Tag: Child endangerment

FBI opens criminal investigations into violent Los Angeles County deputy encounters

LOS ANGELES — The FBI has opened criminal investigations into violent encounters involving Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies, including one in which a deputy punched a woman in the face as she held her baby.

Federal authorities visited the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department headquarters to take documents related to the probes, according to an email obtained by the newspaper, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

Department officials confirmed the visit and told the newspaper they planned to cooperate with investigators.

The second case being scrutinized by the FBI involves a deputy who threw a woman to the ground by her neck last month in a grocery store parking lot after she started recording an arrest with her cellphone.

In addition to the federal investigations, the California Department of Justice has agreed to review the case of 18-year-old Andres Guardado, who was shot in the back three years ago by a sheriff’s deputy in the city of Gardena, south of Los Angeles, the email said.

An FBI spokesperson would not confirm that agents were conducting a criminal investigation into either incident.

The internal county email obtained by the newspaper said that “federal criminal investigations have been opened concerning the recent incidents” in Palmdale and Lancaster, north of Los Angeles.

The Palmdale case involved a July 2022 traffic stop but did not become public until this week, when Sheriff Robert Luna called a news conference to release body camera footage and announce that the deputy involved had been relieved of duty.

The eight-minute video was taken during the traffic stop after Palmdale deputies spotted a vehicle being driven at night without any headlights. When they pulled it over, the deputies smelled alcohol and saw four women inside, three of them with babies in their arms rather than in car seats, authorities said.

The deputies began to arrest the women on suspicion of felony child endangerment, and used force on two of the women when they resisted giving up their babies. The bulk of the video shows a tense conversation between a group of deputies and one woman who clutches her baby while sitting cross-legged on the ground. The deputies are heard saying that the woman was riding in a car driven by someone without a valid license, and that her baby was not in a car seat.

After several minutes of back-and-forth, deputies pry the woman’s hands apart, and she begins screaming as the child is removed from her arms. Nearby, another woman holding a baby begins screaming and cursing at officers before deputies announce they plan to arrest her too.

As at least two deputies hold the woman by her wrists and arms, a third male deputy can be seen throwing two punches toward her head while she is still holding her baby. It is unclear in the video whether the punches connected with the woman’s head, but she howls in pain.

The FBI is also investigating a June 24 case when deputies responded to 911 calls reporting a robbery in progress at a grocery store in Lancaster. They encountered a man and a woman who they said matched the descriptions of the suspects given to 911, according to authorities.

As the deputies handcuffed the man in the parking lot, the woman began taking video with her phone. Within seconds, one of the deputies rushes toward her and reaches for her arm, seemingly in an attempt to take the phone.

“You can’t touch me,” she screams. The deputy throws her on the ground, and video shows him arguing with her, and at one point threatening to punch her. He then pepper-sprays her in the face and handcuffs her.

The man who was handcuffed was ultimately cited on suspicion of resisting an officer, attempted petty theft and interfering with a business. The woman was hospitalized for the effects of the pepper spray and for abrasions to her arm. She was released but cited on suspicion of assaulting an officer, as well as battery on allegations that she had assaulted store loss prevention personnel, the newspaper said.

Luna has vowed to overhaul the nation’s largest sheriff’s department since taking charge in December.

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July 15, 2023
Meat processor agrees to reform hiring after two teens were found at a Minnesota plant

OMAHA, Neb. — A second company involved in meat processing has agreed to reform its hiring practices after investigators recently discovered teenagers working there.

The Labor Department said Friday that Monogram Foods will pay a more than $30,000 fine as part of an agreement reached after a 16-year-old and 17-year-old were found to be working at the Memphis, Tennessee-based company’s Chandler, Minnesota, plant. Officials also ordered the company not to ship any products produced while the teens were employed at the plant that makes a variety of meat snacks, but normal operations resumed once they were fired.

Earlier this year, a separate investigation found more than 100 kids working overnight for a company that cleans slaughterhouses, handling dangerous equipment like skull splitters and razor-sharp bone saws. Packers Sanitation Services Inc., or PSSI, agreed earlier this year to pay a $1.5 million fine and update its hiring practices after investigators confirmed at least 102 kids were working for the company at 13 meat processing plants nationwide.

The Labor Department said it would focus on the problem in response to that PSSI investigation and a nationwide 69% increase in the number of children found to be employed illegally across all industries since 2018. The Biden administration also urged all meat processing companies to make sure children aren’t being hired to do dangerous work at their plants.

“The Department of Labor and the Biden-Harris administration see child labor as a scourge in this country and will not tolerate violations of child labor laws,” Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda said.

Monogram Foods said in a statement that the investigation found only two out of more than 400 workers at the plant were underage and that it appears they used falsified documents to get hired. An audit didn’t find any other juveniles working at Monogram’s 12 other plants in Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin.

“Our company does not want, and has a zero-tolerance policy for, ineligible underage labor and we have fully cooperated with this process,” Monogram Foods said. “We take our legal obligations and our longstanding commitment to compliance very seriously, and immediately terminated the two ineligible workers.”

The company that employs about 4,000 people nationwide produces a variety of private label meat snacks, appetizers, sandwiches, corn dogs and other convenience products. It is owned by private equity firm Pritzker Private Capital.

Monogram agreed to hire a consultant to review its hiring practices, recommend any needed changes and monitor compliance with labor laws at all the company’s plants over the next two years. The company said it also tightened up its hiring practices and will train managers to help them spot any possible underage workers.

Monogram said it will also set up a hotline where employees can anonymously report any concerns about labor law violations.

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July 7, 2023
Florida woman charged with child neglect after her car catches fire as she was allegedly shoplifting

A Florida woman faces aggravated child neglect and arson charges after her car became engulfed in flames while she was allegedly shoplifting at a mall

OVIEDO, Fla. — A Florida woman faces charges of aggravated child neglect and arson after her car became engulfed in flames while she was allegedly shoplifting at a mall, according to an arrest report.

