By VANESSA HO
SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF
The state Department of Social and Health Services reached a $6.55 million settlement Tuesday in a horrific child abuse case involving six Seattle boys who were starved, locked in a closet, and sexually and physically abused for years.
The case - a lawsuit filed by the children's grandmother - had been scheduled to start trial Tuesday in King County Superior Court.
"I think DSHS did the right thing, finally, for this grandmother and her grandchildren," the grandmother's attorney, Blaine Tamaki, said in a statement.
...."It was a very ugly, horrific environment," Tamaki said. "The physical and psychological damage is almost incomprehensible."
The entire time, the grandmother, who lived in Yakima, had complained repeatedly to DSHS. Over the years, physicians, counselors, therapists and an attorney also contacted the agency, and Tamaki said 33 complaints were filed with Children's Protective Services.
"But no meaningful action to help the children was ever taken," he said. He said the agency didn't follow up on the complaints, or had marked them as "low priority." He also said the parents were never prosecuted for abuse. In addition, the agency destroyed its entire file on the family -- only eight months after the grandmother gained custody of her last two grandchildren in 2000. For the lawsuit, the abuse was documented through existing medical and counseling records.
"They take the position that (the file loss) was inadvertent and unexplained," Tamaki said. "We think the destruction speaks for itself." FULL STORY
I am willing to be that NO CPS agent got fined, fired, or imprisoned for their crimes.
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