The mother of an eight-year old boy shot and killed by the biological son of his foster parents was denied the right to sue the social workers responsible in the case. According to the Joplin Globe:
"Braxton Wooden Jr. was shot in the head by Mark and Treva Gordon’s 14-year-old biological son, [Ethan] on June 2, 2005, during a game of “cops and robbers” with a handgun taken from a bedroom closet of the Gordons’ home.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis decided that because there was no evidence that the social worker and her supervisor had any knowledge of the presence of unsecured firearms in the home, the case did not rise to the standard of “conscience-shocking conduct” required to override a qualified immunity from lawsuits under which the Department of Social Services and state social workers operate."
When the social workers come to my house to do a six-month update of our foster license, they always ask "are any guns in your home in a locked cabinet?" To which we reply that we have no guns in our home. Every time I am shocked that a foster license is an option for gun-owners at all. Call me a big-city elitist, but a I don't believe a locked cabinet would stop a determined 14-year old any more than a bedroom closet would. And it's clear in this case that the 14-year old was determined to play with his parents' guns. He lied to investigators at first, claiming the eight-year old had shot himself. Later, other foster children who had stayed in the home testified that they had been chased by the boy more than once while he brandished "one or more of three handguns that were in the home" and had seen him loading and unloading the guns.
If the social workers aren't responsible for this tragedy, who is? Because when the state takes the drastic step of removing a child from the home of his birth, it had better make sure that the place it puts that child is safer than home. Protecting the professionals responsible for assuring this when they fail is not in the best interest of children. Not only should this boy's mother be allowed to sue the state, she should be awarded huge punitive damages to teach the state a lesson.
See also:
The Trouble with Safe Haven Laws
Court Finds Fault with Many in Baby's Death
Arkansas Adoption Ban Passes
Bad Parent: Why We Keep a Gun in the House
Image: Foster City
