Found Deceased FL - Alejandro Ripley, 9, autistic, Miami-Dade County, May 2020 *mother arrested*

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ChatteringBirds said:
What would happen if someone stood in front of the CPS building holding a sign that says, "Help" everyday?
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I once had a mom who I had to repeatedly tell I couldn't help. As I went to my car, she ran behind me and grabbed my back door handle, trying to shove her child in the backseat so I would take him. It was heartbreaking. My supervisors told me to write it up and close the case.

Wonder why I'm not in the field anymore?
 
mrsinsyder said:
Not really, it's legally considered abandonment for which you can be arrested and you'll be hit with child support until/unless the child is adopted by someone else. In all my years I only saw it done a few times, and it was always when a parent refused to pick the child up after release from juvenile detention.

Florida's child welfare system is something like this, in order of escalation
  • No intervention, parents figure out their own options
  • Low-level intervention, voluntary services are offered like an in-home therapist. Usually lasts about 60 days.
  • Diversion intervention, non-voluntary services in exchange for the child being left in the home versus placed into foster care, with more intensive services. Usually lasts about 6 months, requires that the child be determined as 'unsafe' without intervention.
  • Court-ordered in-home services, basically the above but under jurisdiction of the court.
  • Court-ordered out-of-home services, child is placed into state custody and detained with a relative caregiver, non-relative caregiver, foster parent, or institution (in that order of placement preference).
There are programs like SIPP (statewide inpatient psychiatric program) - however the waiting lists are extensively long, and they require basically all other options are exhausted first. For most families, this is years and years of doctors reports, other services, etc. Not a quick solution.

Anyway I'm probably giving a lot of information that is uninteresting but I'm happy to answer questions. My time in the field is a big reason I've chosen not to have children... because honestly if I were a parent of a child like this, I couldn't do it.
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Yes, I too left the whole mess years ago.

That being said, if a Mother went to a counselor and stated that she was considering killing her child, she would have been put on a 72 hour hold, "Sunshine Law" and "Duty to Warn" CPS would have been contacted and child would have had priority placement.

The system is not so broken that if a woman said she was going to kill her child, that there would not have been intervention.
 
mickey2942 said:
The system is not so broken that if a woman said she was going to kill her child, that there would not have been intervention.
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I wouldn't say it's broken, more that it's complicated.
To intervene, in Florida and other 'safety model' states, you have to have a danger threat, a lack of a protective parent, and a vulnerable child. One of the prescribed danger threats is a parent declaring they will harm the child, so you have that. This child is obviously vulnerable, even more so with special needs, so you have that. The third part of the equation becomes the issue.
If mom says she's going to kill her child but dad is in home and is a 'protective' parent - the child would be considered safe and intervention wouldn't be needed. It's a model that works statistically well, but isn't so easy to apply in the real world. Many of these practices came into review after the Phoebe Jonchuck case in Tampa.

Were that case to come in, we'd have likely put the child under some sort of safety plan where the father ensures he's not alone with the mother, while getting them referred to services. Which isn't a terrible stopgap situation. But this child will need intervention for many many years. The system just doesn't have the capacity to perform long-term institutionalization on every child who has extreme behaviors.

So yes, there would be intervention. And that intervention would have hopefully kept Alejandro alive. But these families have a life long battle.

It does surprise me that the family was never referred to DCF, though (or that's what I'd heard last).

editing to add that I'm not arguing with you, just perusing the whole idea to see what could have been done differently :) I spent many years on a team that reviewed child deaths out of the Florida child welfare system so I'm used to dissecting the issues.
 
LietKynes said:
Before killing him she could have at least appealed to his father and said she was at the breaking point.
Not blaming him --- but how much did he contribute as far as watching Alejandro and making sure this egg donor wasn't becoming dangerous ?

What about making Alejandro a ward of the state ?
I don't see how the state could penalize a person if they willingly give a child up for adoption.
I'm saying this after reading mrsinsyder's post and I appreciate a viewpoint of someone who has worked with cases in the state system.

Were there no options at all ?
There are people who are willing to adopt special needs children.

Rest in gentle peace, Alejandro ! :(
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It could be possible that she believed or knew that the father would never have agreed to relinquish custody to the state to have him placed in a residential care facility or for adoption (adoption would have been improbable - most agencies struggle to place older children, and despite how many people might be willing to adopt children with disabilities, many children with disabilities remain in the foster system and get bounced around until they age out). I can't know for sure what she was thinking, but when you have two custodial parents, both of them have to sign off on giving up their parental rights if they want the state to take over care.
 
We don't know this woman, or her circumstances.

1. There was premeditation
2. The woman deliberately misled police officers with a deliberate attempt to deflect responsibility for her crime. (She knew it was wrong).
3. The woman described kidnappers as "black".

No sympathy here. Especially when she called police and deliberately lied about her child being kidnapped. No insanity defense here.
 
mickey2942 said:
We don't know this woman, or her circumstances.

1. There was premeditation
2. The woman deliberately misled police officers with a deliberate attempt to deflect responsibility for her crime. (She knew it was wrong).
3. The woman described kidnappers as "black".

