedford Free Public Library. At the time, Saunders was on probation after serving four years in prison for the attempted rape of a 7-year-old boy. He was sentenced to the maximum five years in prison Thursday. Saunders, who was released from prison in 2006 over objections from prosecutors and psychologists, will begin serving the sentence immediately as he awaits trial on the new charges. See vol6_iss10.

In other news…

A West Price Hill, Ohio man is accused of raping his 4-year-old daughter, injuring her seriously enough to send her to a hospital. Read More Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters said that Christopher Lukacs, 27, was charged with four counts of rape and one count of felonious assault. Deters said that the assaults took place between December 1 and March 25, when the child's grandfather found the girl naked in her home when he came to pick her and her brother up. Lukacs became a registered sex offender in 2000 after being convicted of gross sexual imposition for having sex with a 12-year-old girl.

The 12-year-old Maryland boy had finished his homework and was playing a video game when he heard his mother cry out. Rushing to her aid, he found her on the kitchen floor, straddled by a fellow resident of their Prince George's County boarding house, the man's hands wrapped tightly around her neck, the boy said. Read More "I kept saying, 'Stop! Stop! Stop!'" the boy said, describing the events. "But he just ignored me. He didn't stop. He just kept hurting her." The boy said he grabbed a knife and swung, slashing 64-year-old Salomon Noubissie across the neck and opening an artery. Noubissie was fatally wounded. Law enforcement officials were reviewing evidence yesterday and had not decided whether to file charges. Their preliminary account of the incident broadly matches that of the boy and his mother.

A Pittsburgh area father is behind bars accused of leaving his three young children home alone. Read More Police said Chad Victor Braun left his three children alone inside a Moon Township home. Investigators said the children, ages 1, 3 and 4, were living in horrible conditions. On March 21, police were called to the home on Oak Drive. A Children Youth and Families worker made an unannounced visit. No one answered the door, but she heard children inside. According to the criminal complaint the kids were home alone, naked and had severe redness and irritation on their bodies. The children were reportedly eating uncooked frozen French fries. The children were examined at Children's Hospital and diagnosed as being malnourished. One had ringworm.

A former Ohio children's services lawyer accused in an Internet child-sex sting pleaded guilty to two charges. Read More Barry Mentser, 48, of New Albany, pleaded to importuning and attempted unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, his attorney and a prosecutor said. Authorities dropped a charge related to spreading material harmful to juveniles. Mentser was arrested October 31 in the Ohio Statehouse basement in a sting set up by a Hamilton Township police detective who had posed online as a 15-year-old girl. Mentser's attorney, Charles Rittgers, said he could face a sentence ranging up to 18 months in prison.

It was the shocking video that caused outrage and led to calls for YouTube to vet all its content. Read More The three-minute clip, filmed on a mobile phone, apparently showed a young and unconscious mother being gang raped as she lay helpless in her own home. It was posted on the popular video-sharing website, which is owned by Google, within hours of the incident on November 6 and was viewed more than 600 times. The clip stayed on the website for three months after YouTube staff failed to remove it. The alleged victim claims it shows her being raped by three boys in front of her screaming children, aged two and four, after being drugged. But yesterday it was revealed that the 24-year-old woman has now been arrested on suspicion of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old and perverting the course of justice. Scotland Yard confirmed it will take no further action against two 16-year-olds and a 14-year-old arrested in February in connection with the video.

Dallas city officials are looking into ways to revise an ordinance regulating sexually oriented businesses after it was reported that employing someone under the age of 18 isn't enough to shut down a strip club. Read More WFAA-TV and The Dallas Morning News reported the existence of the loophole this week after it came to light that a 12-year-old girl had danced nude at a northwest Dallas strip club. "We have to protect the safety of minors," Mayor Pro Tem Elba Garcia said. "Who would have thought that we would find a 12-year-old in one of those places?" City attorneys are exploring ways to revise the ordinance and will report back to the City Council. The sixth-grader danced at Diamonds Cabaret over a two-week period late last year, police said. They also say they found a 17-year-old girl working in the club in January. See vol6_iss24.

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