March 31, 2010

The Harvey County Sheriff's Department confirms someone called an SRS abuse hotline more than two months before 19-month-old Vincent Hill was allegedly beaten to death. But Newton SRS and Harvey County law enforcement say they were never informed of the call.

The call came in from a couple who lived in the same duplex as Hill, his mother, Katheryn Nycole Dale, and her boyfriend, Chadd Carr. Dale and Carr are both charged in the case.

"Nothing ever gets done until it's too late, and unfortunately, it's too late," said Jason Monarez, the victim's neighbor.

Vincent Hill's father describes the little boy as happy and always smiling.

"He's never going to be able to play catch with me, I'm never going to teach him how to learn how to fish," said Ricky Hill, Vincent's father. "I''m not going to get to see him do anything."

Now, Ricky Hill wonders if he would have gotten the chance to see those things if social services had further investigated a call it received on January 20th, two months before Vincent's death.

"We tried to stop it, we tried... me and my girlfriend both," said Monarez. "You could just hear through the wall, the child screaming."

So Monarez' girlfriend called an SRS abuse hotline. But the center dismissed the call saying it didn't indicate there was any harm taking place to the child. The last sentence of the report reads, "This completes the initial assessment with no further action needed."

"It just makes me angry, really, to know that i tried and it wasn't taken seriously," said Jessica Link, who placed the call.

Since the call stopped at the call center, Newton SRS says it never got word of the suspected abuse.

"If they would have had the report, they probably would have notified us, and something would have gotten done," said Harvey County Sheriff T. Walton.

SRS will not comment about specific cases, but did release this statement on the process of investigating calls to its hotline;

"SRS receives reports of alleged abuse and neglect through our Kansas Protection Report Center, 1-800-922-5330. In State fiscal year 2009 SRS received 56,207 reports of alleged abuse or neglect. Of those, 49% or 27,340, cases were assigned for further investigation."

"Intake workers receive protective services training to elicit specific information about the situation. Information requested is focused on the extent of the situation, circumstances of the situation, child’s functioning, parenting practices and caregiver function, in addition to information regarding the child’s age, person alleged to have caused harm to the child, where the child is located, other individuals or agencies who may have information regarding the incident and the availability of a non-abusing adult to protect the child from further harm."

"The information gathered through the intake process is then provided to a licensed social worker to review and determine whether the incident requires further investigation. This decision is based on specific safety and risk factors, including but not limited to: seriousness of the incident, prior agency involvement with the family, and seriousness of injury to child."

"All reports assigned for further investigation involving allegations of maltreatment of child must be investigated within either a 24 hour or 72 hour timeframe, depending on the nature of the allegation. Situations requiring a 24 hour response include, but are not limited to: life threatening situation, sexual abuse with the alleged perpetrator in the home, child in protective custody, or a child with current visible injuries."

"Certain reports, not alleging maltreatment, may be investigated within 20 working days. An example of this type of case would be truancy."