{"id":15734,"date":"2025-04-17T18:30:58","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T18:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=15734"},"modified":"2025-04-17T18:31:36","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T18:31:36","slug":"lccs-starts-an-internal-review-seeks-state-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/17\/lccs-starts-an-internal-review-seeks-state-review\/","title":{"rendered":"LCCS Starts an Internal Review, Seeks State Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Suzette Cowell addresses media as Randall Muth awaits his turn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Truth Staff
\nThe fallout from the death of Kei\u2019Mani Latigue is clearly not going to fade away anytime soon. The leadership of Lucas County Children Services held a press conference on Tuesday, April 8, to answer questions about how the agency handled its previous investigations into Kei\u2019Mani\u2019s home life and how it will participate with the newly-established Lucas County task force as the agency\u2019s overall practices are examined.
\n\u201cWe are ready to walk the path,\u201d said LCCS Board Chair Suzette Cowell as she opened the press conference and introduced Randall Muth, the executive director.
\n\u201cThe pain of Kei\u2019Mani\u2019s death will never go away,\u201d said Muth at the onset of his remarks. Muth then reviewed what the agency will be doing in the future to ensure that its practices are safe and benefitting children; he also explained what had happened in the past in the interactions between Children Services and the Latigue household.
\nChildren Services received a report on December 8, 2023 and two reports (describing the same incident) on March 21, 2024, regarding the care of Kei\u2019Mani who was in the care of her grandmother, Dorothy Latigue. There had been no prior reports on the home since 2011 when Kei\u2019Mani was an infant.
\nChildren Services conducted investigations and found no evidence that would warrant asking the Juvenile Court to remove the child from the home.
\n\u201cThe grandmother was blamed for excessive physical discipline,\u201d said Muth. However, there was never a mention of Darnell Jones, who is assumed to be the father of Kei\u2019Mani.
\n\u201cNo mention during the investigation of Darnell Jones and no record exists which establishes paternity,\u201d said Muth.
\nIn addition, there had been no calls to Children Services in the year preceding Kei\u2019Mani\u2019s death, according to Muth.
\nHe has asked if anyone does believe they called Children Services, they should call 419-213-3833 \u2013 the Family Center Hotline \u2013 to make the agency aware.
\nGoing forward, Children Services will be consulting an internal review of the handling of the Kei\u2019Mani case, said Muth, to see if anything could have been done\u201d to prevent Kei\u2019Mani\u2019s death. He has also requested a separate review by the Ohio Department of Children and Youth.
\nIn the meantime, Muth noted that Children Services will fully cooperate with the task established by the Lucas County Commissioners to examine the agency\u2019s practices. The task force\u2019s first three members will include Cowell, former LCCS Executive Director Robin Reeves and Breda\u00a0 Osburn, director of Lucas County Job and Family Services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Truth Staff The fallout from the death of Kei\u2019Mani Latigue is clearly not going to fade away anytime soon. The leadership of Lucas County Children Services held a press conference on Tuesday, April 8, to answer questions about how the agency handled its previous investigations into Kei\u2019Mani\u2019s home life and how it will participate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15735,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[250,252,17],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[289],"class_list":["post-15734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-politics","category-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15736,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15734\/revisions\/15736"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15734"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=15734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}