Alicia Moore, 24, parked her car in a parking lot outside a Dillard’s department store at Oviedo Mall on May 26, according to an arrest report filed by the Oviedo Police Department. The report indicated Moore left children inside the vehicle. Their names and ages were redacted.

Security saw Moore and an unknown man shoplifting in Dillard’s, according to the report. After about an hour, Moore began leaving Dillard’s to see her car engulfed in flames and dropped the merchandise before she left the store.

Bystanders at the mall saw the car and rescued the children inside trying to escape the flames. The children were taken to Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children. One child suffered first degree burns “to her face and ears,” the arrest report said.

Moore has been charged with aggravated child neglect for allegedly allowing children who could not care for themselves alone inside the vehicle, according to the report.

Police said they don’t know what caused the fire but said it’s unlikely the children would been injured if Moore “was not being neglectful.” Moore was charged with arson because the fire occurred while she was allegedly committing a felony, the arrest report said.

The public defender’s office was representing Moore, according to court records. An email seeking comment sent to the office late Saturday was not immediately returned.

Moore is being held on $40,000 bail. A public defender filed a motion on Friday asking for Moore to be released without bail or to have the bail amount reduced “to a reasonable and affordable amount.”

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June 4, 2023
How and when to remove children from their homes? A federal lawsuit raises thorny questions

BOSTON — When child welfare workers and police knocked on Sarah Perkins’ and Joshua Sabey’s front door well past midnight one weekend last summer, the parents were shocked to learn the state of Massachusetts had come to take their two young sons.

It’s the kind of harrowing scene that plays out daily across the country as social workers motivated by a desire to protect children run up against confused and concerned parents.

What followed was emotional anguish, a bureaucratic battle, vindication for the parents and a lawsuit filed earlier this month by a legal advocacy group. The couple hopes for a favorable ruling that will increase oversight of child removals nationwide.

The children were taken in Massachusetts because of a child abuse report stemming from a hospital visit. On July 13, 2022, Perkins whisked their 3-month-old son Cal to an emergency room. He had a 103-degree fever.

An X-ray checking for pneumonia found a rib fracture the couple hadn’t noticed. After speaking with the boy’s grandmother, they learned the injury may have happened weeks earlier as she removed Cal from a car seat. He slipped, and she caught him with one arm.

Citing the fracture, hospital officials reported potential abuse to the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families.

“It was such a roller coaster — this total terror that we’re going to lose this child at the hospital and then complete relief after we’re allowed to go home with a safety plan,” Perkins said.

They returned to their Waltham, Massachusetts, home. DCF social workers made a surprise visit and found no evidence of abuse, according to the lawsuit.

Days later, around 1 a.m. on July 16, DCF workers and police officers knocked at their door to take both sons away. They didn’t have a warrant or a court order, neither of which are required to remove a child in Massachusetts and other states.

“It was intense. We see that these police officers are armed. We’re asking for paperwork and there’s none to be had,” Perkins said. “Eventually we were told that either we hand over the kids or they’re going to break down our door and take them by force.”

Within 24 hours, Sabey’s parents were allowed to act as foster parents. Four weeks later DCF let Sabey and Perkins take their children home, and after another three months and eventually about $50,000 in private attorney fees, the government restored full parental custody. A short time later the couple moved to Idaho.

The couple’s lawsuit alleges constitutional violations including the unreasonable search of their house, the unreasonable seizure of their children and the deprivation of parental rights without due process.

“What’s really frightening is that it happens a lot. What was unique was our ability to hire an attorney,” Sabey said.

The couple are plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit focused on parental rights and other issues. It asks for compensatory and punitive damages.

It’s also part of a legal strategy to set precedent nationwide “confirming the importance of parental rights and clarifying the need to include a neutral judge in child removal decisions unless there is an emergency situation involving a risk of imminent harm to a child,” said Glenn Roper, a lawyer for the foundation.

The lawsuit names individual social workers, police officers and the City of Waltham, not the DCF. That’s in part because state agencies effectively can’t be sued in federal court for damages, according to Joshua Thompson, Pacific’s director of legal operations.

Perkins and Joshua Sabey say they feel responsible to pursue the lawsuit because many other parents can’t pay private attorney fees.

Joyce McMillan wasn’t so fortunate.

She relied on a public defender 23 years ago when her two children were removed after a drug test turned up positive for what the New York resident described as an illicit substance. McMillan said she had a job, a home, and was providing for her children.

“A drug test is not a parenting test,” she said.

McMillan said she fell into a depression and became homeless before getting her children back more than two years later. She’s currently executive director of the nonprofit JMACforFamilies. The group advocates for dismantling the child welfare system, which it calls “the family policing system.”

Welfare agencies should be required to advise families that they have a right to an attorney and typically don’t have to let them speak to their children or enter their home without a court order, McMillan said.

If she had deeper pockets at the time, “absolutely there would have been a different outcome,” she said.

A representative from the City of Waltham had no comment on the Massachusetts case.

The DCF also declined to comment. DCF policy allows the removal of a child without a court order when needed to avoid “a substantial risk of death, serious emotional or physical injury or sexual abuse” and when there’s “inadequate time to seek” one, but it must immediately file an affidavit.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat, declined to comment on the lawsuit. She said her administration “is committed to making sure we do everything we can for the health and well-being of children and families.”

There are efforts to restrict the authority of child welfare agencies.

A bill before Massachusetts lawmakers would require child welfare workers get judicial approval within four hours of removing a child, according to bill sponsor Democratic state Rep. Joan Meschino. It would also make it easier for workers to contact judges outside of regular court hours, including overnight and on weekends.

