How Could You? Hall Of Shame-Buffalo Teen UPDATED

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Buffalo, New York, “a 13-year-old boy is accused of sexually assaulting an 8-year-old boy at a residential facility for displaced children earlier this week, authorities and the victim’s great-uncle confirmed.”

“But after the 8-year-old boy was treated at Women & Children’s Hospital, he was returned to the Delaware Avenue residential campus where his alleged assailant remains, the great-uncle said.

“They have a rapist and the kid he raped on the same grounds. Is it ridiculous or is it just me?” Peter Beyer said Friday.

A top Erie County Social Services official on Friday refused to answer his question of whether the 13-year-old has been removed from the Delaware Avenue campus of Child & Family Services. But the great-uncle was told Wednesday that the accused attacker remained at the facility where his nephew is also living.

Beyer said he received a call Tuesday evening from a nurse for Child & Family Services who had taken his nephew to the hospital. The nurse confirmed that medical workers had found evidence that the boy was sodomized earlier in the day.

Beyer said his nephew told officials at the home it was not the first time the 13-year-old had sexually attacked him. The child said the teen also assaulted him a week earlier at the facility.

Buffalo police confirmed that an investigation into the allegations has started.

Officials with Child & Family Services, which assists children, adults and families experiencing difficult times, also said the allegations are being investigated, but declined to discuss the case, saying confidentiality laws prevented them from addressing specifics of what is alleged to have happened.

“Whenever any allegations happen, we have a designated reporting process and the (state) Justice Center makes a determination on the proper steps to be taken,” said Mary Cornwell, director of public relations for Child & Family Services. “We take very seriously all of the proper procedures to protect all of our children.”

An individual familiar with the case stressed that, despite what the great-uncle has said, the allegations may not turn out to be accurate, so there should not be a rush to judgment.

The state’s Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs, in the Albany area, has the power to investigate cases, make arrests and prosecute.

Buffalo police sex offense squad detectives are also involved in the case and are taking the allegations seriously, a police official said Friday.

“Why would they leave the two children on the same campus? It doesn’t appear to be the smart thing to do. The potential for a repeat offense is still there,” a police source said.

In trying to get answers on whether his nephew was safe from the alleged attacker, Beyer called Judith Shanley, first deputy commissioner of the Erie County Department of Social Services, who refused to answer his questions about whether the 13-year-old had been removed from the facility.

Shanley said she could not answer the questions because it is unclear who has guardianship of his nephew.

“I’m blood,” the great-uncle said he told Shanley in a Friday morning phone conversation.

Beyer said he filled out the paperwork to become the guardian of his nephew and the boy’s 7-year-old sister last summer, but Shanley informed him the department has no record of receiving the paperwork.

He said Shanley is sending him new paperwork. And while officials refused to discuss the allegations, Beyer provided a detailed narrative of how he found out about the sexual assaults:

He arrived at the campus to visit his nephew at about 2 p.m. Tuesday and was told the boy was not at the residential home but with his caseworker.

“I caught up with her and my nephew in the parking lot and went to her office, where I was told he was sexually assaulted that morning,” Beyer said. “My nephew was given two teddy bears to show what the 13-year-old did to him. My nephew said it happened when he went up to the second floor of the day residence to get his toys and the 13-year-old followed him up and pushed him into a closet.”

Beyer said his nephew had been suspended from an elementary school in Buffalo for misbehaving and was being watched in the day residence Tuesday by a staffer, who was in charge of him and other children, including the 13-year-old, who had not attended school Tuesday for various reasons.

The nephew added that a similar incident had happened the week before, the great-uncle said. “My nephew said it happened during a staff shift change and the 13-year-old had threatened him not to tell anyone,” he said.

Following the caseworker’s interview with the nephew, in the presence of the great-uncle, a nurse at the campus examined the boy and then took him to the hospital.

“I told the nurse I wanted to know what happens and she called me that evening,” Beyer said, adding that he has a cellphone record of receiving the follow-up call from the nurse at 6:49 p.m. Tuesday and that the call lasted 4 minutes and 29 seconds.

“I could tell the nurse was upset when she told me he had been sodomized. She said, ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ ” Beyer said.

Beyer said he is going public with the allegations because he fears it will be swept under the rug.

Mark Cornell, a spokesman for Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz, said state law prevents the county from discussing a specific case, but he issued a statement indicating the matter is under review:

“Whenever allegations of this nature are made, the Department of Social Services takes all the necessary steps to ensure the safety of the children. The department would work closely with the agency that operates the residential facility and the state oversight agency for residential children facilities, New York State Office of Children & Family Services, to determine the appropriate actions to ensure the safety of the children.

“When allegations of this nature are made, law enforcement officials are contacted and presumably conduct an investigation. Additionally … a report would also be made to the Justice Center … ”

Beyer explained how his nephew and niece came under the care of Erie County.

Several years ago, the great-uncle said, the children were taken away from their parents after the nephew, a toddler at the time, was found walking down the middle of a street in Florida while the child’s mother was in a bar drinking.

