Tina Winston, an 11-year-old state ward with a history of behavior problems, was in the waiting room of an Elgin counseling center Monday evening when she began talking about her sister and then suddenly lashed out at two caseworkers who had brought her to see a psychologist, according to a report by the child-welfare agency that cared for her.
She began throwing things, scratching the caseworkers on their legs and trying to bite them, alleges the report, prepared for state child-welfare officials by the Little City Foundation home in Palatine, where Tina had lived for more than a year.
The report says the two female caseworkers from Little City managed to restrain Tina, and she appeared to calm down. But when the caseworkers released Tina, the report says, she erupted into another violent spasm, drawing blood this time from one of the women and prompting them to hold her down again.
The therapist whom she was supposed to meet then called Elgin police, and an officer arrived within minutes at the center, Northwest Treatment Associates, and found Tina lying unresponsive on the floor. Paramedics were summoned, but Tina was pronounced dead on arrival at an area hospital.
The death of Tina, who had spent most of her fragile life in the care and custody of state child-welfare authorities, has raised questions about how a child in such stress could die surrounded by the adults who were assigned to protect her.
Concerns about whether the caseworkers used excessive force have prompted an investigation by law-enforcement officials, who have said Tina was pinned face down by the caseworkers.
After an autopsy, Kane County Coroner David Moore listed the cause of Tina’s death as asphyxiation. But authorities said Thursday they would delay any decision on whether to pursue criminal charges against the caseworkers until the completion of toxicology tests, which could take up to 10 days to complete, to see whether medications Tina was taking may have been a factor in her death.
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“That seems to be the big one we’re concentrating on,” said Elgin Police Lt. Scott Davis. “[Medication] may have contributed. We don’t know yet.”
Tina was on medication for a variety of behavioral and emotional problems, according to child-welfare records.
Kane County State’s Atty. David Akemann said his office is also investigating the conduct of the caseworkers. Prosecutors will enlist the investigative aid of a grand jury to seek records from doctors, Little City and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
“We still need a lot more facts than we can get readily,” he said.
DCFS has also launched an investigation of Tina’s death. A spokesman for the agency said Thursday that it would suspend placements of new wards with Little City until that probe was completed.
Tina’s short life was framed by countless social service workers, foster parents, doctors and other experts whose jobs were to chart a course toward stability for the girl, who was mildly mentally retarded and suffered from a number of behavioral and emotional problems, according to child-welfare records.
Tina, the youngest of four children born to Detra Winston, became a ward of the state at age 5 when her mother, then 26, told social workers at a shelter program that she couldn’t handle her children and would “seriously hurt them” if they were not removed from her care.
DCFS took protective custody of Tina and her siblings after discovering cuts, welts and bruises on all of the children. DCFS recommended drug and psychiatric counseling for her mother.
The agency placed the children with Tina’s paternal grandparents until August 1998, when DCFS again intervened because of bruises and cuts found on Tina’s brother during a medical exam.
Aggressive, sometimes violent and in danger of hurting herself, Tina was shuffled between numerous foster families and psychiatric hospitals. Even after her placement at Little City, which receives funding from DCFS to provide community living for children like Tina, she still had aggressive outbursts, the child-welfare records say.
The outbursts, however, were tempered by periods of normalcy.
Joe Yost, who teaches music therapy at Little City, said Tina was musically talented.
“She was a wonderful singer,” Yost said. “We were working on a CD. She wanted to be a policewoman.”
Tina also liked to watch “Wheel of Fortune” on TV and eat meals with her grandparents and would vie for the attention of the staff at Little City and work cooperatively to complete her chores and grooming assignments.
Like other little children, Tina feared the “boogeyman” and wished she could dress up in Batman and Superman costumes to scare the boogeyman away. But over the last six months or so, her aggression seemed to worsen, the child-welfare records say. In an incident in January reported to DCFS by Little City, staff at the Palatine residential facility had to restrain her 15 times in a 48-hour period to prevent her from hurting herself or others. When told by staff sometimes that she would lose privileges such as going on outings because of the outbursts, she would erupt again.
The January outbursts resulted in Tina being hospitalized for the fourth time in her life. She received inpatient services at Streamwood Behavioral Center before returning to Little City.
Continuing behavioral problems, however, led to Little City staff arranging for the girl to be evaluated by a therapist at Northwest Treatment Associates.
Accompanied by the two caseworkers and another young resident from Little City, Tina arrived at the agency sometime after 5 p.m. Monday, according to the Little City account of the incident leading to Tina’s death.
While the therapist consulted with the other child, Tina waited outside with the two caseworkers.
While in the waiting room, Tina began to talk about her sister–whom Tina thought was prettier and wanted to be like–and became upset. “The exact reason for her anger was not expressed or precisely determined,” according to the Little City report.
The caseworkers attempted to calm Tina by assuring her that she would be visiting her family the following weekend.
It didn’t work. She took off her shoes and threw them at one caseworker.
That brought a verbal reprimand from the caseworkers, but the girl continued to act out. She scooted across the floor and scratched the legs of the caseworkers.
Then a struggle ensured, and the caseworkers physically restrained her on the floor on her back.
Tina then attempted to bite the hands of both staff members. She was then turned onto her stomach with her head to the side, according to the account.
She appeared to become calmer, and the caseworkers released her.
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But she then began pulling things out of her purse and throwing them at the workers. She again attempted to hit and bite the staffers, who again restrained her.
By this point, the therapist had emerged from her office and asked if she should call police. The caseworkers said yes.
It is not clear from the reports what time the girl was restrained or what happened during the four minutes in which the report says it took police to arrive.
But the report says that when Elgin Police Detective Chris Triola showed up at the psychologist’s office, he found Tina on the floor in “medical duress,” helped her into a chair and began checking her vital signs before calling paramedics.
When paramedics arrived minutes later, they were unable to find any vital signs on the 11-year-old.