By Larry Sykes
Guest Column
Recently a young African American girl lost her life due to a number of failures in the system that was supposed to be in place to protect her from the very thing that caused her death!
The young child was 13 years old and would have turned 14 on March 28, 2025. Instead of celebrating her birthday, the community is in morning for her lost!
In recent years Toledo’s African American community has lost a lot of our babies due to various reasons, but when it could have been preventable it’s even more devastating to accept or to deal with.
Even sadder are those parasite bottom feeder who have attempted to set up GOFUNDME accounts to raise money for her services. Thanks should be given to a White female who out of the kindness of her heart has donated a plot for her burial!
Let me be clear in my message. I am not saying that everyone who is putting on a fundraiser for this lost child is suspect! But be aware that there are those who walk among us who will do such things for their own gain. It is my professional opinion that any funds raised should go directly to the funeral home or placed in an account that is safe and secure to be disbursed when a bill is presented and not to any family members, this will help eliminate exploitation!
Why The Failure? (WTF)
There are a lot of factors that lead to her death that could have prevented it if the system was functioning right.
I am not going to say that the entire system failed her but due to the broken parts of the system this child’s life was lost. These are some of my thoughts:
- A broken family for whatever reason is a factor.
- Duty to report. When this child confided in her teacher about some personal issues she was having and the teacher reported it to the police as she was obligated to do, the case file should have been closely monitored and followed up. It should have been coordinated by the schools’ resource officer, the Toledo Police department and LCCS.
- According to Lucas County Children Services website, the agency was called to the home three times! If this is true there appears to be a problem within the agency that may have caused a bottleneck to this case: not enough case worker, case workers having 200 +cases, not enough supervisors and other potential issues. If this is true it needs to be fixed immediately!
- The board of directors for this agency has a fiduciary responsibly to ensure that this agency runs smoothly and not just for the employees, but for the commissioners, the children and, most of all, for the taxpayers who pass levies to ensure the agency continues to operate properly. The board of directors should also go through training when appointed and then quarterly for updates.
- The AMBER alert policy needs to be CHANGED now along with the Toledo Police Department policy on when a child is considered missing.
- The County Commissioners held a press conference recently to say that they are looking to put a task force together to review and look into what happened! If the commissioners want to be serious and get the facts then they should hire a consultant from the University of Toledo who has the time, the resources, the expertise and independence to do a thorough job and not worry about blowback. As elected officials you owe that to your constituents who elected you and to Kei’Mani’s legacy.