Open Thread: Negligence, Incompetence and Loss Edition

Hat-tip Johnny Venom. It's a horrible story¹ -- a 14 year old girl dies of wasting away under the most piteous, awful conditions:

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District Attorney Lynne Abraham said any of the nine could have foreseen the horrific fate of Danieal, whose emaciated body was found in her mother's squalid house covered with bone-deep, maggot-infested bedsores in August 2006.

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A 258-page grand jury report recommending the charges said not only that Andrea Kelly refused to get her daughter food, water and medical treatment, but that she repeatedly prevented one of her other children from calling an ambulance "for his obviously dying sister."

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The mother was not the only one who got charged. A total of nine defendants were charged with counts ranging from involuntary manslaughter to perjury.

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Two employees of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health, a now-defunct company that DHS hired to provide social services to Danieal, falsified documents to cover up the fact they rarely, if ever, checked on her, the grand jury said.

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Children are supposed to be our future, perfect or not. Danieal Kelly had cerebral palsy, and couldn't act in her own best interest; apparently, even the efforts by one of her own siblings who tried to aid her were thwarted. What kind of a world have we wrought, and what will the future be like if we don't spur ourselves to get up, stand up and push to correct the things that are broken within the systems we've built and upon which those who cannot help themselves depend? This is an Open Thread, in memory of Danieal Kelly -- may she rest in peace, and may we act swiftly to ensure that no other child is left behind to die such an ungentle death. _________________________ Footnotes _________________________

1. Story is by Kathy Matheson of the Associated Press; the originally-located piece came via Johnny Venom's diary on DailyKos and pointed to a Yahoo! News page containing the piece.