How Could You? Hall of Shame-Christopher Seaton case-Child Death UPDATED and Lawsuit
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 Tulsa Oklahoma, Christopher Seaton, 11, a Realations Community Services of Oklahoma group home resident, was killed when struck by three vehicles as he fled from the group home with another resident.
“Realations staff members, who declined to comment about Christopher’s death, are being interviewed by investigators, she said.
DHS will look into what led to the boys’ leaving the facility.
One of the three pickups that hit Christopher about 4:20 p.m. left the scene on I-44 near 24th West Avenue, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol reported.
Troopers are searching for a black pickup that continued west on the interstate, the Highway Patrol said.
The pickup had damage to its front end, troopers said. Witnesses were unable to provide a description of the driver or the vehicle’s make or tag number.
The two other pickups involved — a 2003 Chevrolet driven by Gordon Guthrie, 53, of Sapulpa and a 2008 Dodge driven by his son, Patrick Guthrie, 22, of Kellyville — also struck the boy, the OHP reported.
The Guthries were not injured. They are not expected to be charged or issued citations, OHP spokesman George Brown said.
Troopers said Christopher jumped over a concrete barrier and was struck by the vehicles.
He was pronounced dead at the scene.
He had been in DHS custody since 2009 and had been living at Realations since December, records show.
Realations is a 32-bed Level D facility that houses children with “high behavioral and emotional needs,” Powell said.
Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of the pickup that fled the accident scene or its driver is asked to call the Oklahoma Highway Patrol Troop B Headquarters in Tulsa at 918-627-0440.”
Boy hit by pickups on I-44 was running away from group home
[Tulsa World 4/8/13 by Kendrick Marshall]
Boy killed on I-44 had run away from group home
[Tulsa World 4/9/13 by Kendrick Marshall]
REFORM Puzzle Piece
According to Oklahoma DHS guidelines, a Level D facility is supposed to have a 24-hour awake supervision of each child; 24-hour on-site crisis management; and behavior redirection 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Update:
“A van pulled up to Realations Group Home on Skelly Drive in west Tulsa with a delivery of balloons for the children who live there. These balloons, however, were not for a party but for a memorial service.
The balloons were to be released Thursday evening as part of a memorial for Christopher Seaton, the 11-year-old boy who ran away from the home last Sunday and died in a hit-and-run collision.
He was hit by three pickups as he tried to cross the busy-yet-bleak stretch of I-44 that faces the home. Police are still looking for a driver who fled the scene, whose truck was the first to strike Seaton.
Realations owner Mark Jackson directed the balloon delivery for the memorial service, which wasn’t far from the spot northwest of the home where Seaton was killed on the freeway after jumping over a concrete barrier.
Seaton left with a 14-year-old boy, who returned to the home safely and is struggling with his friend’s death, Jackson said. Jackson did not know where the boys were headed when Seaton was hit, he said.
Were they running away? Trying to meet up with friends? Sneaking out to get ice cream at Braum’s just across the interstate and up the street?
“To tell you the truth, sometimes there’s not even a reason, really,” Jackson said. “Sometimes, they’ve just had so much bad happen in their young lives, they don’t fathom worse things could happen.”
Realations is a privately owned and operated Level D-plus group home licensed under the authority of Oklahoma Department of Human Services. Level D facilities serve children who have been in and out of DHS placement, often with behavioral problems, Jackson said.
Seaton had been in DHS custody since 2009 and at Realations since 2012, records show. Officials at DHS said they are investigating the circumstances surrounding his death.
Records show that police have been called to Realations more than 200 times since 2009, including reports of sexual assaults, fights and runaways. The home houses girls and boys ages 8 to 18 in a former motel for railroad company employees. The motel was converted in 2001, Jackson said.
Seaton was at least the second resident to die in recent years after running away from the facility, records show.
A 16-year-old girl died in 2009 after running away from the home and being struck by a train.
Runaway calls
Tulsa Police Department reports of calls to the facility include about 150 police responses for runaway juveniles since Jan. 1, 2009.
Since the beginning of this year, police have responded to the facility 21 times about 17 runaways, TPD records show.
Jackson told the Tulsa World that Realations averages about one runaway per week.
“One of the things that’s trying for our population here is that they may feel people may have quit on them – so often, they try to make you quit on them,” Jackson said.
Inspection reports obtained by the Tulsa World from the Office of Juvenile System Oversight show other incidents of the home’s young residents leaving without permission or with family members who do not have permission for off-campus visits.
A 2009 inspection triggered by a complaint showed that a resident of the home was allowed to leave at Thanksgiving with family members, although his mother and brother were only allowed to have supervised on-campus visits.