An estimated 3 million children came under the scrutiny of child welfare agencies in the 2021 fiscal year. Nearly 600,000 were victims of mistreatment, according to a report by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families.

An estimated 1,820 children died from mistreatment during that same period.

The report found that 76% were victims of neglect while 16% were physically abused, and 10% were sexually abused.

The child welfare system can be particularly risky for Black and indigenous families, according to Dorothy Roberts, professor of Africana studies, law and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.

“The main reason why families get investigated is accusations of child neglect, which is basically defined as not meeting the needs of children like sufficient clothing or housing or child care,” she said. “It’s basically a definition of poverty.”

Instead of removing children, the government could help parents meet their needs, she argued.

Roberts pointed to a 2017 study that estimates more than one-third of all U.S. children will be the subject of a child abuse or neglect report before they turn 18, an estimate that jumps to more than half for Black children.

But social workers aren’t out to get children; they’re trying to protect them, said Yvonne Chase, president-elect of the National Association of Social Workers.

When a hospital, school, neighbor or older child reports mistreatment, social workers apply a risk assessment to determine how agencies should respond, she said.

“The child protective agency doesn’t create the reports of harm. Somebody calls us,” said Chase, a former head of child protective agencies in Alaska and Washington. “If a child is being seriously abused, they may be very happy to see that some relief is coming.”

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May 31, 2023
Iowa governor signs bill loosening child labor laws

Iowa teenagers could work more jobs and for longer hours under a bill signed into law Friday by Gov. Kim Reynolds

BySCOTT McFETRIDGE and HANNAH FINGERHUT Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa — Iowa teenagers could work more jobs and for longer hours under a bill signed into law Friday by Gov. Kim Reynolds.

The Republican governor signed the law after it was approved by the Legislature earlier in May with only Republican support. Several states are embracing a rollback of child labor laws in response to complaints from business owners that they can’t find enough workers. Iowa’s April unemployment rate was 2.7%.

“With this legislation Iowa joins 20 other states in providing tailored, common sense labor provisions that allow young adults to develop their skills in the workforce,” Reynolds said in a statement.

Child welfare advocates worry the measures represent a coordinated push to scale back hard-won protections for minors.

Legislators removed language in earlier versions of the bill that would have let state officials allow 14- and 15-year-olds to work in jobs now banned for minors. Some potentially dangerous work such as mining and meatpacking also would be off limits to those younger than 18.

The new law would let 16- and 17-year-olds work in areas such as manufacturing as long as it was in a work-based learning program given an exemption by the Iowa Department of Education or Iowa Workforce Development. Those jobs could potentially mean the teens would operate power saws or join in demolition.

Under the new rules, 16- and 17-year-olds also could serve alcohol in restaurants as long as business owners have written permission from the worker’s parent or guardian. Two adult employees would need to be in an area where the children served drinks, and restaurant employees would need to complete sexual harassment prevention training.

The law would also let children younger than 16 work up to six hours a day while school is in session. They previously could work no more than four hours.

Reynolds on Friday signed a dozen bills into law ahead of the Memorial Day holiday weekend, including high-profile legislation that bans instruction on gender identity from classrooms through grade six, and books that include sex acts from school libraries.

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May 26, 2023
Delaware woman pleads guilty to killing 3-year-old daughter, dumping remains on softball field

DOVER, Del. — A Delaware woman is facing decades in prison after pleading guilty to killing her 3-year-old daughter and dumping her burned remains on a softball field.

Kristie Haas, 31, pleaded guilty Thursday to murder by abuse or neglect, abuse of a corpse, and three counts of endangering the welfare of a child. Prosecutors are recommending a sentence of 50 years in prison on the murder charge, suspended for non-custodial supervision after 30 years behind bars. The murder charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. Prosecutors are recommending probation for the other counts and will drop several other felony and misdemeanor charges.

“Yes, your honor,” Haas repeatedly intoned softly as Superior Court Judge Noel Primos asked whether she understood the nature of the charges and the consequences of entering a guilty plea.

At the request of attorneys, Primos, who is not bound by the sentencing recommendation, deferred sentencing until July 10, the date on which a trial for Haas was to begin.

Prosecutor Kevin Smith said the delay will allow time for relatives of the victim, Emma Grace Cole, to make arrangements to travel from out of state to attend the sentencing.

Attorneys, in the meantime, will prepare sentencing memoranda. Smith said prosecutors are recommending a mental health evaluation of Haas. Defense attorney Patrick Collins told the judge that Haas is already being treated for bipolar disorder and depression.

“She is current on her medications,” he said.

The defense and prosecution disagree on whether Haas should be barred from having any contact with her three other children, as recommended by prosecutors, or whether she should be allowed contact pursuant to court orders.

Collins declined to comment as he left the courtroom. The court entered a partial gag order in June 2021 restricting what attorneys could say about the case, which has drawn widespread media attention.

The child’s body was found in September 2019 by a person walking a dog through Smyrna-Clayton Little Lass Fields, a softball park near Smyrna Middle School in central Delaware. At the time, Emma lived with her parents and siblings less than a mile from the ball field. Authorities believe Emma had been dead for several weeks before her body was found.

Haas and her husband, Brandon Haas, who was the child’s stepfather, were arrested in Pennsylvania in October 2020, more than a year after the child’s body was found. Both were originally indicted on felony charges of child abuse, child endangerment and hindering prosecution involving Emma’s death, as well as misdemeanor child endangerment charges involving her siblings.

Kristie Haas also was charged with felony assault, abusing a corpse and reckless burning. The charges against her were later upgraded to include two counts of murder.

Authorities alleged that the couple withheld food and medical care from Emma and subjected her to “torture or maltreatment,” while also subjecting her and her siblings to excessive forced exercise and inappropriate physical discipline.

