By Larry Sykes
Guest Column
Lucas County Children Services has been around for over 150 years and serves an average of 11,250 children and 4500 families annually and conducts an average of 3,663 investigations per year! Very few, if any other, agencies can tout this history of longevity and success here in Toledo!
I have been involved with LCCS since the mid-1970s when the agency was located on River Road. After LCCS moved to downtown Toledo I continue to be involved with the agency and would volunteer to take kids to various events, ball games, the circus and picnics with the LCCS staff.
When I was president of the Toledo Urban Bankers, we would provide financial literacy training to the young men and women who were aging out of the system, and we would also assist them in finding work and housing.
Some years later I received a call from County commissioner Pete Gerken, asking me if I would be willing to serve on the board of LCCS as a favor to him.
I thought about it and finally I agreed to do it. I served 15 or more years until I felt it was time for me to step down, so I submitted my letter of resignation thanking the commissioner for the opportunity serve and moved on with my life.
During my time on the board, I found the staff to be very professional, very caring, very committed and very obligated to ensuring that the families that they represented and served received only the best service and resources they could provide to them!
If this wasn’t the truth, I would not say it. There are two careers that one does not go into to make money, one is social work and the other is teaching, both professions have plenty of work but the workers are few! Only the committed go into these two professions.
During my time on the board, Dean Sparks was the director and when he decided to retire, the board wanted to do a national search and hire someone from outside of the agency, I was adamantly against it!
When you have qualified people already in the system, why not give them a chance? I believe in growing your own!
I mention this because, I know the LCCS agency in and out. The mission statement, financial status, staff positions, staff needs and the requirements to make it a better agency operationally.
That is why I was against hiring someone from outside to run the agency. It would take him or her a year to understand the way the agency operates, to learn the staff, to learn who’s who in the community to get the support for levies, who are the foster parents and who runs the supporting agencies.
And that doesn’t include negotiating a contract which might include relocating a new director here which could cost the taxpayers $10-20,000.
It has been my experience that people who run agencies and live here have better support systems because they are out in the community, they are members of a church, they live in the neighborhood, you see them in the grocery stores, in the malls and they are affiliated with various organizations and clubs.
For example, look at how many presidents/CEOs the Lucas Metropolitan Housing Authority board members have hired in the last 10 years. From 2016 to 2025 the board has hired five presidents/CEOs!
Like CARPETBAGGERS they come and they go, never establishing a relationship of any kind in the community, they don’t purchase a home, they don’t have kids in school, they are not members of a church, they have no organization affiliation and therefore they don’t give back, they are here until the next opportunity comes calling.
This is unlike a Billie Swell Johnson, a Michael Bell, a Michael Ashford, a Doni Miller, a Jackie Martin, a Judy Ellis, a Jay Black, a Linda Ewing, a Deborah Barnett, a Lisa McDuffie, a Bobbi Harrison, a John Jones, a John Edwards, a Bobby Smith, a Romulus Durant, a Willie Perryman, a Brian Byrd, a Linnie Willis, a James Willis and Robin Reeves, who I and others went against the grain to ensure that she became the director of the Lucas County Children Services.
All of these individuals had close ties to this community and are, were, and have been very successful leaders in their long respective careers.
Due to the recent murder of Kei’Mani Latigue, allegedly by her father, the community has gone through a traumatic situation which has left them traumatized and rightly so! Because of the horrendous death of this 13-year-old innocent child, some members in the community have turned their hate to the LCCS as if it was the agency and staff’s fault.
I truly understand the anger and frustration that the community has as a result of this loss, but to place all the fault at the feet of LCCS, which is a protector for children, is a major mistake! The reason I say this is that you have to understand how, when, who and where the crime is committed and why LCCS should not be blamed for what happens outside of the agency’s control.
It is my understanding that this was not a case that LCCS had taken on. If this is true that means this case was not assigned to a case worker there, for it was never opened and not an active case. An open case is when the family is assigned to a case worker who meets with the family on regular basis due to some allegation of abuse, neglect or other needs that the children or child are not getting.
If the case worker finds some reason that the home is no longer safe for the child, the case is then discussed, it with a team and supervisor. It is then and only then that the children or child are removed from the home and placed in foster care for their own safety.
The following examples are incidents that happened to children in our community. Warning the following is graphic!
The following is a Lucas County Children Services Case.
- In 1996, a young 14-year-old boy was placed in a foster home with an elderly couple. Unfortunately he would commit one of the most heinous crimes of that time by hitting Mrs. Jeanette Johnson in the head with a hatchet killing her instantly!
Unfortunately, the elderly couple were never told by LCCS, the court system, his psychologist or any agency that was involved in this child’s life about the youth’s past. This young man had many known personal problems, not being able to control his anger and, at times, could exhibit a violent behavior.
The family was not informed that Johnnie grew up in an abusive and chaotic family setting, and that he was neglected by both parents.
The father and mother were addictive to drugs and his father was convicted of rape and was a convicted pedophile. When Johnnie Jordan was placed in the Johnsons’ home, he already had been in and out of 20 group and foster homes!
Unfortunately, this youth was a victim of the very system that was supposed to protect him from himself and others! Just think about it, this child had been placed 20 times in different settings and never given the professional help that he needed from the system he grew up in.
