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Terrell Peterson (1992 – January 15, 1998) was a five-year-old boy from Atlanta, Georgia who was tortured and beaten to death while his case was under active state supervision. He was one of more than 800 children who died between 1995 and 1998 after their cases were brought to the attention of the Georgia Department of Human Services' (DHS) Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS). Some of the deaths were due to accident and illness, while others, like Terrell's, were due to murder. When Terrell died he weighed only 29 pounds and was covered with cuts, bruises and cigarette burns.〔Did 5-year-old Terrell have to die? (1-17-99) By Jane O. Hansen ''Atlanta Journal-Constitution''〕 Various individuals within the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services engaged in gross misconduct and violation of state-mandated protocols for handling child abuse cases. After the murder, officials within the department engaged in a willful cover-up of the facts in the case. Terrell's case was considered to have been one of the worst cases of child abuse in Fulton County.〔(''60 Minutes'':State Of Neglect )〕 According to lawyer Don Keenan, who sued the state of Georgia on Terrell's behalf: ==Abuse== The Fulton County Department of Family and Children Services received seven calls between 1992 and 1995 in reference to neglect of Terrell or his siblings: *The mother is taking drugs while pregnant, using food stamps and welfare checks to buy crack cocaine (May 1992). *The parents are locking the children in the bedroom on weekends, denying them food and water (August 1993). *Mother is on drugs, children are unsupervised (February 1994). *Children are begging neighbors for food, mother is using cocaine daily (January 1995). *Mother is addicted to crack, leaves children with their sickly maternal grandmother (November 1995). The complaints were handled by 11 different caseworkers, overseen by 10 supervisors at The Georgia Department of Family and Children Services, yet nothing was done until June 1996 when the department took custody of Terrell from his mother. According to protocol children taken into custody by child services should ideally be placed with blood relatives, receive at least one in-person visit with an agency caseworker per month and under no circumstances is corporal punishment to be administered by foster parents. Terrell was placed in the care of Pharina Peterson, the grandmother of Terrell's half brother and half sister who was not directly related to him. While in her custody agency caseworkers had little to no contact with Terrell and there were no monthly visits. The case came to light when Terrell was brought to the emergency room of Hughes Spalding Children's Hospital in Atlanta in cardiac arrest, where he subsequently died. During the course of the homicide investigation police discovered that Terrell had been physically restrained with pantyhose tied to a banister in the apartment. According to another child living in the home, Tasha, Peterson tied Terrell up "a lot." The police also found a set of written instructions for Terrell's care, allegedly authored by Peterson: "He gets a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, lunch he gets grits, and dinner he gets grits. His hands are always tied." Terrell's Head Start teacher, Joanne Bryant, found him rummaging in a trash can at school looking for food. This occurred prior to a Thanksgiving Day beating in 1996, which necessitated a trip to the emergency room where he was diagnosed with Battered child syndrome. Pharina Peterson was arrested and indicted on misdemeanor charges. Terrell, who had previously implicated Peterson on record as the one who assaulted him, was scheduled to testify in person at the trial. However, his caseworker, Cheryl Elmore, who was responsible for bringing Terrell to court, never showed up. Terrell's and her absence were never questioned and the charges were dismissed by municipal court judge Catherine E. Malicki because "the victim was not in court".〔The Condemnation of Little B. By Elaine Brown p. 91〕 To cover her already egregious transgression, Elmore concocted a fraudulent backdated internal memo which was placed in Terrell's file; that the trial did indeed occur, no evidence of child abuse was found and the charges were dismissed as a result. According to Elmore, "The judge believed Ms. Peterson (and) did not feel she was guilty of child abuse." This alleged finding despite the medical evidence and the results of the police investigation, along with the lack of substantiating court documents, was never questioned by her supervisors. As a result, Terrell was deemed to be "safe," his file was closed and he was returned to the custody of Peterson. According to Peggy Peters, director of the department, "Again, I can't speak for Miss Elmore" and "I certainly would not have made that decision." When Terrell went back to the same Head Start class he was in prior to the assault, Bryant, his teacher, noticed he wasn't walking right, when she took off his sneakers she noticed that the flesh on the soles of both his feet had been burned off. This was again alleged, posthumously, to have been inflicted by Peterson as retribution for telling authorities about her previous assaults. The burns were severe enough to necessitate skin grafts, skin was taken from his hips and transplanted onto the soles of his feet. Despite the severity of these injuries no investigation was done, no charges were brought and Terrell was never visited by anyone from child services from the time of these injuries until his murder a year later. The coroner listed Terrell's cause of death as; "blunt impact injuries to the head, trunk and extremities."〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ga-supreme-court/1406309.html )〕 This resulted in Fran Peterson being charged with capital murder. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Terrell Peterson」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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