Jousting

From the Palm Beach Post-

Records opened Tuesday in the case of the Loxahatchee home where a malnourished woman was found lying in filth show intense conflict between a road patrol deputy and a Department of Children and Families investigator who thought the deputy was not moving quickly enough to make an arrest.

Palm Beach County sheriff’s Lt. Michael Reardon said Tuesday that the DCF investigator was right about that: His office probably did have enough evidence to arrest Rosy Younger at the unlicensed facility she ran at 11991 66th St. N. sooner than May 30.

You mean Florida’s Department of Children and Families aka DCF can do something right for a change? Heavens to Betsy.

Actually it is a little more complicated.

Those records show tension between DCF and sheriff’s office workers, who traded unusually personal barbs in their reports. Each believed the other was not doing enough on the case.

Supervisors at DCF and at the sheriff’s office both said their workers were committed to helping the victims but should have taken their disagreement up the chain of command.

We all know how passing it to superiors works when it comes to DCF. Anyone remember Andrea Lang?

The DCF records show plenty of blame to go around.

DCF got its first report that Younger’s home was dirty on Nov. 28 and heard concerns that day from a county fire-rescue worker that people with disabilities and mental illness were sleeping on mattresses on the floor, according to a full version of an internal report released Tuesday.

The DCF investigator found that the alleged victim’s bed linens were a little dirty but failed to interview other residents about the living conditions there.

Both the sheriff’s deputy on that call and the DCF investigator made the mistake of treating Younger as a good Samaritan who was letting people live in the home at low rents, instead of realizing that the home violated state laws that regulate assisted living facilities, according to the DCF report.

The home violated the law but neither police or DCF knew or just didn’t care? Read the rest of the Post article to see how unprofessional the individuals involved in this case were. Our elderly and children deserve much better than this from both DCF and law enforcement.

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