City and state release separate reports on death of Zymere Perkins
The New York City and state agencies overseeing child welfare each released their own reports late Tuesday showing the results of their separate investigations into the circumstances surrounding the September death of Harlem six-year-old Zymere Perkins.
Both reports drew roughly the same conclusions: that Perkins, whose death was ruled a homicide caused by child abuse after he was allegedly beaten to death by his mother’s boyfriend, had been failed by the layers of caseworkers and child protective specialists who were supposed to protect him.
The New York State Office of Children and Family Services’ report concluded that the city’s Administration for Children’s Services had repeatedly failed to do thorough case work in recent years, despite multiple reports from mandated reporters and observers that suggested Perkins was being physically abused.
Perkins’ mother was the subject of five separate investigations by ACS over a period from June of 2010 to April of 2016, three of which found enough evidence of neglect to be “substantiated.” But in its 27-page draft report, OCFS said ACS “did not conduct thorough investigations,” or “follow regulatory standards” in its handling of those reports.
Less than half an hour after OCFS released its findings in the Tuesday case, the city released its own investigation. Its findings were similarly bleak.
Among the people who were supposed to protect the boy, the city found “numerous and significant failures to thoroughly investigate issues regarding Zymere’s safety and welfare, both by ACS staff and one of our provider agencies.”
“The death of Zymere Perkins is an unacceptable tragedy. This mission of ACS is to ensure the welfare of every child, but in this case, the City failed,” the report said.
The two reports paint a heartbreaking picture of Perkins’ repeated physical injuries and warning signs he was being abused over a period of years. They show a boy who admitted that he did not “get to eat good” if he was “bad” and told child protective workers he “gets bruises on his head and knees.”
Even Zymere’s birth came under a cloud of possible neglect. His mother was reported for being high on marijuana when the child was born, a report that was later found to be unsubstantiated. She would be the subject of four more reports of neglect or abuse before Zymere’s death.
Between 2015 and 2016, Zymere had been the subject of three separate reports of neglect, around the same time his mother Geraldine, still in her 20s, had begun to date a man almost twice her age, 42-year-old Rysheim Smith, a man with a “documented history of domestic violence,” according to the city report.
In June of 2015, an anonymous person reported witnessing Zymere being abused in a public park, telling ACS officials that Rysheim Smith had “hit Zymere with excessive force ‘at least 20 times’ on his buttocks and legs for not listening while at a picnic,” while his mother was present, and did not intervene, the city report found.
“The report also noted that Mr. Smith hit the child hard enough that the source sitting at the picnic table was able to hear the slaps from each hit,” the ACS report said.
Later that summer, according to the city report, Zymere told interviewers looking into reports of abuse that his mother’s boyfriend “had placed him under a cold shower with no clothing as a form of punishment,” and “stated that his mother was present during the incident and had yelled at him and slapped him in the face.”
Zymere also told interviewers, “Mr. Smith made him do five pushups and beat him with a belt when he misbehaved,” charges Smith denied before eventually admitting that he placed Zymere in the shower to get him to behave.
In a separate incident, Zymere told interviewers “that Mr. Smith beat him with a belt when he misbehaved.”
Child protective specialists “failed to further investigate the claims of corporal punishment,” despite those claims having come up in an earlier investigation, the city report found.
“Mr. Smith’s history, combined with the physical abuse allegations involving Zymere, should have led caseworkers to probe more deeply about potential domestic violence,” the report found.
That school year, Zymere was regularly late to school and was absent 24 times, despite living only a block away from his school, the city’s report found.
In the fall of the school year, Zymere’s injuries worsened. His mother said he had fallen from a scooter in one incident. In another incident, in January, Zymere lost teeth, which his mother blamed on a fall on ice. He missed school the whole week.
In February, a staff member at Zymere’s school reported Zymere had “a series of suspicious injuries,” including “a ‘fractured jaw’ four months earlier in October 2015, scratches near his eye a few weeks earlier, and a knocked-out tooth the previous week,” the city report said. Zymere’s mother blamed all of the injuries on falls and threatened to withdraw him from the school. The staff member made a note that Rysheim Smith was “known to be rough” with the boy, the report said.