“The resident was allowed to leave the facility with the mother without notice to or authorization by the OKDHS child welfare case worker,” the report states. There was no written report describing the event in the resident’s file, and the case worker only learned about it days later when talking to the child.
The contract between Realations Community Services and OKDHS specifically states: “The Contractor shall accept responsibility for a reasonable knowledge of the resident’s whereabouts at all times.”
If any resident is “removed by anyone without authorization, is taken into custody by law enforcement officials, runs away or otherwise cannot be accounted for,” Realations must contact law enforcement and place a written report of the incident of the resident’s case and provide a copy to the case worker.
In his response to the Office of Juvenile System Oversight, Jackson wrote: “We did make a mistake by sending the resident home on a Thanksgiving pass to be with his mother.” He noted that since the report, the resident had been allowed regular visits – including off campus – with the mother.
Allegations that the residents were “mistreated,” “food was horrible” and that the facility was “filthy” were unfounded, investigators determined.
An earlier 2009 inspection was triggered by complaints that “staff were improperly restraining residents by taking them to the floor.”
Inspectors reviewed six cases where staff members had applied floor holds to restrain residents and determined that two cases “confirmed either neglect or caretaker misconduct due to a staff member applying a floor hold” not permitted under the facility’s allowed restraint techniques.
The facility indicated it would adopt use of another nationally recognized method of behavioral intervention that did allow the use of floor holds, according to the report.
202 police responses
The 150 police responses for runaway juveniles are among 202 police responses to the home since Jan. 1, 2009. Five of those calls dealt with alleged sex crimes.
Two of those calls are listed as molestation, and two are listed as sodomy, according to police records.
Furthermore, police have been called to the facility for 28 “simple assaults” and three assaults in the last three years, according to Police Department data.
Jackson’s written response to one of the 2009 inspection reports illustrates some of the challenges faced by staff at Realations with caring for the children who live there, many of whom have behavioral or emotional issues.
One child with “very special needs” had a brain tumor removed at an early age that left him with a left side similar to a “stroke victim,” has a rare disease that does not allow him to retain water and is legally blind.
John Sames and Elaine Armenio-Sames have volunteered at the home for nearly a decade with their church, Holy Apostle Orthodox Christian in Bixby. They provide food and gifts for the children each Christmas, and they and other families from the church hosted kids from the home for holiday meals.
Armenio-Sames said she remembered meeting Christopher Seaton at last year’s Christmas party and that he “was just really sweet and appreciative of all the gifts.”
Attention and time with families and volunteers means the world to the kids who live there, she said.
“Our experience is that these kids come from extraordinarily difficult backgrounds,” John Sames said. “Many are from homes where they’ve been totally abandoned and left to fend for themselves.”
Realations’ facility may appear meager, but the staff does “a good job” providing for the children with what they have, Sames said.
Help sought
Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of the driver or the pickup that fatally struck Christopher Seaton on I-44 in west Tulsa on the afternoon of April 7 and fled the accident scene is asked to call the Oklahoma Highway Patrol Troop B Headquarters in Tulsa at 918-627-0440. “
Uneasy memory: Group home runaway, 11, who was struck by truck had been in DHS custody since 2009
[Tulsa World 4/14/13 by Cary Aspinwall]
Update 2: “A staffer at a Tulsa group home resigned after an 11-year-old who fled the home was killed in an auto-pedestrian collision on Interstate 44 last April, Department of Human Services documents show.
Christopher Seaton and a 14-year-old resident escaped Realations Community Services of Oklahoma, 2026 W. Skelly Drive, through a hole in the fence of a neighboring business while outside with staffers and other residents on April 7, according to an investigative summary DHS recently provided to the Tulsa World.
The former staffer endangered two other residents who assisted him in pursuing the wayward boys across eastbound lanes of the interstate, the investigation found.
Christopher and his cohort attempted to cross Interstate 44 while running northwest from the facility, which is between Union Avenue and South 24th West Avenue, and Christopher was struck by three pickups around 4:20 p.m., state troopers said at the time. Two of the drivers stopped but the first to hit him, a westbound black pickup which would have sustained front-end damage, failed to stop and has yet to be found, said Capt. George Brown.
Troopers said Christopher was killed after hopping a concrete barrier. DHS specified he apparently tripped while crossing the median.
Christopher had been in DHS custody since 2009 and at Realations since December.
“The investigation determined that appropriate supervisory levels were in place at the time the two residents went AWOL and that actions of staff did not contribute to the death of the resident,” the summary states.
