DHS report finds lack of oversight in Stott-Smith case

DHS report finds lack of oversight in Stott-Smith case
By Thom Jensen KATU News and KATU.com Staff


Summary

A report from the Department of Human Services indicates there was abuse going on in the home years before a mother threw her two children off a bridge, killing one of them.
Story Published: May 21, 2010 at 5:24 PM PDT Story Updated: May 21, 2010 at 5:25 PM PDT
Amanda Stott-Smith. File photo.


PORTLAND, Ore. - A report from the Department of Human Services indicates there was abuse going on in the home years before a mother threw her two children off a bridge, killing one of them.

A year ago this week 32-year-old Amanda Stott-Smith forced her 4-year-old son and his 7-year-old sister from the Sellwood Bridge.

Eldon, the 4-year-old, drowned from the 75-foot fall, but the girl was rescued by a couple who heard her screams for help.

The report from the DHS’ Critical Incident Response Team said team members were “concerned with the Department’s history of response in this case to reports of domestic violence where children were present.”

The report also said abuse in the Smith’s home dated back even before the couple’s children were born and escalated in the months leading up to the tragedy on the bridge.

Officials with the DHS said they are taking this seriously.

“We try to make sure that 100 percent of the time we are protecting children,” said Gene Evans, a spokesman for DHS. “That didn’t happen in this case, and that’s why a CIRT team was called.”

The CIRT found records that DHS had contact with the family dating back to June 2000.

One record showed the children’s father was arrested in June 2000 for holding Amanda by the wrists to prevent her from leaving and for interfering with a 9-1-1 call.

And in August 2000, another domestic call reported one parent was strangled by the other. In May 2001, there was child neglect when a 4-year-old girl was left in a hot car. In January 2003, June 2006, August 2008 and October 2008 there were reports of child abuse in the Stott-Smith home but the DHS never stepped in to stop it.

“I think anytime a child is injured or a child is killed, it makes us reflect: Did we miss something? Did we do everything we could have done, and I think those questions get asked all of the time by caseworkers and certainly by us here in Salem,” Evans said.

The agency even had pictures of injuries to a child, but DHS said it could not accept them as evidence under its rules.

The report recommends the agency change its policy of not accepting photographs of abuse taken by family members or the public.

It is a policy DHS may change but only after it finds a solution that weed out doctored photographs.

“It’s easy to fake a photograph with digital photography and Photoshop and those kinds of things,” Evans said. “We need to make sure that the reports we are getting and the evidence we are using is accurate.”

Evans admitted the system broke down in this case but said the system works 99.9 percent of the time.

“It wasn’t true here and a child was killed. And we want to make sure that doesn’t happen again,” he said.

The agency said it is looking at the report to see if it can make changes to the system to better identify children at risk in cases like this.

As far as the surviving child, a court said she can live with her father. And according to DHS, he is abiding by a court order to provide a healthy and loving home.

Read the CIRT report (pdf)

http://www.katu.com/news/local/94630704.html