Feb 22, 2006 7:45 am US/Eastern
NYPD: Child Abuse Reports Skyrocket
Commish Says ACS Actually Calling Police Too Often
by John Slattery
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
New York City police detectives are in danger of being overwhelmed by a surge in child abuse reports after the beating death of a 7-year-old Brooklyn girl.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told a City Council committee Tuesday that the number of cases referred to the department's Special Victims Division has climbed 65 percent since the Jan. 7 death of Nixzmary Brown.
Kelly says there's also been a 226 percent increase in requests for action by the unit's instant response teams, which are usually deployed only when immediate action is needed to rescue a child.
Asked if the department had enough manpower to handle so much extra work, Kelly said, "Not if it stays up at the level we have now."
Caseworkers for the city's Administration for Children's Services have been criticized for failing to get police involved sooner, but Kelly said now social workers are asking for police intervention too often.
The remarks were made Tuesday at City Hall where Kelly testified before the council's committee on general welfare and public safety. The primary questions: are police, school officials and ACS equipped to respond before there's a tragedy?
The death of Nixzmary Brown resulted in her mother and stepfather being charged with murder. Why didn't police and ACS identify abuse before the Jan. 7 death?
Commissioner Kelly says the agencies have a mechanism called an "Instant Response Teams Protocol," or IRT, involving police, ACS, the medical community, the district attorney, and victim service organizations if abuse is suspected.
Referring to the Nixzmary Brown case, Kelly told the committee, "I don't want to say, based on the information ACS received, they should have declared an IRT, but they did not."
Kelly said that on Dec. 1, detectives were called to the school for security reasons because an agitated Cesar Rodriguez had shown up after school officials suspected abuse. Yet, Kelly says, Nixzmary, her siblings and a doctor's report said the injuries were caused by the child's falling on a piece of wood.
Kelly says detectives placed a call, and learned there was no history of domestic violence in the family, and the school's social worker was satisfied. The question to Kelly from the committee was, should police have followed up on the family anyway? Kelly said, "If we were needed, ACS should have reached out to investigate, and it didn't happen."
But an ACS deputy commissioner, Jennifer Jones Austin, disagreed, saying the question is whether the NYPD actually believes it acted properly.
Kelly said current policies are being reviewed and a joint recommendation will be made to Mayor Bloomberg on March 10.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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