“He was in a parked car with his little sister and he left the car. The police found him walking in the middle of a road,” Beyer said. “That’s just one instance of neglect.”

The great-uncle said his sister, Traceylee Busch, the maternal grandmother of his nephew and niece, adopted her grandchildren, but she died in January 2013 at age 47.

He said the family rallied to provide the youngsters with a stable life, renting a home in Williamsville, but that the arrangement fell apart in July 2013 and Beyer said he contacted Erie County Social Services for help.

“They found a couple in Hamburg who took them in as foster children and wanted to adopt them. Then earlier this year, the couple said they weren’t interested and that’s when my nephew went to Child & Family Services,” Beyer said.

The niece, he said, is at another residential facility.

Over recent months, another relative who resides in Syracuse said a married couple from a church the relative attends expressed a willingness to adopt the children.

“They have been coming here and visiting the children and have hired a lawyer,” Beyer said. “Erie County has been dragging its feet. I’ve been pushing to have the children placed with them before school started this year.”

In Friday’s phone conversation with Shanley, Beyer said she told him that though the couple may be cleared to adopt children in Onondaga County, first a local review must be conducted in Erie County.

Beyer expressed exasperation at the slow pace of the bureaucracy, saying that his nephew might have been spared being assaulted if the children had been placed with the Syracuse couple.

As of late Friday, Beyer said his nephew had returned to school, but he said he does not know if steps have been taken to remove the 13-year-old from the Child & Family Services campus, which has four residential housing units.”

Boy, 13, accused of sexually assaulting boy, 8, at residential facility[Buffalo News 10/11/14 by Lou Michel]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

 

Update:”The youngster accused of molesting an 8-year-old boy in a Buffalo residential facility earlier this month has been relocated to another home for displaced children, Erie County Social Services officials said Thursday.

A relative of the younger boy complained that the 12-year-old boy – previously reported to be 13 – should have been removed immediately from the Child & Family Services’ residential campus on Delaware Avenue, but that officials refused to answer his questions on whether the boys had been separated.

The relocation of the older boy could not occur immediately because the county needed to obtain a waiver from the state Office of Children & Family Services approving the move of the accused attacker to a facility for children 14 years of age and older, according to Peter Anderson, spokesman for Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz.

While the county waited for that approval, Anderson said, measures were put in place to separate the two boys.

“A safety plan was created and approved by OCFS to ensure the children were separated and that the alleged perpetrator did not have any unsupervised contact with any other child,” Anderson said.

Peter Beyer, the 8-year-old’s great-uncle, is also now being allowed to resume visits with his nephew and call him on the phone. That access was denied last week, shortly after Beyer publicly criticized the county and Child & Family Services.

Beyer had complained that he felt he was being punished for taking his criticism public.

Beyer had revealed that a nurse with Child & Family Services nurse called him, following the alleged incident on Oct. 6, and told him a physical examination of his nephew determined that he had been sexually assaulted. Officials in the case have declined to comment on whether that is an accurate portrayal of the findings.

Contact between the boy and his great uncle was temporarily limited, Anderson explained, so clinicians could evaluate how to best assist the child.

“Due to the serious nature of the alleged incident, precautionary steps were taken to protect the health and safety of the children,” Anderson said. “One of these steps included limiting outside contact until the clinicians working with the child could meet and determine the most appropriate course of action for the child.

“As soon as the clinicians met, they agreed that contact between the child and his identified resources could and should continue. Although we understand how it could appear retributive based on the circumstances, we would not try to limit access to any caring and responsible adult invested in the success of a child. Throughout this period of time, efforts were focused on preventing further trauma to the child.”

Beyer said a Social Services official has called him and said he has every right to visit his nephew.

Beyer plans to file paperwork with Erie County today that he hopes will provide him with legal standing in the case as a foster parent. He said he previously filed the paperwork but the county misplaced it. The county says it never received the paperwork.

“It is highly unlikely that the paperwork was ‘misplaced’ as was alleged. … The Department of Social Services employs a rigorous tracking system for items of this nature,” Anderson said.

In looking forward, Beyer said he wants legal standing, either as a foster parent or guardian – guardianship would require court action – in order to facilitate the adoption of his nephew and the boy’s younger sister by a couple in Syracuse, who are acquainted with the family.

“They have been visiting the children every other Wednesday, and I’ve been told they need to take 18 more hours of classes in special training because of some of the issues,” Beyer said, expressing hope that the county can move quickly enough to make sure the children are with the Syracuse couple before Christmas. “I can’t raise the children myself but I want to be a part of their lives and make sure everything is good.”

Beyer’s sister, the grandmother of the children, had adopted them after her daughter and the father of the children were incarcerated in Florida, the great uncle said. Traceylee Busch, the grandmother, died unexpectedly last year, and that is how the children eventually landed in the care of the county.

Meanwhile, the New York State Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs last week confirmed that center investigators, who are empowered to make arrests and prosecute cases, began their review earlier this month of the alleged attack.”

Boy accused of raping younger child moved to new facility[Buffalo News 10/23/14 by Lou Michel]