Things That Shouldn’t Have Happened
Brittany Canales, who has autism, was taken from the Caddo Mills (TX) home of her mother, Teresa Canales, in November 2006 and placed in a foster home in another town without a hearing, on the allegation that she was being neglected. A lawsuit filed last Friday by Teresa Canales charges that Brittany was beaten and abused by the other children in the foster home, as reported in the June 8th Star Community Newspapers (Plano, TX) .
A 4-year-old autistic boy from Merced (CA) has been in a coma since May 21st. He had been beaten, bitten and burned and his mother, Martha Franco, has been charged with aggravated mayhem, mayhem, child endangerment and bodily injury to a child; his father, Jose Franco, has been charged with failing to intervene when the alleged abuse occurred. Martha Franco made her first courtroom appearance on June 7th, as reported in the Merced Sun-Star.
And what do we need to do so these kinds of things don’t keep happening?
Update 8.40pm:
If that were all not enough, this past Sunday, June 1st, a British man, Iain Varma, killed two of his children—8-year-old Zak, who had autism, and 4-year-old Chloe—and then himself, and set fire to their house. As reported in the June 6th Evening Standard’s This is London, Varma was apparently distraught because his wife, Alison, had been having an affair.
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POSTED IN: Crime
4 opinions for Things That Shouldn’t Have Happened
VAB
Jun 8, 2007 at 9:48 pm
“And what do we need to do so these kinds of things don’t keep happening?”
That’s a good question, and it’s a question that can be asked with or without the context of autism. In terms of raw numbers, tragedies of this sort happen far more often to children who do not have autism, so in terms of awareness, funding etc. I would approach this as a general social problem.
My guess is that we need to focus on mental health and access to support for parents and caregivers in the community. It’s a lot of work.
Statistically, for every 150 children who are abused, at least one autistic child will be abused. Autistic children may be be over represented in this group. But it is also possible that, because children with special needs get more attention in the community, they are under represented. Who knows? What we do know is that as long as children are abused, there is a problem that needs to be fixed.
Big White Hat
Jun 8, 2007 at 11:53 pm
You bring up an instance when the athorities intervened resulting in disaster. The other instance was a failure to intervene.
To me this demonstrates the this is not a problem that can be solved by government. This trouble is far more pervasive than that. Not only do folks not have a proper appreciation for the disabled, folks are just plain nasty.
Jose Franco needs to be punished severely. Since this happened in California no just punishement(death) will actually happen.
As for the Texas case(in my county), who knows. The abusive children should be procecuted. But I don’t know if the CASA has done anything unlawful. I just don’t know enough details to have an intelligent opinion on that. I personally thing that CASAs have too much power in Texas. It is like judges putting their responsibilities off on somebody else.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jun 9, 2007 at 1:01 am
It occurs to me that these types of stories—-yet another report about a 4-year-old autistic boy in Florida—catch the eyes of the media and hence are reported.
I’m not sure who or how to solve this problem; hope we can keep trying.
mel
Jan 11, 2008 at 10:29 am
i agree these things shouldnt happen, but the iain varman case-i grew up with his wife & there would not have been anything anyone could have done to stop this & it had nothing to do with his son having autism either, as the children were well looked after & loved. iain had split from his wife some 6 months before hand and she was living at a different address,she had started to date a new partner & iain obviously couldnt deal with it,so he had the kids over for the night,once a week- as he always did since the split & waited until no one else was around so he could kill his children.
he called his wife,whom lived some 50miles away to tell her what he was going to do, she phoned the police & her father (kids grandfather) rushed up there whilst she was still on the phone-but by the time he arrived it was too late.
so… don’t beleive everything you here in the news, at the end of the day they write stories to sell & make money.
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