A trial for Brandon Haas is set to begin July 10. He faces more than 40 years in prison if convicted on all charges.

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May 25, 2023
State lawmakers want children to fill labor shortages, even in bars and on school nights

MADISON, Wis. — As the federal government cracks down on child labor violations, some state lawmakers are embracing legislation to let children work longer hours and in more hazardous occupations.

The legislators, mostly Republicans, argue that relaxing child labor laws could ease nationwide labor shortages.

But child welfare advocates worry the measures represent a coordinated push to scale back hard-won protections for minors.

“The consequences are potentially disastrous,” said Reid Maki, director of the Child Labor Coalition, which advocates against exploitative labor policies. “You can’t balance a perceived labor shortage on the backs of teen workers.”

Lawmakers proposed loosening child labor laws in at least 10 states over the past two years, according to a report published last month by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Some bills became law, while others were withdrawn or vetoed.

Legislators in Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa are actively considering relaxing child labor laws to address worker shortages. Employers have struggled to fill open positions after a spike in retirements, deaths and illnesses from COVID-19, decreases in legal immigration and other factors.

Wisconsin lawmakers back a proposal to allow 14-year-olds to serve alcohol in bars and restaurants. If passed, Wisconsin would have the lowest such limit nationwide, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

The Ohio Legislature is on track to pass a bill allowing students ages 14 and 15 to work until 9 p.m. during the school year with their parents’ permission. That’s later than federal law allows, so a companion measure asks the U.S. Congress to amend its own laws.

Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, students that age can only work until 7 p.m. during the school year. Congress passed the law in 1938 to stop children from being exposed to dangerous conditions and abusive practices in mines, factories, farms and street trades.

Republican Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law in March eliminating permits that required employers to verify a child’s age and their parent’s consent. Without work permit requirements, companies caught violating child labor laws can more easily claim ignorance. Other measures to loosen child labor laws have been passed into law in New Jersey, New Hampshire and Iowa.

Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a law last year allowing teens aged 16 and 17 to work unsupervised in child care centers. The state Legislature approved a bill this month to allow teens of that age to serve alcohol in restaurants. It would also expand the hours minors can work. Reynolds, who said in April she supports more youth employment, has until June 3 to sign or veto the measure.

Republicans dropped provisions from a version of the bill allowing children aged 14 and 15 to work in dangerous fields including mining, logging and meatpacking. But it kept some provisions that the Labor Department say violate federal law, including allowing children as young as 14 to briefly work in freezers and meat coolers, and extending work hours in industrial laundries and assembly lines.

Teen workers are more likely to accept low pay and less likely to unionize or push for better working conditions, said Maki, of the Child Labor Coalition, a Washington-based advocacy network.

“There are employers that benefit from having kind of docile teen workers,” Maki said, adding that teens are easy targets for industries that rely on vulnerable populations such as immigrants and the formerly incarcerated to fill dangerous jobs.

The Department of Labor reported in February that child labor violations had increased by nearly 70% since 2018. The agency is increasing enforcement and asking Congress to allow larger fines against violators.

It fined one of the nation’s largest meatpacking sanitation contractors $1.5 million in February after investigators found the company illegally employed more than 100 children at locations in eight states. The child workers cleaned bone saws and other dangerous equipment in meatpacking plants, often using hazardous chemicals.

National business lobbyists, chambers of commerce and well-funded conservative groups are backing the state bills to increase teen participation in the workforce, including Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political network and the National Federation of Independent Business, which typically aligns with Republicans.

The conservative Opportunity Solutions Project and its parent organization, Florida-based think tank Foundation for Government Accountability, helped lawmakers in Arkansas and Missouri draft bills to roll back child labor protections, The Washington Post reported. The groups, and allied lawmakers, often say their efforts are about expanding parental rights and giving teenagers more work experience.

“There’s no reason why anyone should have to get the government’s permission to get a job,” Republican Arkansas Rep. Rebecca Burkes, who sponsored the bill to eliminate child work permits, said on the House floor. “This is simply about eliminating the bureaucracy that is required and taking away the parent’s decision about whether their child can work.”

Margaret Wurth, a children’s rights researcher with Human Rights Watch, a member of the Child Labor Coalition, described bills like the one passed in Arkansas as “attempts to undermine safe and important workplace protections and to reduce workers’ power.”

Current laws fail to protect many child workers, Wurth said.

She wants lawmakers to end exceptions for child labor in agriculture. Federal law allows children 12 and older to work on farms for any amount of time outside of school hours, with parental permission. Farm workers over 16 can work at dangerous heights or operate heavy machinery, hazardous tasks reserved for adult workers in other industries.

Twenty-four children died from work injuries in in 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Around half of deadly work incidents happened on farms, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office covering child deaths between 2003 and 2016.

“More children die working in agriculture than in any other sector,” Wurth said. “Enforcement isn’t going to help much for child farm workers unless the standards improve.”

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Harm Venhuizen is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Venhuizen on Twitter.

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May 25, 2023
State lawmakers want children to fill labor shortages, even in bars and on school nights

MADISON, Wis. — As the federal government cracks down on child labor violations, some state lawmakers are embracing legislation to let children work longer hours and in more hazardous occupations.

The legislators, mostly Republicans, argue that relaxing child labor laws could ease nationwide labor shortages.

But child welfare advocates worry the measures represent a coordinated push to scale back hard-won protections for minors.

“The consequences are potentially disastrous,” said Reid Maki, director of the Child Labor Coalition, which advocates against exploitative labor policies. “You can’t balance a perceived labor shortage on the backs of teen workers.”

Lawmakers proposed loosening child labor laws in at least 10 states over the past two years, according to a report published last month by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Some bills became law, while others were withdrawn or vetoed.

