Suffer the little children…
19 May 2007 by Naomi
No, I don’t know that religion is an issue…
Dateline: Tulsa Okalhoma, Thursday, May 17, 2007
Tot critical after bound at day care The 2-year-old Tulsa boy is on life support after a worker allegedly put masking tape over his mouth and bound his hands because he wouldn’t be quiet for nap time.
[Note: The child died Friday; he had no brain activity and was on life support, according to the arrest report.]The child was taken to St. John Medical Center in critical condition and later transported by helicopter to St. Francis Hospital in critical condition, Tulsa Police Officer Jason Willingham said.
Vicki Leigh Chiles, 42, was arrested and booked into the Tulsa Jail on a felony complaint of injury to a minor child and on an arrest warrant that was filed Wednesday charging her with abusing a different child.
Chiles was the only worker present at the day-care home, located at 2648 E. Third St., at the time, and a total of eight children, ages 7 and younger, were present, Willingham said.
Police contacted parents of the other children at the day care after Chiles’ arrest, Willingham said, and arriving parents could be seen giving their children long embraces.
Chiles told police the boy would not be quiet for nap time and that she used masking tape to bind his hands and cover his mouth to keep him quiet, an arrest report states.
Chiles told investigators that she then left the boy unattended for a few minutes and came back to find him lying on the floor unresponsive, the report states. She said she called for an ambulance and tried to perform CPR. [...]While the emergency was unfolding, Oklahoma Department of Human Services workers arrived at the house to conduct an inspection of Chiles’ day-care home, Willingham said. [...]
Unrelated to the 2-year-old’s condition, a charge of felony abuse of a minor child was filed Wednesday against Chiles by the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office, and the warrant was issued for her arrest.
The charge alleges that Chiles struck an 8-year-old child multiple times with a fly swatter on April 10.
Chiles signed a written agreement with DHS on Thursday stating that no children could be under her care and that her day care would immediately cease operation, Leaver said.
Because DHS’s investigation into Chiles’ day-care home is ongoing, Leaver would not speak specifically about the case, but she did say that all reported incidents at day-care facilities are investigated.
“When we receive any type of allegation against a day-care center, it’s taken seriously and looked into,” Leaver said.
Normally, day-care centers are inspected by DHS three times a year, she said, but if allegations of wrongdoing have been raised, a center is inspected more often.
Hmmm…on April 10, she uses a flyswatter on an eight-year-old; on Wednesday, May 16, felony child abuse charges are filed against Chiles; on Thursday, May 17, a child dies in her custody; while police are investigating the death, ODHS workers arrive to do an inspection…
Someone forgot to “lock the barn door”. Why did it take five weeks to order an inspection?
And now a child has died.
20 May 2007, on 1:42 am
A…a…flyswatter? That’s a felony, how? Which end did she use? How much did it weigh?
As to the other child dying, that’s a tragedy, but are there at least 3 other sources that agree on this story?
20 May 2007, on 3:38 am
Which part, KA? The flyswatter? The dead child? Is the Tulsa World newspaper a Murdoch Noise machine?
Here, and here, and here, which reported this:
20 May 2007, on 10:23 am
Naomi:
I was sufficiently clear on that.
Did I say or intimate that? No I didn’t.
Since the McMartin case, I view stories like these w/more than a little askance.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ra_mcmar.htm
20 May 2007, on 1:25 pm
Did the day care worker have the 8 year old’s mother’s permission to swat him with a fly swatter? (I know it’s a common form of punishment here in the south.) I imagine not, since that’s why she was being investigated.
Either way, to tape a 2 year old’s mouth and hands is abominable. That poor baby. I hope this woman gets the maximum sentence and is never allowed near children again.
KA
I don’t know about the MCMartin case personally, but I was friends with a family involved with the Little Rascals Day Care case in Edenton, NC. There was abuse that went on, but the ages of the children and the problems of getting them to talk about it worked to the defendants’ side. If I remember right, they also used the McMartin case to try to say that this was more hysteria than real abuse.
20 May 2007, on 3:10 pm
KA -
considering the child is dead, I think you can safely assume that ’something’ happened to him under this woman’s care. Sexual abuse CAN be difficult to prove in some instances, but it seems this woman’s physical abuse left some rather telling marks on at least one child and a dead body in another.
I’m all for being skeptical until the necessary proof is in but lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater either.
20 May 2007, on 4:35 pm
flame:
Obviously.
A flyswatter? I’d think you’d have to hit the child several THOUSAND times to leave a mark.
I’m all for waiting till the jury’s in. Literally.
Innocent till proven guilty. Personally, I get a little sick of trial by press.
20 May 2007, on 6:33 pm
Yeah, the flyswatter threw me too. I about called my mom and said: “Hey, did you know that you routinely committed felony child abuse when I was younger?”
20 May 2007, on 8:28 pm
The use of masking tape over the child’s mouth was more of a concern to me than the swatter. Lots of young kids have colds and other assorted “minor respiratory” problems, which are NOT a major issue until some ignoramus tapes their mouth shut.