However, DHS found the former staffer was negligent in failing “to direct the two residents who assisted him to remain on the facility grounds.”
The summary said “it remains unclear” whether the staffer requested the residents’ assistance.
“As a result of their participation in the pursuit, they also witnessed the accident and its aftermath,” according to the document.
A second staffer was required to participate in new policy training and additional safety-related training after DHS found evidence of caretaker misconduct.
That staffer instructed five other residents to board one of the facility’s vans, which was then used to pursue the fleeing boys, placing “the residents in the van at possible risk of injury.”
Realations is a 32-bed Level D facility that houses children with “high behavioral and emotional needs” inside two former hotels, officials said.
Tulsa police responded to 150 calls reporting runaway juveniles from the facility between January 2009 and April 2013.
The investigation did not reveal why the boys had decided to flee the facility.
Realations owner Mark Jackson previously told the Tulsa World “to tell you the truth, sometimes there’s not even a reason, really. Sometimes, they’ve just had so much bad happen in their young lives, they don’t fathom worse things could happen.”
The neighboring business responsible for the fence has since repaired the hole.
Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of the pickup that fled the accident scene or its driver is asked to call the Oklahoma Highway Patrol Troop B Headquarters in Tulsa at 918-627-0440.”
Group home staffer resigns after runaway Oklahoma teen dies[Tulsa World 1/13/14 by Amanda Bland]
Update 3:”The parents of a boy who died while running away from a Tulsa group home have filed a federal lawsuit against the state Department of Human Services and against the company that operates the facility.
Tosha and James Seaton filed the lawsuit in Tulsa federal court, alleging that DHS, the group home and employees for both were negligent in their care of the couple’s 11-year-old son, Christopher, which they claim contributed to his death.
In addition to the negligence claims, the lawsuit seeks to have a judge declare that DHS failed to adequately fund programs designed to protect Christopher and other minors in the state agency’s care.
The Seatons have two other children who are in DHS custody, and the lawsuit claims that the parents were threatened with retaliation if they filed the lawsuit.
Christopher Seaton was a resident at Realations Community Services of Oklahoma on April 7, 2013, when he and another boy fled the premises, which is adjacent to Interstate 44 at 2026 W. Skelly Drive.
Seaton died after being struck by three vehicles while attempting to cross the highway.
The other youth was not injured.
Christopher had been in DHS custody since 2009 and at Realations since December 2012.
A subsequent DHS investigation found that Realations had appropriate supervisory levels in place at the time and that the actions of staff did not contribute to Christopher’s death.
However, the probe did find that a staff member was negligent in failing to direct two residents who assisted in the search to remain on the premises. The employee has since resigned.
The lawsuit states that Christopher “had a history of attempting to escape from DHS custody and group homes which DHS knew about and which Realations Community Service either knew or should have known about.”
Realations is a 32-bed, Level D facility that houses children with “high behavioral and emotional needs” in two former motels.
The facility had averaged two to three runaway reports to police per month during the four-year period leading up to Christopher’s death.
Realations owner Mark Jackson declined to comment on the lawsuit but did express sympathy for the parents.
“I really feel for their grief,” Jackson said.
“The loss of a kid — I can’t fathom it.”
Jackson said the number of runaway or AWOL reports at the facility has remained pretty consistent over time.
DHS wants group homes such as his to be “like a home environment for these kids … while they’ve been removed from their homes,” he said.
The lawsuit states that Christopher and two other siblings were initially placed in DHS custody due to a failure by the parents to protect them from abuse by a family member who resided outside the home.
“In 2009, parents were not mandatory reporters of suspected abuse and because the alleged abuser did not reside in the home the parents did not believe they were obligated to report to DHS,” the lawsuit says.
An attorney representing the parents could not be reached for comment.
The lawsuit claims that DHS “has pushed” to terminate the Seatons’ parental rights “even though the plan at the time of Christopher’s death was reunification of the family.”
The parents, in their complaint, also claim that a DHS worker told them that “their children would never be returned” if they pursued the lawsuit.
DHS declined to comment on the lawsuit.
However, a spokeswoman for the agency did say that generally DHS cannot make decisions regarding the termination of parental rights.
“The termination of parental rights is a decision made by a judge who considers information from the district attorney, DHS, the child’s attorney, the parents and their attorneys,” DHS spokeswoman Katelynn Burns said in an email.
The Seatons seek compensatory and punitive damages in excess of $75,000.”
Parents of juvenile hit by cars on highway sue DHS, care provider[Tuls World 1/3/15 by Curtis Skillman]
I was a witness I was there (