Legislators in Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa are actively considering relaxing child labor laws to address worker shortages. Employers have struggled to fill open positions after a spike in retirements, deaths and illnesses from COVID-19, decreases in legal immigration and other factors.

Wisconsin lawmakers back a proposal to allow 14-year-olds to serve alcohol in bars and restaurants. If passed, Wisconsin would have the lowest such limit nationwide, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

The Ohio Legislature is on track to pass a bill allowing students ages 14 and 15 to work until 9 p.m. during the school year with their parents’ permission. That’s later than federal law allows, so a companion measure asks the U.S. Congress to amend its own laws.

Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, students that age can only work until 7 p.m. during the school year. Congress passed the law in 1938 to stop children from being exposed to dangerous conditions and abusive practices in mines, factories, farms and street trades.

Republican Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law in March eliminating permits that required employers to verify a child’s age and their parent’s consent. Without work permit requirements, companies caught violating child labor laws can more easily claim ignorance. Other measures to loosen child labor laws have been passed into law in New Jersey, New Hampshire and Iowa.

Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a law last year allowing teens aged 16 and 17 to work unsupervised in child care centers. The state Legislature approved a bill this month to allow teens of that age to serve alcohol in restaurants. It would also expand the hours minors can work. Reynolds, who said in April she supports more youth employment, has until June 3 to sign or veto the measure.

Republicans dropped provisions from a version of the bill allowing children aged 14 and 15 to work in dangerous fields including mining, logging and meatpacking. But it kept some provisions that the Labor Department say violate federal law, including allowing children as young as 14 to briefly work in freezers and meat coolers, and extending work hours in industrial laundries and assembly lines.

Teen workers are more likely to accept low pay and less likely to unionize or push for better working conditions, said Maki, of the Child Labor Coalition, a Washington-based advocacy network.

“There are employers that benefit from having kind of docile teen workers,” Maki said, adding that teens are easy targets for industries that rely on vulnerable populations such as immigrants and the formerly incarcerated to fill dangerous jobs.

The Department of Labor reported in February that child labor violations had increased by nearly 70% since 2018. The agency is increasing enforcement and asking Congress to allow larger fines against violators.

It fined one of the nation’s largest meatpacking sanitation contractors $1.5 million in February after investigators found the company illegally employed more than 100 children at locations in eight states. The child workers cleaned bone saws and other dangerous equipment in meatpacking plants, often using hazardous chemicals.

National business lobbyists, chambers of commerce and well-funded conservative groups are backing the state bills to increase teen participation in the workforce, including Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political network and the National Federation of Independent Business, which typically aligns with Republicans.

The conservative Opportunity Solutions Project and its parent organization, Florida-based think tank Foundation for Government Accountability, helped lawmakers in Arkansas and Missouri draft bills to roll back child labor protections, The Washington Post reported. The groups, and allied lawmakers, often say their efforts are about expanding parental rights and giving teenagers more work experience.

“There’s no reason why anyone should have to get the government’s permission to get a job,” Republican Arkansas Rep. Rebecca Burkes, who sponsored the bill to eliminate child work permits, said on the House floor. “This is simply about eliminating the bureaucracy that is required and taking away the parent’s decision about whether their child can work.”

Margaret Wurth, a children’s rights researcher with Human Rights Watch, a member of the Child Labor Coalition, described bills like the one passed in Arkansas as “attempts to undermine safe and important workplace protections and to reduce workers’ power.”

Current laws fail to protect many child workers, Wurth said.

She wants lawmakers to end exceptions for child labor in agriculture. Federal law allows children 12 and older to work on farms for any amount of time outside of school hours, with parental permission. Farm workers over 16 can work at dangerous heights or operate heavy machinery, hazardous tasks reserved for adult workers in other industries.

Twenty-four children died from work injuries in in 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Around half of deadly work incidents happened on farms, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office covering child deaths between 2003 and 2016.

“More children die working in agriculture than in any other sector,” Wurth said. “Enforcement isn’t going to help much for child farm workers unless the standards improve.”

___

Harm Venhuizen is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Venhuizen on Twitter.

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May 24, 2023
Firm that hired kids to clean meat plants keeps losing work

OMAHA, Neb. — The slaughterhouse cleaning company that was found to be employing more than 100 children to help sanitize dangerous razor-sharp cutting equipment like bone saws has continued to lose contracts with the major meat producers since the investigation became public last fall.

For its part, Packers Sanitation Services Inc., or PSSI as it is known, said it has taken a number of steps to tighten up its hiring practices but it says the rising number of child labor cases nationwide is likely related to the increase in the number of minors crossing the U.S. border alone in recent years.

The scandal that followed the February announcement that PSSI would pay a $1.5 million fine and reform its hiring practices as part of an agreement with investigators also prompted the Biden administration to urge the entire meat processing industry to take steps to ensure no kids are working in these plants either for the meat companies or at contractors like PSSI.

Federal investigators confirmed that children as young as 13 were working for PSSI at 13 plants in Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Tennessee and Texas. It wasn’t immediately clear if any additional children have been found working for the company because PSSI declined to answer that and government officials haven’t offered an update on the investigation since February.

The Labor Department has said there has been a 69% increase since 2018 in the number of children being employed illegally nationwide, and it has more than 600 child labor investigations underway. Officials have said they are particularly concerned about the potential exploitation of migrants who may not even have a parent in the United States.

PSSI maintains that it prohibits hiring kids and the only way children could have been hired is “through deliberate identity theft or fraud at a local plant. Regardless of the reason they occurred, it is our responsibility to address the problem.”

“As has been widely reported, the recent record rise in unaccompanied minors from abroad and rising prevalence of identity theft has clearly revealed new vulnerabilities in the area of underage labor across hundreds of different businesses including ours,” PSSI spokesman Ray Hernandez said.

