“A kid was brutally tortured because [the school district] didn’t notify police,” Russell said. “The terror that went on in this kid’s life the last 13 days is unthinkable.”
March 22, 2008 - Police Chief Gary J. Russell says he holds school officials partly responsible for failing to notify police about a child who reported being burned with a cigarette.
When a boy reported abuse to a teacher at Memorial Early Childhood Center on March 4, the police were never notified. He remained in the home for nearly two more weeks in what authorities say was a severely abusive situation.
“He was sent home to be tortured another 13 days that he didn’t have to be,” Russell said. “He’s lucky to be alive.”
The Department of Social Services also failed to notify police immediately. They acknowledged their failure. The school superintendent, however, said they had followed normal procedures.
The School Department has a “memorandum of understanding” with the police that outlines the types of situations in which the schools agree to notify police, Sullivan said.The police chief was blunt.
But the agreement does not include a procedure for notifying police about allegations of child abuse off school grounds. It doesn’t address “caretaker abuse” in any way, [School Superintendent Robert M.] Sullivan said.
The School Department’s approach, Russell contended, has often been to handle issues in house, without police intervention. This has long made him “uncomfortable,” he said.---------------------------------
The chief said Sullivan can not hide behind the language of the memorandum of understanding. “There’s nothing that says they can’t notify the police,” Russell said.
BACKGROUND
In December, a school nurse said she notified DSS of possible abuse when the boy told her Privette hit him with a belt. He began to cry and told Johnson, “I don’t want no more whippings,” according to the report.
On March 4, the school nurse said she had noticed abrasions and bruising on the boy’s back. Again, she did not call police, but she said she notified DSS of possible abuse.
On March 17, the boy showed a school nurse and the school principal several marks on his body including burn marks on his pelvic area and buttocks, according to the police report. The marks include one on each side of his penis and one on his buttocks, the police report stated. The burns were seven to ten days old when he showed them to the school principal.
APOLOGY March 25 - Before Selectmen, Superintendent of Schools Robert Sullivan read a prepared apology to a 7-year-old Middleboro student for the school system’s delay in acting upon the abuse the boy reported to the school.
Sullivan noted that the school staff “met all legal requirements as a mandated reporter of child abuse under Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 119, Section 51A.”The police chief also spoke.
However, noting that DSS did not take immediate action to report the abuse to the District Attorney’s Office and the Middleboro Police Department, Sullivan said “it is clear that compliance with our legal requirements as mandated reporter was not enough in this case. The system failed our young student.”
Dr. Sullivan has never to my knowledge kept information from the Police Department. Past administrations have and that is what made me very uncomfortable.”
