Spokane7
68°
February 5, 2012 in GoGolf News
DSHS official explains visitation schedule that brought sons to Powell’s home
DSHS will investigate children’s deaths later
Following the Pierce County deaths of Josh Powell and his two young sons in a house explosion Sunday, the assistant director of the Department of Social and Health Services, Denise Robinson, sent out a release with a short explanation of how the two children were brought to their father’s home.
It said: “All of us at the Department of Social and Health Services were shocked and deeply saddened by reports that Josh Powell had taken his own life and that of his two young children, Charles, 7, and Braden, 5.
“The children were taken to Powell’s home early Sunday afternoon as part of an ongoing court-ordered visitation schedule. As is common practice, the children were escorted by a provider on contract with the Department of Social and Health Services.
“We were relieved to learn that the case worker was not physically injured but understand that she is suffering from grave emotional trauma as a result of the horrific event. The sadness of such a thing touches everyone involved with these children. We will be offering peer support to the case worker, as well as our own staff members.
“At the appropriate time, as with any case of this nature, the department will conduct a formal child fatality review.
“For now, our hearts go out to these children and their family and to their school and their classmates.”
Woods’ control vanishes 
greenlibertarian on February 05 at 6:26 p.m.
Not looking good. What an horrific tragedy.
liberal_in_right_wing_land on February 05 at 7:01 p.m.
I can’t imagine what the social worker who escorted these children to the house and then witnessed this horrific thing is going through.
This is just such a horrible tragedy, those poor kids.
davidjskjonsby on February 05 at 8:28 p.m.
DSHS track record for protecting children in their care has not
significantly improved since the death of 3 year-old Eli Creekmore in 1986.
In the Powell case the danger signs were Mom ‘missing’ for 2 years, a geographical move by the Father and a questionable, marginal grandparent not to mention a recalcitrant and disingenuous Father who stonewalled law enforcement.
Should DSHS have alerted their contract worker that she was
interacting with a borderline personality who was potentially
suicidal/homocidal?
Given the credentials, training and experience of DSHS staff,
it doesn’t take a forensic psychiatrist to predict outcomes in
a situation such as this.
This family is unfortunately ‘game over.’
Next time DSHS why not err on the side of “potentially dangerous” and do a more thorough screening and assessment
before subjecting children to a fate such as this.
The expectations of Washington citizens is that you ratchet up
to hyper-vigilance in this day and age of violence against children.
greenlibertarian on February 05 at 8:45 p.m.
The intersection of the power of the state to protect children with parental rights one of the most difficult in our society.
As a parent, I can think of nothing more abhorrent and punishing than having the state take my child away. Sure, certain cases (perhaps this one) are cut and dried, but this enormous power of the state MUST be wielded VERY CAREFULLY.
Having worked tangentially in this area, and in discussions with learned folks, I believe the state puts too much emphasis on keeping, or reuniting the family to the detriment of the children.
greenlibertarian on February 05 at 8:50 p.m.
The intersection of the power of the state to protect children BY SEVERING parental rights is one of the most difficult issues in our society.
As a parent, I can think of nothing more abhorrent and punishing than having the state take my child away. Sure, certain cases (perhaps this one) are cut and dried, but this enormous power of the state MUST be wielded VERY CAREFULLY.
Having worked tangentially in this area, and in discussions with learned folks, I believe the state puts too much emphasis on keeping, or reuniting the family to the detriment of the children.
liberal_in_right_wing_land on February 05 at 8:52 p.m.
davidjskjonsby , DSHS had no say whether or not this freak got to see his kids, they were ordered by the court to have monitored visitation with this monster. They cannot defy a judges order, even though I am pretty sure they wanted to.
DSHS has made many mistakes in the past (but has also done many good things that never make it to the newspaper), but I hardly think they are at anyway at fault in this case. This is a disgusting sicko who was hellbent on killing his whole family and nobody was going to stop him.
If you want to make a case of something, question why any judge in their right mind would allow this father visitation rights under any circumstances after his past.