Cargill, Tyson Foods and JBS have all terminated contracts with PSSI at at least some of their plants — particularly any plants where Labor Department investigators confirmed children were working — although Cargill went furthest and cut ties with the Kieler, Wisconsin-based company entirely. One of other meat processing giants, Smithfield Foods, said only that it is taking a close look at its contracts with PSSI, which currently cleans about one-third of the company’s 45 plants, to ensure that all labor laws are being followed.

Those four companies, along with National Beef, control over 80% of the beef market and more than 60% of the pork market nationwide. National Beef didn’t respond to questions about its actions.

Cargill spokeswoman April Nelson said the company notified PSSI in March that it would end all 14 of its contracts because “we will not tolerate the use of underage labor within our facilities or supplier network.”

Tyson and JBS officials also reiterated their commitment to eliminating child labor in their plants, and they said each of their companies had ended PSSI contracts at several plants. But they declined to provide specific numbers about how many contracts they cut and how many plants PSSI is still cleaning for them.

“Tyson Foods is committed to compliance with all labor laws and holding those we do business with to the highest standards of accountability,” said Dan Turton, a senior vice president at Tyson, in a letter to members of Congress about their child labor concerns. He promised Tyson would step up its audits of contractors and continue cooperating with federal officials to ensure its own hiring meets all standards.

The major meat processors say they are looking to bring more of the cleaning work at their plants in house, but they will likely continue to rely on contractors in many places. Tyson, for instance, said that its own workers clean about 40% of its plants.

PSSI wouldn’t say how many workers it has laid off after losing contracts, but the way it describes itself on its website hints at the job losses. PSSI now says it has about 16,500 employees nationwide working at more than 400 plants, down from the more than 17,000 it cited last fall before the investigation. Still, it remains one of the largest cleaners of food processing plants.

PSSI says it is going above and beyond what the official court agreement required to ensure no kids are working there. And the company, which is owned by the New York-based private equity firm Blackstone, named a new CEO who just took over last week after its longtime top executive retired after 24 years.

PSSI hired a former U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer to help strengthen the training its managers get to spot identity theft, and brought on a former Labor Department official to conduct monthly unannounced checks on its practices. The company also set up a hotline for employees to anonymously report any concerns.

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May 1, 2023
Meat plant cleaning service fined $1.5M for hiring minors

MINNEAPOLIS — One of the country’s largest cleaning services for food processing companies employed more than 100 children in dangerous jobs at 13 meatpacking plants across the country, the U.S. Department of Labor said Friday as it announced over $1.5 million in civil penalties.

The investigation into Packers Sanitation Services Inc., or PSSI, began last summer. Department officials searched three meatpacking plants owned by JBS USA and Turkey Valley Farms in Nebraska and Minnesota, and found 31 underage workers as young as 13. They also searched PSSI’s headquarters in Kieler, Wisconsin. Underage workers were found at plants in eight states.

The department went on to review records for 55 locations where PSSI provided cleaning services and found even more violations, involving children ages 13 to 17. The agency obtained a temporary restraining order in November and a permanent injunction in December, when PSSI entered into a consent judgment that committed the company to no longer employ minors illegally.

Over the past three years, children were found to be using caustic cleaning chemicals and cleaning “dangerous power-driven equipment, like skull-splitters and razor-sharp bone saws,” Jessica Looman, principal deputy administrator of the department’s Wage and Hour Division, told reporters.

At least three of those minors, including a 13-year-old, suffered burns from the chemicals used for cleaning at the JBS plant in Grand Island, Nebraska, officials said.

Some of the children worked overnight shifts and were also enrolled in schools during the day, department spokeswoman Rhonda Burke said in an email.

The fine PSSI paid on Thursday, $15,138 for each minor, is the maximum allowed under federal law. But investigators believe the company actually employed many more than the 102 children they verified. Under the consent judgment, Looman said, PSSI must identify and remove them from dangerous work.

“Make no mistake, this is no clerical error, or actions of rogue individuals or bad managers,” Looman said. “These findings represent a systemic failure across PSSI’s entire organization to ensure that children were not working in violation of the law. PSSI’s systems in many cases flagged that these children were too young to work, and yet they were still employed at these facilities.”

The company’s vice president of marketing, Gina Swenson, said in a statement Friday that the company has “a zero-tolerance policy against employing anyone under the age of 18.”

As soon as PSSI became aware of the allegations, she said, it conducted audits and hired an outside law firm to help strengthen its policies. PSSI has also conducted additional training for hiring managers, including on spotting identity theft, she said.

None of the minors identified by federal investigators still work for PSSI, and the Department of Labor “has also not identified any managers aware of improper conduct that are currently employed” by the company, Swenson added.

PSSI has said it employs about 17,000 people working at more than 700 locations nationwide, making it one of the largest food-processing-plant cleaning companies.

The 13 plants where violations were found were in Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Tennessee and Texas. The ones with the most violations were the JBS plant in Grand Island, Nebraska, where PSSI employed 27 minors; the Cargill plant in Dodge City, Kansas, where 26 children worked; and a JBS plant in Worthington, Minnesota, where 22 minors worked. The Labor Department also searched a Tyson facility in Sedalia, Missouri, but found no verifiable violations there.

The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents meatpacking plant workers, called PSSI “one of the worst actors” in the industry.

“Paying a simple fine is not enough, their entire business model relies on the exploitation of workers, vicious union-busting tactics, and the violation of human rights,” Marc Perrone, the union’s international president, said in a statement. He called on the meatpacking industry to use its power over contractors like PSSI to end the exploitation of children for good.

Asked about the immigration status of the children, Labor Department solicitor Seema Nanda said the department focuses only on whether they are minors.

