Johnston County, N.C.
In an interview with NBC 17 on Thursday, Johnston County Sheriff, Steve Bizzell spoke out about what he sees as the willful failure of the Johnston County DSS, on-call social workers, to respond to calls from the Sheriff's department to help children in need.
According to Sheriff Bizzell, this "total disregard for public safety" has been occurring for over a year.
"As Sheriff, I'm going to do my job. Enough's enough, I'm sick of it, its disgusting and I'm not going to tolerate it anymore."
"If the Johnston County Social Workers on call are not going to meet the needs of the Johnston County children, I'm going to be on the steps of the Governor's mansion finding out who is going to be.", stated Bizzell.
Sheriff Bizzell discussed two instances where deputies had requested assistance from DSS, which he says, were met with a failure to respond or refusal to come to the home.
In one of the cases, a young mother was being arrested for drugs and had no one to look after her baby. According to Sheriff Bizzell, DSS was called, but refused to come to the home.
Director of DSS, Earl Marett told NBC 17 that a social worker spoke with the mother by phone and helped her find someone to keep the baby.
The other case involved a 6 year old that was home alone for at least 7 hours before deputies were called. Bizzell says that calls to DSS, again, ended in no response.
Director Marett, denies receiving a call the night of this incident, but stated that a worker did go to the home the next day.
Marett, also disputed the Sheriff's accusations, saying that his department always has workers available to help children.
Yet, County Commissioner, Lillian "Cookie" Pope told NBC 17 that she doesn't doubt what the Sheriff is saying because she has heard complaints from other law enforcement agencies.
"There is a problem and it needs to be addressed", stated Pope.
An understanding was reached Friday night, in a closed door meeting attended by Sheriff Bizzell, Director Marett and two county commissioners.
In this meeting Sheriff Bizzell and Director Marett concluded their departments were having communication issues and both assumed part of the blame for those issues.
As for the "laziness and neglect" allegations Bizzell aimed at DSS, he now acknowledges, that his department might have been lazy and neglectful too.
In addition to improving communication between the departments, two new on-call workers will be added to the night shift to help meet the needs of the community.
NBC 17 reports that Marett and Bizzell also agreed to establish protocol for these cases and to work together to educate both departments on their individual responsibilities.
In response to NBC 17's hard questions Merritt stated,
“Sometimes the other party thinks we just don't want to do anything, but we may not be legally able to,” Merritt explained. “People do have legal rights too, and the other side is people feel we get involved too much in people's lives.”
Although the concerns of Bizzell have been addressed, there are other complaints about this county DSS department and their response to requests by law enforcement to help when children need assistance.
An ABC News 11 interview with State Highway Patrol Trooper, Jack Thorpe, reveals that last summer, in a life changing event, he pulled over a car containing three children who were being "beaten and abused".
"When we called Johnston County Child Protective Services, they told us they'd get back with us... and then we waited for 2.5 hours," revealed Thorpe, in this interview.
Thorpe and the children waited on the side of the road, in the hot sun, for two and a half hours before DSS called back and informed Trooper Thorpe that it wasn't their case either.
Going above and beyond the call of duty, Trooper Thorpe took the children home with him until their mother could come and pick them up.
Last year he was a receipiant of the Governor's Award, for his heroic behavior.
According to North Carolina's Protective Services Manual:
"Protective services for children known or alleged to be abused, neglected or dependent are mandated by State law. Protective services must be available to children in each county of the State 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The county Director of Social Services is responsible for provision of these services."
All reports of abuse, even those by law enforcement, must be screened to see if they fit the legal definition of abuse, neglect, or dependency.
If it is found that a report does meet the legal definition of abuse, neglect, or dependency, then the report is screened in and the appropriate response time determined by consulting the Response Priority Decision Tree, these decisions trees help determine how quickly a response to the report of abuse, neglect or dependency needs to be made.
In cases of physical abuse, as the one described by Trooper Thorpe, an immediate response would probably be justified.
It is unknown at this time if non-law enforcement reporters are also experiencing difficulties getting Johnston County DSS on-call social workers to respond to their reports of abuse, neglect or dependency.
Comments