Have some sympathy here for these kids family and that poor lady who took those kids this the house and watched them burn alive in front of her and place the blame where it deserves, and thats with this sick SOB father.
RedCedar on February 05 at 8:56 p.m.
The police have no legal responsibility to prevent a person from being harmed by a criminal and neither does DSHS. Both organizations attempt to protect people to some extent, but all they can do is attempt. I’m sure that along with a lot of public finger-pointing, there will be revisions to policy manuals, changes to procedures, requirements for more paperwork, etc., but the fact remains that it is impossible to completely prevent crime. In a sense the most dangerous people are the ones who have never committed a crime before, because no one suspects them. Unfortunately, that group of potential criminals includes all of us.
Combine no serious criminal history with someone who is not only willing to die, but wants to die, and there’s really nothing anybody can do to prevent it. Sometimes, terrible things happen. This crime doesn’t even give us that satisfaction of being able to argue about restricting or controlling the type of weapon used, since his only weapon was (presumably) a kitchen stove and a lighter. This is one of those things that just totally sucks any way you think about it, and the only person responsible for it is dead, so we can’t even take our anger out on him.
SugarShane on February 05 at 9:17 p.m.
Thanks to all the posters who always assume the guy is guilty and should lose his children “just to be safe”. As a single dad fighting against false accusations from my ex, I for one am glad that they don’t just remove people from their children based on suspicion. All it takes is one person lying to the court; I “feel” like he is dangerous. In most cases, the courts go above and beyond “reasonable” to full on paranoia all in an effort to cover their own asses and with little or no regard to what is “best” for the child.
liberal_in_right_wing_land on February 05 at 9:46 p.m.
SugarShane, but I doubt you have been accused of murdering your wife, having your pedophile father likes kiddie porn babysit your children and then also found to have porn on your computer as well.
I grew up in a single parent home, I am not throwing single dads under the bus, I am throwing this scum under the bus who left a trail of devastation everywhere he went.
SugarShane on February 05 at 11:54 p.m.
Liberal, you’re exactly right, which points out how the system is not perfect. Sometimes evil monsters have their rights protected and loving fathers have their rights stripped, my only point was that suspicion does not equal guilt in all cases as some posters seemed to suggest. Someone pointed out that is an awful lot of power to give someone. The court only looks at the right now, not 5 or 10 years down the road when the child is suffering from the courts past decisions.
davidjskjonsby on February 06 at 12:34 a.m.
Liberal in right wing land -
Neighbor I don’t think you get it.
DSHS can challenge the WACS the RCW’s - they can go in
contempt of court if indicated. They just need the will to do so.
How many errant, fallible, and unschooled and incompetent judges make ill considered decisions. A lot.
A Judge in Seattle wishes he could have a ‘do-over’ that got
four law enforcement officers killed because no-one had the
courage to go beyond protocol and procedure.
You can’t pass the buck to the judges. They’re only human.
Orphan on February 06 at 7:00 a.m.
DSHS has been out of control & inconsistent for years and needs to be dissolved and a new agency started.
To all of you who want more to be done in these cases. If one has not committed a crime how do you go about doing something more about it without violating that persons rights in even bigger ways. The more you yell for the government to do more the less freedom we all have. If you restrict everyone enough to not have this kind of stuff ever happen we will all have a Cop with us 24/7. Freedom is dangerous and unfortunately a small amount of this kind of stuff is going to happen. We have simply got to stop protecting the one tenth of one percent by restricting the other 99.9%. IMHO we have gone way too far with this kind of stuff.
I wonder what if this guy was truly innocent in his wife’s case and maybe did not know enough or anything about his dad’s activities. How many dads share child porn with their adult kids. If this was the case think about how depressed he would have become and having his kids taken away because of another’s actions that you cant control was the straw that broke the camels back. In this case DSHS could have contributed to this horrible crime. If this was the case more regulation may have indirectly caused the end result.
I am not defending this guys actions in any way because what he did was the worst thing a parent could possibly do.