And because the department is a civil law enforcement agency, officials can’t comment on whether any of the plants might face criminal charges or whether any of the children were victims of labor trafficking, said Michael Lazzeri, regional administrator of the department’s Wage and Hour Division. He said any detected trafficking is referred to other agencies.

Looman said the Wage and Hour Division has seen around a 50% increase in child labor violations since 2018, including minors working more hours than permitted in otherwise legal jobs, using types of equipment they shouldn’t while doing legal jobs, and children working where they should never be employed in the first place.

“Nobody under 18 should be working in a meat processing plant,” she said.

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February 17, 2023
Meat plant cleaning service fined $1.5M for hiring minors

MINNEAPOLIS — One of the country’s largest cleaning services for food processing companies employed more than 100 children in dangerous jobs at 13 meatpacking plants across the country, the U.S. Department of Labor said Friday as it announced over $1.5 million in civil penalties.

The investigation into Packers Sanitation Services Inc., or PSSI, began last summer. Department officials searched three meatpacking plants owned by JBS USA and Turkey Valley Farms in Nebraska and Minnesota, and found 31 underage workers as young as 13. They also searched PSSI’s headquarters in Kieler, Wisconsin. Underage workers were found at plants in eight states.

The department went on to review records for 55 locations where PSSI provided cleaning services and found even more violations, involving children ages 13 to 17. The agency obtained a temporary restraining order in November and a permanent injunction in December, when PSSI entered into a consent judgment that committed the company to no longer employ minors illegally.

Over the past three years, children were found to be using caustic cleaning chemicals and cleaning “dangerous power-driven equipment, like skull-splitters and razor-sharp bone saws,” Jessica Looman, principal deputy administrator of the department’s Wage and Hour Division, told reporters.

At least three of those minors, including a 13-year-old, suffered burns from the chemicals used for cleaning at the JBS plant in Grand Island, Nebraska, officials said.

Some of the children worked overnight shifts and were also enrolled in schools during the day, department spokeswoman Rhonda Burke said in an email.

The fine PSSI paid on Thursday, $15,138 for each minor, is the maximum allowed under federal law. But investigators believe the company actually employed many more than the 102 children they verified. Under the consent judgment, Looman said, PSSI must identify and remove them from dangerous work.

“Make no mistake, this is no clerical error, or actions of rogue individuals or bad managers,” Looman said. “These findings represent a systemic failure across PSSI’s entire organization to ensure that children were not working in violation of the law. PSSI’s systems in many cases flagged that these children were too young to work, and yet they were still employed at these facilities.”

The company’s vice president of marketing, Gina Swenson, said in a statement Friday that the company has “a zero-tolerance policy against employing anyone under the age of 18.”

As soon as PSSI became aware of the allegations, she said, it conducted audits and hired an outside law firm to help strengthen its policies. PSSI has also conducted additional training for hiring managers, including on spotting identity theft, she said.

None of the minors identified by federal investigators still work for PSSI, and the Department of Labor “has also not identified any managers aware of improper conduct that are currently employed” by the company, Swenson added.

PSSI has said it employs about 17,000 people working at more than 700 locations nationwide, making it one of the largest food-processing-plant cleaning companies.

The 13 plants where violations were found were in Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Tennessee and Texas. The ones with the most violations were the JBS plant in Grand Island, Nebraska, where PSSI employed 27 minors; the Cargill plant in Dodge City, Kansas, where 26 children worked; and a JBS plant in Worthington, Minnesota, where 22 minors worked. The Labor Department also searched a Tyson facility in Sedalia, Missouri, but found no verifiable violations there.

The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents meatpacking plant workers, called PSSI “one of the worst actors” in the industry.

“Paying a simple fine is not enough, their entire business model relies on the exploitation of workers, vicious union-busting tactics, and the violation of human rights,” Marc Perrone, the union’s international president, said in a statement. He called on the meatpacking industry to use its power over contractors like PSSI to end the exploitation of children for good.

Asked about the immigration status of the children, Labor Department solicitor Seema Nanda said the department focuses only on whether they are minors.

And because the department is a civil law enforcement agency, officials can’t comment on whether any of the plants might face criminal charges or whether any of the children were victims of labor trafficking, said Michael Lazzeri, regional administrator of the department’s Wage and Hour Division. He said any detected trafficking is referred to other agencies.

Looman said the Wage and Hour Division has seen around a 50% increase in child labor violations since 2018, including minors working more hours than permitted in otherwise legal jobs, using types of equipment they shouldn’t while doing legal jobs, and children working where they should never be employed in the first place.

“Nobody under 18 should be working in a meat processing plant,” she said.

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February 17, 2023
Homicide suspect mistakenly freed from jail faces new counts

Authorities say an Ohio man facing charges in two homicide cases, including the drug-related death of his infant son, was involved in another slaying after he was mistakenly released from jail

COLUMBUS, Ohio — An Ohio man facing charges in two homicide cases, including the drug-related death of his infant son, was involved in another slaying after he was mistakenly released from jail late last month, authorities said.

David A. Johnson III, 20, of Columbus, was released from the Franklin County Jail on Nov. 29 after a county courts staffer accidentally made an error while filing a form, The Columbus Dispatch reported. Johnson’s attorney arranged for him to turn himself in after the mistake was discovered, but Johnson did not do so.

Authorities said Johnson and two other people were involved in an attempted robbery at a gas station in Columbus on Dec. 13 that ended with the shooting death of a 21-year-old man. Johnson then remained at large until he was arrested Monday night.

Johnson was initially charged with murder and other counts in an April 2021 shooting in Columbus that left his mother wounded and killed a 26-year-old man. He was placed on house arrest later that year, but a judge revoked that last month after Johnson was charged and jailed in the death of his year-old son.

Authorities said the boy died after ingesting drugs while in Johnson’s care, and he initially was charged with drug possession and child endangerment. After an autopsy showed fentanyl in his son’s system, Johnson was also charged with involuntary manslaughter.

