Parents: System Promised Help, Instead Delivered
Harm
Thursday, June 29, 2000, in the Miami Herald
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER
cmarbin@herald.com
For most of his 15 years, Anthony Dumas was a fairly typical kid.
He played forward on his Pompano Beach Middle School soccer team,
loved to skateboard, and once caught a five-pound bass.
But when Anthony began skipping school, staying out past curfew
and defying his parents, they sought help from anyone who would
listen. Broward sheriff's deputies told them Anthony would have to
be arrested and brought into ``the system'' before he could get any
real counseling, they say.
They did just that. Three weeks later, on June 12, Anthony hanged
himself at the Lippman Family Center, a detention shelter at 221 NW
43rd Ct. in Oakland Park. Workers at the shelter allowed Anthony to
remain hanging until police cut him down moments later. He remains
in a coma, and his parents have been told he may never recover. On
Wednesday, more than two weeks after the attempted suicide, three
workers who did not cut Anthony down from his black leather belt
were suspended from their jobs.
Now, Walter Dumas and Shirley Finley, Anthony's parents, say they
were betrayed by the very system they thought would help them.
``Our son depended on us to do the right thing, just like we
depended on the system to help us do the right thing,'' said Finley,
38, of Margate. ``Who is going to protect the children? No one was
there to protect mine.''
``The only thing we've got in life are our children,'' said
Finley. ``If we can't keep them protected in the system, we've got
no hope.''
``We were naive parents,'' Finley said.
Added Dumas: ``And it cost us our son.''
Lutheran Services Florida, which operates the shelter where
Anthony tried to take his life, says it will continue to investigate
the incident. The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice placed a
moratorium Friday on new admissions to the shelter, which continues
to house between eight and 10 youths, said spokeswoman Catherine
Arnold.
The department's inspector general is investigating the incident,
which also has been referred to the Broward state attorney's
office's homicide division by the Oakland Park Police for possible
charges.
Following a call to the state's child-abuse hotline, the case
also was referred to the Broward Sheriff's Office, said spokesman
Kirk Englehardt. The sheriff's Child Protective Investigations Unit
``is trying to determine if there was any neglect by the shelter, or
any other wrongdoing,'' Englehardt said.
Unfortunately, Dumas and Finley may not be alone. Every day,
children are dragged into Florida's beleaguered juvenile justice
system by well-meaning parents who are told filing criminal charges
is the only way to obtain counseling or other mental health services
for their troubled teens.
More than half the states, including Florida, require parents to
give up custody of their children in order for them to qualify for
intensive mental health services, according to a March study by the
Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington.
``All the children who go into the juvenile justice and child
welfare systems and can't get mental health services are
tremendously harmed, and their families are tremendously harmed, by
the practice,'' said Mary Giliberti, a senior staff attorney who
helped write the study. ``The consequence here [with Anthony] is
extreme.''
Howard Finkelstein, chief assistant of the Broward Public
Defender's Office and a mental-health advocate, said he confronts
families daily who were encouraged to file charges against their
children in order to get help.
``When law enforcement tells parents they have to have their kid
arrested in order to access treatment, that unfortunately is the
truth,'' Finkelstein said. ``...the shameful truth.
``The system needs to be devised so that you can walk in the
front door, not walk in handcuffs through the back door,'' he added.
``Parents are screaming for help,'' said Mindy Solomon, who
supervises the public defender's juvenile division, which represents
the vast majority of children arrested in Broward. ``But they're
just getting doors slammed in their face regularly.
``It is not unusual for parents to end up in the delinquency
system after they've searched for help,'' said Solomon. ``It's
tragic, just incredibly tragic.''
Dumas and Finley, who share custody of three children following a
divorce three years ago, say they have no clue as to why Anthony
became more and more rebellious in recent months. He was a ``normal
everyday teenager,'' his father said, who loved to play with
computers, go to the beach and listen to contemporary music.
Anthony's parents aren't wealthy; Dumas, 34, of Pompano Beach,
builds custom-made furniture and Finley is an air-conditioning
technician. Neither could afford to insure their son or pay
thousands of dollars for private therapy.
They sought help from school counselors, crisis centers, youth
groups and even a summer camp for troubled teens, they say, but were
sent away at every turn. Finally, a BSO officer told them to file
charges against Anthony the next time he acted up.
``They asked us, `Does he have a record?' '' said Finley. ``We
said no. `Then there's no way we can help you,' '' the family was
told.
``All we were trying to do is keep him off the streets,'' said
Finley. ``These teenagers need help, and we had nowhere to go.''
Anthony was arrested on a domestic violence charge following an
altercation with his mother. At a hearing before Circuit Judge
Dorian Damoorgian, ``they asked me if I would take him home,'' Dumas
said. `I said that would not fix what's wrong with him.''
Damoorgian ordered the boy to reside at the Lippman Family Center
shelter, where he could get counseling. Anthony arrived on May 23.
``After he got in the system, we were the ones in handcuffs,''
Dumas said. ``We had no say over what happened.''
Dumas said his son appeared to be improving. He took more
interest in school work, made friends with his peers, and became a
favorite of Lippman shelter workers. When Dumas talked with Anthony
the night of June 12, Anthony seemed excited at the prospect of
returning home.
His parents were stunned when shelter workers told them Anthony
had hanged himself, and Finley still is skeptical of the official
account.
They were outraged when police told them three different shelter
workers had allowed Anthony to remain hanging before police arrived
to finally cut him down. One employee, identified in a report as
Sandra Trotter, took between four and six Polaroid pictures of the
boy while he was still tied to a top bunk, the family was told.
``She had to look for that camera,'' Finley said. ``Do you know
how long it takes a Polaroid camera to work?''
Englehardt, the BSO spokesman, said he simply doesn't know
whether BSO deputies advised Dumas and Finley to file charges
against their son. He also said he does not know whether the advice
had been offered to parents in the past.
``We're not aware that anybody at the Broward Sheriff's Office
made that suggestion,'' he said.
And state social service officials insist there are free or
reduced-price services available to families trying to cope with a
troubled teen.
``It is ridiculous to say that a child needs to be arrested in
order to get mental health care,'' said Page Jolly, a spokeswoman
for the Department of Children and Families.
Many families have sought help through a state program called
Children in Need of Services, which provides counseling and crisis
intervention for families struggling with defiant teens, said Diane
Hirth, a juvenile justice spokeswoman. In fact, the Lippman Center
is under contract to offer counseling under the CINS program.
Anthony's family ``could have accessed services without any
criminal charges,'' said Hirth, whose department did not identify
the boy.
Families coping with a rebellious child can be referred to a
counseling program by calling the state's Parent Hotline at
1-888-41FAMILY.
Dumas and Finley say it is too late to help their son, who
underwent surgery Wednesday to improve his breathing. He has been
running a fever, suffering muscle contractures, and doctors fear his
vital organs are under extreme stress.
``They trusted,'' said the family's lawyer, David Fuchs of Fort
Lauderdale. ``They won't trust again.''
Said Dumas: ``If this can happen to us, a normal middle-class
family, it can happen to anybody.''
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