August 20, 2008
Agency slammed door on 3 kids
County officials who not long ago boasted of Nassau's commitment to its neediest ought to be hanging their heads in shame.
Jewell Ward was 6, Michael Demesyeux was 5, and Innocent Demesyeux was only 18 months old. All three died on their watch.
Word came Monday that the three had been drowned, one by one, by their disturbed mother, Leatrice Brewer, who then posed them side by side on a bed. In death, they lay cuddled together, one police officer said.
They appeared to be sleeping when Brewer led police to the room on Sunday, officials said. A cut on one of their necks destroyed any illusion of peacefulness, however.
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The county social services department knew about the mother, and the children.
They knew police had been called to the home. They had heard from Brewer's grandmother and from the father of two of the children, who had filed a complaint to county workers saying that Brewer had threatened to "harm" the youngsters.
The threat triggered the last in a series of social services visits. And so, on Friday, two caseworkers, a man and a woman, separately went to Brewer's apartment in New Cassel.
Before leaving the office, caseworkers had access to the family's history, an electronic narrative they read on county computers, which included information about everything from financial assistance to day care.
That narrative helped convince caseworkers that a face-to-face visit, rather than a telephone call, was required.
And so one caseworker, a woman, walked up to the apartment door and knocked.
But no one answered.
Following department protocol, she left a business card before getting in touch with a supervisor.
The supervisor later dispatched a second caseworker, a man, sometime that evening. Again, he knocked, and again received no answer. So he too left a card and reported to his supervisor.
And that's where the trail went cold Monday. What they could have done next is name an emergency intervention team, make another visit or start a series of telephone calls.
The department had staff working into Saturday and Sunday, as it always does -- ready to follow up.
Did they?
And if not, why not?
Did the DSS narrative include the numerous visits Nassau County police officers made to the house?
Did it include the family court proceedings that involved Brewer and the father of two of her children?
Did the department know about Brewer's increasingly bizarre behavior? Did the department's overworked caseworkers, who handled her on financial and other matters, ever report any misgivings about the mother and her children?
Did they act on her family's concerns?
Those were still key questions Monday night, ones that County Executive Thomas Suozzi must address during his scheduled news conference Tuesday morning.
Monday, both caseworkers were back at the job.
"The place is somber," said a third caseworker, who works at the county health and human services facility, on Lindbergh Boulevard, not far from the Nassau Coliseum.
And it should be.
To great fanfare, Suozzi, during his first term in office, announced a new policy, "No Wrong Door," to make it easier for residents to access a comprehensive menu of services.
But something's gone horribly wrong in Nassau. It didn't start the day three children died, and it didn't end with the county's department of social services.
This failure defies proportions.
In Nassau -- one of the richest counties in the nation -- advocates for three children, desperately in need, kept knocking at the system.
But there was No Right Door.
Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.
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