DCF in the News Again

The goings-on in front of six young kids at 647 NW Third Ct. in Hallandale Beach — the dope smoking and drinking, the yelling, cursing and threats — was so disturbing to an observer that she called the state’s child abuse hotline.
“It is just terrible,’’ the woman told the hotline operator just after the New Year. “Horrible.’’
Four days later, the 21-year-old mother of some of those children, Brittney Sierra, would be arrested for child neglect, which could be the least of her problems.
Investigators dug up the remains of an infant in a nearby yard on Friday. They might be Sierra’s son, Dontrell Melvin. If they are, Sierra, 21, could be charged with murder along with the boy’s father, Calvin Melvin, 27.
The scene at the house Sierra and her children shared with her mother, Renee Menendez and her children, shouldn’t have been a surprise to child-welfare workers, considering how many times they’d been there.
Department records indicate 30 contacts with Menendez, a KFC manager in her 40s who was raising four children ranging in age from 8 to 11 — Sierra’s half siblings.
Like her daughter Sierra, Menendez has now lost all of her children. Department of Children and Family workers moved them to a state home over the weekend.

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Miami Lakes teen arrested for school Twitter threats

In the wake of last week’s deadly school shooting in Connecticut, Miami-Dade police have arrested a 16-year-old student at Miami Lakes Educational Center who threatened on Twitter to “shoot up this school this Friday.”
Austin Lee Bowlin was charged with making a threat to injure others after he sent a series of tweets, via cellphone, after his principal made a safety announcement on the school’s loudspeaker Monday morning.
On Friday, a 20-year-old named Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 students and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn, before killing himself. The carnage has caused national outrage and prompted school districts around the country to review safety plans.

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‘Thanks for Ruining My Life:' A teen tweets against her attackers—and upends the courts.

“Savannah Dietrich says she was furious when she blasted out a defiant tweet this summer, naming two boys who had sexually assaulted her. ‘There you go, lock me up. I’m not protecting anyone that made my life a living Hell,’ the 16-year-old high-school student wrote.”
 
Read more of this article at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/12/09/thanks-for-ruining-my-life.html

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DCF worker in Rilya’s case testifies in court

The first indication of trouble came in the form of Rilya Wilson’s case file: It seemed unusually thin.
State child welfare worker Dora Betancourt, who took over the 5-year-old foster child case in April 2002, examined the paperwork and noticed that no one had checked on Rilya in more than a year.
After a series of phone messages to Rilya’s foster mother, Betancourt came face-to-face with Geralyn Graham in the driveway of her Kendall home.
“Where’s Rilya?” Betancourt asked.
“Oh, I thought you were bringing her back,” Graham said, according to Betancourt, who testified Wednesday during Graham’s murder trial in Rilya’s disappearance.
Betancourt told jurors Wednesday that Graham’s story unfolded in a bizarre and confusing fashion. She said an unnamed Department of Children and Families worker whisked the 5-year-old away for some sort of mental health evaluation more than a year before
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/12/05/3127856/employee-who-discovered-rilya.html

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As FBI investigated Petraeus, he and Allen intervened in nasty child custody battle

“Then-CIA Director David Petraeus and Gen. John Allen, commander of  U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, intervened in a Washington, D.C., custody battle in September, writing letters on behalf of a woman who was found by a judge to have ‘severe personal deficits in the areas of honesty and integrity.'”
Read More at:
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/13/15147228-as-fbi-investigated-petraeus-he-and-allen-intervened-in-nasty-child-custody-battle?lite
 

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"Stand Your Ground" In the News Again

Ernesto Che Vino, the Miami-Dade homeowner cleared of assaulting two utility company workers under the state’s controversial self-defense law, is back behind bars — this time, police say, for raping his neighbor.
His case drew headlines in November 2010 when a judge, citing the state’s controversial Stand Your Ground law, ruled Vino was justified in pointing his rifle at two Florida & Power Light workers trying to shut off his electricity.
The utility company, which has the legal right to enter a property to shut off delinquent accounts, protested the decision. After the judge’s ruling, the company added undisclosed extra “security measures” when turning off powerr to homes.
Vino, 44, was arrested last week and charged with sexual battery. His 22-year-old neighbor told Miami-Dade detectives that Vino “covered her mouth with his hand to keep her from screaming,” then threatened to punch her before raping her, according to an arrest report.

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