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Tag: child welfare
Reinstated NFL Star Peterson Says ‘I’m Not A Child Abuser’

Reinstated NFL Star Peterson Says ‘I’m Not A Child Abuser’

Minneapolis (AFP) — Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, reinstated on Monday by the NFL team, declared he was not a child abuser despite charges of injuring his four-year-old son with blows from a switch.

Peterson, who was deactivated from the playing roster for Sunday’s 30-7 home loss to New England, is able to return to practice with plans to play next Sunday at New Orleans.

The Vikings sidelined Peterson last Friday after he was charged in Texas with reckless or negligent injury to a child after using a tree branch to spank his son with blows so hard he still bore the marks days later.

“I am not a perfect son. I am not a perfect husband. I am not a perfect parent, but I am, without a doubt, not a child abuser,” Peterson said in a statement released by the Vikings.

“I am someone that disciplined his child and did not intend to cause him any injury. No one can understand the hurt that I feel for my son and for the harm I caused him. My goal is always to teach my son right from wrong and that’s what I tried to do that day.”

Peterson surrendered himself to Texas authorities early Saturday morning and was released on bail with a trial not expected until next year, after the end of the season.

Later Monday, Peterson’s lawyer Rusty Hardin refuted a report by KHOU-TV in Houston that Peterson is under investigation on allegations he injured another son in June of 2013.

According to the report, Peterson allegedly disciplined the boy for “cussing to a sibling,” resulting in an injury to the four-year-old’s head.

Hardin said in a statement quoted by the Pioneer Press of St. Paul, Minnesota, that the allegation of another investigation “is simply not true.”

“This is not a new allegation, it’s one that is unsubstantiated and was shopped around to authorities in two states over a year ago and nothing came of it,” Hardin said. “An adult witness adamantly insists Adrian did nothing inappropriate with his son. There is no ongoing or new investigation.”

Peterson said Monday that he knew many had strong opinions on the issue of corporal punishment of children and his conduct in particular.

“Regardless of what others think, however, I love my son very much and I will continue to try to become a better father and person,” he said.

– Peterson was hit as a child –

Peterson said he was imposing the same discipline to his son that had been used upon him as a child.

“I have learned a lot and have had to re-evaluate how I discipline my son going forward,” Peterson said. “I have always believed that the way my parents disciplined me has a great deal to do with the success I have enjoyed as a man.

“I love my son and I will continue to become a better parent and learn from any mistakes I ever make.”

Peterson said he has met with a psychologist over the matter and had learned there are “other, alternative ways of disciplining a child that may be more appropriate.”

Peterson said his attorney has asked that he not discuss details of the case.

“Nevertheless,” he said, “I want everyone to understand how sorry I feel about the hurt I have brought to my child.”

Peterson said he told a grand jury and two different police interviews without a lawyer that it was never his intention to harm his son.

– Vikings owners vow vigilance –

Before Peterson’s statement, Vikings’ owners Zygi and Mark Wilf, in a statement on the team’s website, defended their decision to let legal matters play out before making any more steps to bench the star rusher.

“We take very seriously any matter that involves the welfare of a child. At this time, however, we believe this is a matter of due process and we should allow the legal system to proceed so we can come to the most effective conclusions and then determine the appropriate course of action.”

Peterson’s scandal hit the world’s richest sports league the same week the league saw an uproar over star rusher Ray Rice, who was fired by the Baltimore Ravens and banned indefinitely by the NFL after a video was released showing him brutally punching the woman who is now his wife in a hotel elevator.

AFP Photo/Dilip Vishwanat

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The Profound Urgency Of DCF Reform

The Profound Urgency Of DCF Reform

With much chest thumping, Florida governor Rick Scott last week signed a law clipping auto-tag fees by about $25 per vehicle in the state. He used the opportunity to blast former governor Charlie Crist for raising those fees five years ago.

What Scott cynically failed to mention during the bill-signing charade was that all the top Republicans standing at his side had also supported the auto-tag hikes. It was the depth of the recession, and the state desperately needed revenue.

Scott himself is desperate to appear gubernatorial because Crist, running as a Democrat, will likely be his opponent in the November election. The auto-tag fee cut was the centerpiece of a tax-relief agenda being pushed by the governor, who trails Crist in the early polls.

Two of the GOP lawmakers who were crowing about this grand windfall for motor vehicle owners have an infinitely more important job in the days ahead. House Speaker Will Weatherford and Senate President Don Gaetz have a chance to do something truly crucial and good.

They can shape a law that saves actual lives — the lives of endangered children.

Bills that would strengthen Florida’s child welfare laws are winding through both houses of the Legislature following publication of TheMiami Herald’s shocking investigative series, Innocents Lost.

The newspaper documented the deaths of at least 477 children whose parents or caregivers had a history with the state’s Department of Children and Families. During the six-year period studied by reporters, DCF consistently under-reported the number of victims in its files who died because of violence or negligence by parents and caregivers.

In 2008, for example, the state said the death toll was 79. Using DCF’s own records, Herald reporters found 103 fatal cases that year.

Then, in 2009, the state reported that 69 children whose families had prior contact with DCF had died. Reporters counted 107.

The uncounted die just as wretchedly — and as unnecessarily — as the counted.

One of the most awful, notorious cases involved Nubia Barahona, a 10-year-old Miami girl who’d been tortured and starved by her adoptive parents. Soaked in poisonous chemicals, her decomposing body was found inside a black garbage bag on a pest-control truck.

Three years after the murder, the DCF still hasn’t sent her case to the Florida Child Abuse Death Review Committee. Incredibly, Nubia’s death remains officially uncounted.

The child-welfare system has been overwhelmed and broken for a long time, but that hasn’t stopped lawmakers from hacking millions in DCF funding. But this year Florida has accumulated an extra $1.3 billion in revenues, so there’s no excuse not to take action to stop the killings.

Scott has proposed $40 million to hire more DCF investigators and improve their training. That’s a start, but drug-treatment and counseling programs are also needed for those who’ve been allowed to keep custody of their children while under supervision.

The sad truth is that there aren’t enough good foster homes to let the state move all the kids now living with reckless parents in high-risk situations. In recent years the DCF has bent over backwards to hold dysfunctional families intact, too often with lethal consequences.

In 83 cases found by the Herald, a little boy or girl died after one or more parents had signed a so-called “safety plan” pledging to take better care of the child. The Senate version of the reform bill aims to make these safety plans more than just a piece of paper.

The measure would also require prompt and complete reporting of certain child deaths, and offer tuition-aid incentives for social workers who want to become child-abuse investigators.

Still, the Senate bill provides only $31 million in extra funding for child protection. The House version calls for $44.5 million.

“It’s tragic where Florida finds itself,” said House Speaker Weatherford last week.

He and Senate President Gaetz have the clout — and a moral obligation — to make other lawmakers understand the profound urgency of DCF reform. Children who are known to be in danger are dying anyway, and the state can’t even properly count how many.

With $1.3 billion in unanticipated revenue lying around, the governor and Legislature can afford to invest more than a drop in the bucket to help Florida’s most helpless children.

Lowering auto-tag fees by 25 bucks might be cause for giddy backslapping in Tallahassee, but saving even one child from a tortuous death would be a more noble accomplishment.

And one you can’t put a price on.

(Carl Hiaasen is a columnist for The Miami Herald. Readers may write to him at: 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132.)

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr