In the view of the state’s child welfare system, LeShawn Lee lived somewhere between imminent danger and acceptable risk.
His 3-month life was marked by suspicions and warning signs of child abuse. But none of it resulted in the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services taking the boy into protective custody.
Yet the danger in LeShawn’s life was real. Last month, he died of a severe beating. His father, 17-year-old Kirby Griffin, has been charged with murder.
LeShawn’s case raises several questions: Where are the thresholds in a child protection system based on judgment? And should accumulated evidence of risk tip the scales in favor of action, even when individual pieces don’t?
A month before his death, LeShawn suffered a suspicious broken leg. Two weeks later, a cable TV installer complained about filthy conditions in the baby’s Richton Park home. LeShawn’s father had a record of arrests for crimes involving violence.
Taken together, it appeared to be enough for DCFS to take LeShawn. But the agency didn’t.
And while DCFS officials said LeShawn’s case was decided on the basis of tough judgment calls, a review by inspector general Denise Kane is expected to conclude that the agency indeed made mistakes in the case.
Kane has recommended written reprimands for two supervisors and six months’ probation for an investigator, DCFS spokeswoman Martha Allen said. Agency director Jess McDonald must decide whether to accept, modify or reject Kane’s proposal.
LeShawn was the 38th of 44 children under age 15 to be slain in the Chicago area this year; 14 of them were abuse victims.
Shavonne Lee was 13 when she met Griffin last summer. The couple dated for less than two months. Lee was pregnant before her 14th birthday.
LeShawn was born April 28 at Ingalls Memorial Hospital in Harvey. He regularly shuttled between Lee and Griffin.
In June, LeShawn went to live with the Griffin family in Richton Park. Lee said she was “having problems at home” at the time. But Griffin also was having trouble.
Unemployed and a high school dropout, Griffin had been arrested 15 times as a juvenile, including for several alleged car burglaries. Shortly after LeShawn’s birth, Griffin added a pair of adult charges.
DCFS does not routinely contact police or do criminal background checks on every person it investigates, Allen said, unless a child is deemed to be in “imminent danger.” And like the public, she said, the agency does not have access to juvenile records.
But, by DCFS standards and those of most child-welfare agencies nationwide, Griffin’s record alone would not have justified removing LeShawn.
On May 2, he was charged with battery, assault and criminal damage to property in an incident at a Richton Park coin-operated laundry. The charges were misdemeanors, and he was released on his own recognizance.
On June 21 in Richton Park, Griffin allegedly tore a necklace off one woman and attempted to do the same to another, police said. He was charged with felony counts of robbery and attempted robbery. He was released on a signature bond.
Griffin missed a June 29 court appearance in the case resulting from the laundry incident. An arrest warrant was issued.
It was also about this time that LeShawn went to live with his father. Soon afterward, contact with DCFS began.
On July 4, LeShawn showed up at Olympia Fields Osteopathic Hospital. His left thigh bone was broken clean through. Griffin’s family told doctors that LeShawn toppled over while sitting in a wind-up swing, according to DCFS reports.
But Dr. Bill Earman, the orthopedic surgeon who treated LeShawn that day, said his office called the DCFS hot line.
“To end up with a fracture of that sort usually requires a good deal of force, or a twist,” said Earman, who was speaking in general and would not comment directly on LeShawn’s case. “Especially in children, fractures are unusual. Kids are quite pliable.”
Doctors also believed that LeShawn’s injury was several days old, according to DCFS records.
The DCFS investigator, however, never interviewed Earman. Earman declined to discuss LeShawn’s case with the Tribune.
Instead of talking to Earman, the DCFS investigator spoke with an admitting physician, records show. The DCFS report said the admitting physician believed that “the injury could be from a fall of the swing if baby’s torso was in the right position.”
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The DCFS investigator consulted his supervisor and accepted the family’s explanation for LeShawn’s accident, according to records.
The admitting physician, an intern, and the DCFS investigator declined to discuss the case with the Tribune.
Ten days after the broken leg, on July 14, Griffin was picked up on the arrest warrant for failing to appear in court. He was held in Cook County Jail on $5,000 bond.
While Griffin remained locked up, a cable TV installer came to the Griffin home to re-connect service. The installer, Jeremy Ostergren, was appalled at the stench of feces and urine, uncovered electrical outlets and LeShawn, his leg in a cast, lying unattended in an upstairs bedroom.
Ostergren went to Richton Park police, who declined to investigate because officers had been in the home before and found it messy but not unsanitary.
The same DCFS investigator who had looked into LeShawn’s broken leg followed up on the cable installer’s complaint the next day. He said he found the home livable, according to records.
“It was messy, but by our own standards it wasn’t so dirty that it posed a problem to the kids,” said one DCFS official. “It didn’t have the housekeeping seal of approval, but neither was it a bad case in the context of houses seen at DCFS.”
On July 28, Griffin’s bond was reduced to $1,000. He posted the required 10 percent-$100-and was freed the next day, despite an outstanding juvenile warrant.
According to Griffin’s confession to Richton Park police, LeShawn would not stop crying on the morning of Aug. 6.
“I got mad, and I punched LeShawn Lee in his eye real hard,” Griffin said in the statement. “He stopped breathing. I was angry that he stopped breathing, so I cried and shook him real hard.”
Interviewed at Cook County Jail, Griffin said he was just trying to pump life into LeShawn by squeezing his forearm against the baby’s back. That matches Griffin’s initial story to police.
But at Wyler Children’s Hospital, where LeShawn spent his last week on life support, doctors found severe head injuries, several broken ribs and the baby’s right eye sealed shut. All but one of the ribs were probably broken at least 10 days earlier, according to Dr. Aaron Zucker, director of pediatric critical care at Wyler.
LeShawn died Aug. 12. His death certificate listed him as a victim of chronic child abuse.