Both the state’s and the city’s reports said ACS staff repeatedly failed to follow up on the often-conflicting information from Zymere’s mother about the nature of his injuries, and never investigated further by interviewing neighbors, relatives or medical providers who could have substantiated or disproven Geraldine Perkins’ accounts of her son’s injuries.
According to the city’s report, ACS case workers and the preventive services staff at St. Luke’s had “failed to locate/contact Zymere’s family members; failed to further investigate signs of domestic violence; failed to attach sufficient importance to Zymere’s mother’s ability to care for him in the investigative process; failed to seek medical examinations for Zymere despite allegations of serious physical abuse; and failed to directly contact relevant medical and mental health providers and to obtain appropriate releases to obtain records.”
The state’s report, which was completed on Dec. 1, ordered ACS to “hire an external, OCFS approved monitor” by January 28, who would “conduct a comprehensive evaluation of ACS’ Child Protective and Preventive services programs,” and submit monthly reports to both the city and state.
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the city’s plans to hire an independent monitor to oversee ACS earlier in on Tuesday, but he failed to give any indication that the decision was prompted by a direct order from the state.
De Blasio denied Tuesday morning that the state would have approval power over the city’s appointment of an independent monitor, characterizing the selection of such a person as a collaborative effort, rather than a state-mandated one in response to the agency’s faults.
“We’re going to name an independent monitor for ACS. And we’re going to work with the State Office of Children and Families to do that,” de Blasio told reporters Tuesday.
Asked if OCFS would be required to approve the appointment, de Blasio replied, “No, we will choose someone. We’ll choose someone who we think is independent and exceptional, and has the kind of background that really would bring a good set of eyes to the situation.”
A de Blasio spokeswoman confirmed late on Tuesday that OCFS would indeed have the power to approve the appointment. City hall did not respond when asked why the mayor had mischaracterized the decision to hire an independent monitor earlier.
The city will also be required to submit a “corrective action plan” to the state identifying how it plans to address problems in the agency by January 28 next year, under the OCFS order.
City Hall also announced plans to take further disciplinary actions against the people involved in handling the boy’s case, describing disciplinary measures that had already been taken against nine ACS staff members. The agency had begun the process of firing three employees, while it had suspended two without pay and demoted four others after 30-day unpaid suspensions.
The publication of both reports comes against the backdrop of the announcement Monday that Gladys Carrion, the city’s ACS commissioner, plans to resign from the de Blasio administration. Perkins’ death marked a low point in Carrion’s tenure as ACS commissioner — a veteran child welfare advocate, she was widely respected by many of the city’s service providers.
But Carrion had appeared beleaguered in the months following Perkins’ death, including breaking down in tears at a City Council oversight hearing called to examine the case.
The city on Tuesday announced a set of 15 reforms it would undertake to address the factors it said had contributed to Perkins’ death.
The reforms include plans to increase the number of staff and enhance case reviews at the city’s child advocacy centers; require ACS participation in decisions to end preventative services in some “high-risk” cases; establish new Department of Education protocols for reporting when children miss more than 10 days of school; begin enhanced training for caseworkers to spot signs of physical abuse; establish ACS liaisons at the city’s five district attorney’s offices; and require school nurses to photograph any injuries when child abuse is suspected.
“This report uncovered a troubling series of lapses and missed opportunities in ACS’s failed effort to protect Zymere Perkins,” de Blasio said in a statement released Tuesday night.
“Procedures were not followed, common sense was not exercised, and due diligence was lacking up and down the chain of command responsible for Zymere. I will not accept excuses for this failure and I will not accept the notion that every single one of these tragedies cannot be prevented,” he said. “The buck stops with me.”
Read the state’s report here:http://politi.co/2hr6PeC
Read the city’s report here: http://politi.co/2gye8gj