21 May 2007, on 1:51 am
KA, I finally had the time to look up what you’ve been referring to: the McMartin Day-Care case. I knew nothing about it. And before you castigate me for my ignorance, be aware that since 1993, I have been without television; and my newspaper-reading was devoted to catching up on politics (I went directly to the OpEd page, while my husband was catching up on his comics). Usually, this was over breakfast or lunch in a truckstop; time for a full-perusal of the paper was a luxury I rarely had…
And I listened to FM radio for the music; until XM, there were few liberals or progressives on AM (typically, the bastion of “talk-radio”, such as Rush) or FM. AM’s reach, after dark, is legendary; FM – not so much. (There were only two oases of liberality, before XM: KGO/San Francisco, and KOA/Denver.)
So I have gaps in my “cultural referrants” and was clueless as to what you were talking about…
21 May 2007, on 9:54 am
Ordinarily, I would agree with you, KA, but there’s this part:
The skin of the posterior is pretty tough, and even tougher when covered by fabric. However, she was chasing the child around the room. Apparently, she can’t control her temper, or the situation. It’s hard to tell where she hit the child, but I’m sure some of the marks could be visible.
And from personal, although anecdotal, experience, I can say that a flyswatter can leave a mark if the one wielding it lacks self-control. Sometimes for several hours, and containing the weave pattern of the flyswatter in question.
-Berlzebub
21 May 2007, on 4:16 pm
Bottom line for me: it’s definitely a “Bad God” story. There’s practically no one god hates more than children, because no matter how much adults may suffer, at least they’re grown up. Kids, on the other hand, are pretty much completely helpless and barely starting their lives; you’d think god would cut them some slack given their extreme vulnerability.
None of the theological/apologetic arguments I’ve had the stomach to read about the Problem of Evil as illustrated by the plight of children throughout the world has so much as come close to scratching the surface of addressing it, in my opinion. In response to kids being abused, molested, neglected, raped, tortured, maimed, mutilated, and slaughtered all the time almost everywhere, what can theists possibly say about their chosen deity?
21 May 2007, on 11:25 pm
This post brought back the, shall we say, ‘permanently emblazened’ memory of my childhood “spanking history”.
Whenever I think of spanking; I have two occasions that always come to mind…one from each parent.
In the case of my dad; I must have been around 12 or 13, when, as I recall, two of my close grammar school friends were over visiting at our Chicago apartment…both of whom I just saw at my 50th Catholic (all boys) High School reunion on May 7th.
No…I didn’t think of the spanking incident; but it would have been interesting to check if they even remembered.(?)
[As to the Reunion: Talk about wrinkled faces, and lots of balding heads! Oh...and two kilted bagpipers played "my favorite tune" (Sheesh!) in honor of the deceased classmates...erm...You guessed it...what else?
"Amazing (Dis-)Grace" Aargh!]
To continue with the spanking…
I guess I was being a bit too disrespectful, that day, for my dad’s taste; or he was just looking to vent some personal anger…whatever…he really laid into my behind with his slapping; which hurt even more from the embarassment of having two best friends as witnesses.
The other spanking episode…really brought to mind by this post…was from my mom (equal opportunity discipline?)…maybe at age 11? I can attest to the painfulness of that method. I never checked for marks, however (”Duh!”); but have never forgotten the episode.
Somehow, I think my parents were starting to drift apart at that time (they eventually divorced in 1965); and were possibly using me as a vent to some of their pent-up emotions. Those incidents were rare, however; and I’ve never felt like the abused child archetype.
That was the early 1950s, however…long before a lot of psychological research about spanking was well known to the general public. Having never become a parent, myself (Yeah…I’m still an outspoken, bratty little child?), I never had to face the often tempting dilemma of child rearing discipline.
I must say…I have no regrets about that, either!
Eve…
your “Bad God” comment, in my opinion, really hits the “bullseye”…like, in reading it, I was sort of imagining hearing the twanging sound of the arrow as it hits the center mark…
even continuing on, in its vibration?
[F/X sound smileys, anyone?]
22 May 2007, on 7:25 pm
Glad you liked it, ChuckA! Sorry to hear about your spankings and glad you survived them OK (and that they weren’t worse). My own experience was mostly with verbal abuse from my mom for a period of time when I think she and my dad were having problems (the kids tend to bear the brunt, don’t they, unless the parents are super-vigilant – and back then this child psychology stuff was pretty non-existent in the Dominican Republic).
I was finally able to lay that ghost to rest when my first two jobs involved – big surprise (not) – verbally abusive bosses. Once I caught on to my pattern in unconsciously seeking them out and submitting to the abuse, I was able to break the circle, not without a lot of work on learning how to stand up for myself and not put up with that sort of behavior from anyone, including family.
I’m much better now, really I am! I’m serious; I am, I tell you…
5 June 2007, on 4:28 pm
I have heard from previous reports that she has been in trouble with the law reguarding child abuse and such before the daycare was even opened but they still allowed her to open a facility. that is wrong. and i feel that parents should be informed if a daycare worker has a criminal past. that little boy did not deserve that at all. to put tape over a childs mouth and tie their hands together is wrong. there are no excuses for that