Child Injury Lawyer Blog
By Jonathan Safran, Attorney and David Wolf, Attorney
Published by Child Injury Lawyer Network
A federal civil rights lawsuit has been filed by Samster, Konkel & Safran, S.C., a Milwaukee law firm, on behalf of the father of a five month old child who was drowned by his mentally ill mother after a Wisconsin social services agency, working with the State of Wisconsin and the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare, left the child in the care of his mother for an unsupervised visit. After making the initial decision to remove the child from the mother’s care four months earlier, due to concerns with her mental health history, emotional instability and threats of violence, the agencies involved then failed to monitor the mother’s medication compliance and mental stability before choosing to allow for the unsupervised visit. In October, 2007, shortly after leaving the child in the mother’s care, the mother put the child in the bathtub, left him alone, and came back later to find him floating lifeless. She then removed the child, dressed him, and called her mental health social worker to report that something was wrong with the child. The police and emergency medical care providers responded, but the child could not be revived. After claiming that “I gave my baby to God,” the mother was charged criminally, she was convicted, and she is now serving a fifteen-year prison term for second-degree reckless homicide. Earlier, the Judge assigned to the child’s case left the decision on any unsupervised visits between the mother and the child to be “at the discretion of the bureau.” The lawsuit alleges that the agencies involved failed to adequately train, supervise and discipline its workers, including the workers in this case, leading to the tragic result.
Elouise Wade-Meria Taylor, a 51-year-old woman and and Aiken County, South Carolina day care owner, has been charged with homicide by child abuse. Taylor is accused of shaking a 16-month-old toddler in her care so hard that the toddler sustained fatal head trauma. The alleged incident occurred on August 5, 2010. The child’s identity has not been released. It was reported that a neighbor of Taylor, Shirnell Bryant, says Taylor has cared for children at her home day care center for years and has never witnessed anything out of the ordinary. Taylor will be entitled to a criminal defense attorney. If you would like to read more on this story please see 
Unfortunately Mississippi has been ranked as the State with the highest rate of child deaths in the nation. This is a distinction or ranking that no State would ever relish or want. The Child Death Review Panel for the Mississippi Department of Health has a mission to study the death rates, causes of death, and work to reduce these numbers or statistics. Each year, the Mississippi Child Death Review Panel studies these very important issues and then makes recommendations in hopes of preventing deaths to Mississippi children from causes or dangers that can be removed or lessened through the work and efforts of parents, care givers, driver, and health care providers. See 
Tragically in Kansas and other States, children are the unfortunate victims of injury and even death in day care centers. In Olathe, Kansas, a day care operator was recently convicted for the death of a 18 month old. The incident took place at the day care center in 2009. It was the child’s first day at a day care center and also her last day of life. Ava Patrick’s head got stuck in the slats of a wooden fence. She suffocated as a result of the incident. The case eventually made it to a criminal jury trial against the operator of the Kansas day care center. A jury convicted Jeanette L. Lawrence, age 47, of involuntary manslaughter. The day care center was overcrowded and understaffed.
A shooting occurred at a privately-owned off-campus fraternity house in New Jersey. A Seton Hall University student said the gunman stood on her back while firing off rounds, apparently with no intended target. The party started on a Friday evening and went into early Saturday, with at least 100 people in attendance. According to students, the shooter was kicked out of the party earlier in the evening for refusing to pay cover to get into the house. The Seton Hall University student stated she heard a fight erupt before the gunman was kicked out and moments later he returned with a handgun and started shooting.
A Fairfax County day care worker was arrested and is being held on a charge that he molested a four-year-old girl. The man was arrested while trying to flee the country. The day care worker was identified as 22-year-old Siyamand Salehzadeh, he was an employee at Minnieland Day care center in the Centreville area of Virginia.
Karl Marshall Walker, Jr., a 38-year-old teacher’s aide, was found guilty of sexually abusing a third-grade student at Bryant Woods Elementary School. Walker’s conviction sets precedent in the state of Maryland for a sex crime conviction without evidence of inappropriate physical contact. Walker worked at the school for over three years. During that time he wrote dozens of love letters to the 8-year-old girl upon which he was convicted. These letters contained Walker’s desire to kiss the girl and requests that she kept the correspondences between them secret.
A 19-year-old Milford teenage boy who worked as a day care worker was arrested on September 10 for allegedly downloading child pornography onto his computer. According to a spokesman wit the Department of Justice, Pennsylvania authorities contacted Milford police as well as agents with the Delaware Child Predator Task Force when authorities linked some pornographic images to a Delaware computer. After being notified, local police went to the teenager’s home and found numerous files of child sexual exploitation.