A motion was filed Nov. 29 to dismiss Johnson’s initial charges in municipal court, and county prosecutors were planning to seek an indictment in the county’s Common Pleas court. Despite the dismissal, Johnson should have remained in jail since his bond had been revoked, but he was freed that day because the clerical error meant jail officials were never notified that he should not be released.

Johnson’s lawyer has declined to comment.

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December 21, 2022
Behind the Lens: Chronicling years-long abuse — with care

Associated Press photographers talk about their 2022 assignments, and share some of the stories behind the images.

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THE PLACE: Bisbee, Arizona, United States

THE STORY: Seven years of sex abuse: How Mormon officials let it happen

THE PHOTOGRAPHER: Dario Lopez-Mills

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ON HOW TO PHOTOGRAPH SOMETHING FROM THE PAST WITHOUT VISUALS REALLY AVAILABLE:

This was a story that had happened many years ago. And we were going to go to a little town in Arizona, where nothing was really there to photograph that related to this. The father of these kids had already taken his life in prison. And this is basically a legal case that was coming up. Mike Rezendes had obtained more than 12,000 court documents, and his intent was to show that the church had known about the abuse for many, many years and did nothing. That led to a lot of ideas of how we would shoot this.

I suggested at one point that, that we try to photograph it with a panoramic film camera. It was suitable for the landscape that we were going to encounter. This is a place that is in the middle of the desert, and there’s not very much. There’s these wide-open spaces, and the home where these people lived is not exactly in Bisbee itself. It’s kind of on the outskirts. We wanted to suggest that these horrible things were happening in a little house that was surrounded by nothing. And at the same time, we quickly realized that we wanted to never show the faces of those involved. We wanted to be very careful.

ON PHOTOGRAPHING WITH A PANORAMIC CAMERA:

I wanted to convey that sense of space of the town and the surrounding areas. And using an analog film camera was suggestive of photographing something that had happened in the past. It suggested that archival look to it. When I suggested this, there was a lot of hesitancy from a lot of people about it. My commitment to them was that while I would buy the film and get it developed and get it scanned, I would shoot everything I shot in the panoramic camera with a digital camera, too. So in case the panoramics did not work out, we could always go back to the digital format. And that was really important because that gave me the OK to continue working that way.

ON CAPTURING THE STORY’S NUANCED THEMES:

A lot of the story had to do with innocence lost. That’s why I found myself going to abandoned and empty children’s playgrounds in this town. That was kind of a way for me to visualize that lost innocence. The landscape is a town that has perhaps has seen better times because it was a mining town that was very a booming town. And now it’s a place where a lot of retirees live. It doesn’t have a lot of children. There’s this old part of town that’s how it looked in the 1950s. That kind of suggested a little bit of an eeriness, too.

ON HOW THIS STORY WASN’T QUITE WHAT HE EXPECTED:

It’s also a huge story about love, in the sense that these two children are recovering from something really traumatic, and a lot of it has to do with how these children were fortunately adopted by very loving parents, adoptive parents, who have really nurtured them and tried to give them as normal a life as possible. That was something that we really tried to convey — that this was a story of resilience and of recovery.

— Interview by Leslie Mazoch

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December 16, 2022
Ex-cop guilty of murder in freezing death of 8-year-old son

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — A jury convicted a former New York City police officer on Friday of second-degree murder in the death of his 8-year-old son, who was forced to sleep overnight on the concrete floor of a freezing garage.

Michael Valva was found guilty of four counts of child endangerment and faces a maximum potential sentence of 25 years to life. Thomas Valva died in January 2020, the day after sleeping in the garage in the family’s Long Island home in temperatures that dropped under 20 degrees (minus 6 Celsius).

Friday’s verdict came on the first day of deliberations after a month’s worth of testimony.

A medical examiner ruled the boy’s death a homicide and found that hypothermia was a major contributing factor. Prosecutors said Thomas and his 10-year-old brother were both on the autism spectrum and were at times forced to sleep in the garage.

According to prosecutors, the boys spent 16 consecutive hours in the freezing garage leading up to the 8-year-old’s death, Newsday reported. Prosecutors also alleged Michael Valva did nothing to help him as the boy died in front of him and then lied to police and first responders.

The child endangerment counts stemmed from the beating and starving of both boys. Their teachers testified the boys came to school with bruises and often were so hungry they ate crumbs off the floor, according to the newspaper.

“While there is nothing that we can do to bring Thomas back, we are satisfied with the jury’s decision,” Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney said in a statement. “Michael Valva subjected his sons to horrific abuse, neglect and cruelty. He will now pay for cutting short the life of a young, innocent, defenseless boy who had a lifetime ahead of him.”

Valva’s then-fiancee, Angela Pollina, also faces child endangerment and second-degree murder counts and is awaiting trial. She has pleaded not guilty.

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November 4, 2022
Toddler left behind in locked rental car at Florida airport

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — A toddler was left behind accidentally in a locked rental car when it was returned by her grandfather to a central Florida airport, and she wasn’t discovered by an employee until 45 minutes later, authorities said Tuesday.

The girl, who is less than 2 years old, was found in a car in the return lot by a Hertz employee at Daytona Beach International Airport Monday evening, according to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office.

“The child was scared and hot, but thankfully in good health when checked by paramedics,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. “Deputies arrived to find the employee carrying the child, whose face was warm and streaked with dried tears, but was breathing normally.”

Not long after the girl was discovered, her mother called to say that her father had left her daughter accidentally in the rental car while babysitting her and that she was on her way to be reunited with her daughter, the sheriff’s office said.

The grandfather was charged with one count of child neglect.

The grandfather “was remorseful and cooperative with deputies,” the sheriff’s office said.

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October 11, 2022