Johnnie Jordan was convicted of killing Mrs. Johnson and sentenced as an adult to life in prison which means he will be eligible for parole in 30 years which would be in 2026.
The Lucas County Children Services was not involved with following cases until after they happened: WARNING THE FOLLOWING IS GRAPHIC.
- A father sodomizes his six-month-old baby child.
- A father shook his baby son to death because the child would not stop crying.
- A 19-year-old male beat to death a 4-year-old child of the 24-year-old mother he was going with. The child was beaten because the perpetrator didn’t like the child’s father.
I know this to be true because I paid for the child’s funeral, Dean Sparks the director of LCCS at the time told me the family had t-shirts with the child’s picture on them but didn’t have the means to bury the child.
- In 2021, the Toledo Police were called to the Byrneport Apartments where they found Kevin Moore, 27, and charged him with murder for shooting three children of a female he was dating. He killed two of the boys and critically injured the third. The mother had left them with him while she ran errands.
The two boys killed were Ahmir Phillips and Gabriel Phillips. Ashtan Phillips survived the shooting and was hospitalized in stable condition with a shattered jaw. Their two-year-old sister was not harmed. Kevin Moore, the shooter, would later undergo mental competency evaluation.
- In 2012, five members of a family in Toledo died of carbon monoxide what Police believed to be a murder suicide.
The victims identified as 54-year-old Sandy Ford and her son, 32-year-old Andy Ford, her grandchildren 10-year-old Paige Hayes, six-year-old Logan Hayes and five-year-old Madelyn Hayes.
The grandmother Sandy was upset because her daughter Sandy and her husband Chris were trying to regain custody of the children.
The grandmother felt it was better to commit suicide and filicide than to give the children up, so she locked the garage door, put a hose in the car window that was connected to the car exhaust and died with the motor running.
- In 2024 the Toledo Police were called to a home in west Toledo three times by concerned neighbors; they called in June, July and August. In June the TPD found the three children to be dirty, naked, hungry and emaciated, but it wasn’t until the third call in August, that the TPD went there and finally called LCCS which took immediate action to protect the children by removing them from the home.
- In 2016, a father and son allegedly kept a 13-year-old girl shackled in their basement for a year. Timothy Ciboro, 53, and Esten Ciboro, 27, are the girl’s stepfather and stepbrother.
The 13-yea- old and her siblings were left with the two men when their mother left and went to Las Vegas. The 13-year-old girl said that she was forced to go to the bathroom in a bucket, while chained to a pole, for wetting the bed. Both men were arrested and went to trial for abuse and neglect.
One of the problems in trying to identify children who are being abused or need help, is that when the children are home schooled, which these children were, such identification is hampered.
If they were in public schools and the teacher saw or thought that there was abuse going on, teachers have a duty to report what they believe may be happening to a child.
- In 2025 two people were arrested in Toledo and charged after allegedly keeping their five children, ages one to six in, ‘’uninhabitable’’ living conditions; trash, feces, garbage and dirty diapers were found throughout the home.
Joseph Pfaffa, 37 and Tiffany Douglas, 35, parents of the children were taken into custody for neglect and abuse. The children were transferred to the Lucas County Children Services.
- Two gang members convicted of killing a one-year-old girl and seriously injuring her sister, were sentence to spend 40 years to life in prison.
Keshawn Jennings, 21, and Antwaine Jones, 19, were convicted of several counts of murder, attempted murder, aggravated murder and four felonious assaults for firing 16 shots into a Moody Manor apartment.
Killed was Keondra Hooks, who suffered a single gunshot to the head. Her two-year-old sister, Leondra Hooks, was seriously wounded after being shot in the chest.
The girls were sleeping on the floor of the apartment they lived in when the shots were fired. The men were looking for a rival gang member when they shot into the wrong apartment.
When we look at these situations, we have to look at where they happen! IN THE COMMUNITY! and not at LCCS, so how can we fault LCCS for something they had no control over. Most of the crime happens in the community we live in, therefore it is a community problem and not just an agency problem.
When we look at the crimes that happen in the community and ask why, well, there are a number of reasons that contribute and here are a few of the major reasons!
Fathers absent from the home and their children’s lives; single mothers fighting to raise their boys the best way they can; there is no longer a village to help; boys dropping out of school because they can’t read and are a grade or two behind.
Dropping out of school leads to unemployment, leads to gang affiliation, leads to committing crime in the streets and eventually leads to incarceration!
So now, all of the violence and family problems that happen in the community are being brought to the doors of LCCS as a last means of correcting this mess which is preposterous!
It also amazes me, the turnout by the community AFTER a situation happens! I ask the question, how many people do you personally know who are in an abusive relationship, or are gang members? Yet you refuse to say anything that might prevent an escalation to violence that may lead to one’s death, because it’s not your business!
Yet, when you are with the crowd protesting and demonstrating and someone yells, let’s crucify him; you are the first to yell, I got three nails! We tend to praise our clowns and crucify our leaders.
You can’t keep snakes in your back yard and expect them to only bite the neighbors; it is easy to take notice of a situation, but it’s taking action that’s hard and that’s what counts.
The old adage, if you see something, say something, would help tremendously to deter the crime and abuse going on in our community and city. If you are one of those that believe snitches get stitches, then maybe you should stop blaming the victim, in this case Lucas County Children Services!
UNAPOLOGETIC!