No sympathy here. Especially when she called police and deliberately lied about her child being kidnapped. No insanity defense here.
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Yep. I could have understood the first time as a snapped thing. But to go back and try again? No way. She belongs in Raiford.
 
So true. Who hasn't just had a day where they plopped the kids in front of Nickelodeon and gave them cheese crackers with a juice box? Some days, you just are not the greatest Mother.

Even Autistic kids have something that they like, and can focus on. I had one little guy, who used to love that plastic tool set. He would play with the different tools.

The problem is when the parent has an expectation, the kid doesn't do what they want, they force the kid, and then, the child reacts physically. And it is escalated when they are non verbal. But Autistic children are not violent. Unless they are forced to do things that they don't want to do, and never get to do what they want to do. It is reaction frustration. That would be a dysfunctional parenting cycle.
 
mrsinsyder said:
Not really, it's legally considered abandonment for which you can be arrested and you'll be hit with child support until/unless the child is adopted by someone else. In all my years I only saw it done a few times, and it was always when a parent refused to pick the child up after release from juvenile detention.

Florida's child welfare system is something like this, in order of escalation
  • No intervention, parents figure out their own options
  • Low-level intervention, voluntary services are offered like an in-home therapist. Usually lasts about 60 days.
  • Diversion intervention, non-voluntary services in exchange for the child being left in the home versus placed into foster care, with more intensive services. Usually lasts about 6 months, requires that the child be determined as 'unsafe' without intervention.
  • Court-ordered in-home services, basically the above but under jurisdiction of the court.
  • Court-ordered out-of-home services, child is placed into state custody and detained with a relative caregiver, non-relative caregiver, foster parent, or institution (in that order of placement preference).
There are programs like SIPP (statewide inpatient psychiatric program) - however the waiting lists are extensively long, and they require basically all other options are exhausted first. For most families, this is years and years of doctors reports, other services, etc. Not a quick solution.

Anyway I'm probably giving a lot of information that is uninteresting but I'm happy to answer questions. My time in the field is a big reason I've chosen not to have children... because honestly if I were a parent of a child like this, I couldn't do it.
Click to expand...
Being as I live in the Midwest of the USA, and our laws/systems vary WILDLY state to state, I really appreciate your detailed contributions of how things flow there. All of my previous posts have been going off of my personal(ish) experiences in Missouri and Kansas, as well as the info I have gleaned here and there from cases I have followed.

Your posts really do help paint a bigger picture of how things work in Florida and highlight exactly WHY/WHERE and HOW more attention/funding/laws need to be in place.
 
PhoneJockey said:
Ehhhhh, this is a bit off topic here and I will report/notify on myself, but people are irritated because she has used this child to make money - her YouTube empire/following was pumped by her "adoption journey" and is monetized - every view of a video with or about him gets her money. Every subsequent ad click, video view, etc helps this family financially. They have not removed or demonetized the videos about him and are viewed as adopting him strictly for the attention and money that comes with it, but giving up on him when they have more resources available to them than most - which seems callous and uncaring.
I am happy that he is now with a family who can handle him, but I am unhappy with the family who is making money off of him. They really need to remove any and all mentions of him from the pages that earn cash for them.
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Related thread here:
YouTuber reveals she gave her 4-year-old adopted son with autism to another family
 
Pak31 said:
What’s really sad is this woman admitted that she killed her child yet she’s now pleading not guilty. I don’t understand why people plead like that. In hopes they won’t end up going to jail? It’s just wrong but I guess that is their right.
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The real problem here is why our laws allow criminals to plead not guilty after they admit their crimes...
 
Techno1992 said:
The real problem here is why our laws allow criminals to plead not guilty after they admit their crimes...
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Because people can be coerced into false confessions, because people can be cognitively impaired and not know what they are saying or be convinced by another person that they did things they did not, because people with mental illness can make false claims impulsively... while it is improbable that any of those apply in this case, there are all kinds of reasons a confession does not revoke the right to plea not guilty and if we changed that we would have even more innocent people pleading guilty to things than we already do.
 
Yeah the system is messed imo. I’m not in Florida but I will say that even where I am, with free health care, sometimes, there’s just so little options. and that’s IF the parents want to use resources. IF they are actively going to admit what they’re doing isn’t working. IF they’re going to admit they are part of the problem. IF they want to help further. Not everyone is cut out to be a parent, let alone a parent to a kid with special needs. And it SUCKS. And you can’t report a parent for not taking their kid to therapy or for not being a good role model.

I’m working with a child right now who is making things really hard...he is actively making terrible choices (he is not on the spectrum) and I will just say that his parents are very very near their breaking points. Are they utilizing the free resources? Nope. Are they able to swallow their pride and admit they are contributing to the problem? Heck no. Do I predict that the father might snap and hurt the kid? Oh. Absolutely.
But there’s no history of abuse, there’s nothing to report. NOTHING. You can’t even say “dad seems detached and is at the end of his rope” because you need to be objective. I document word for word when mom expresses her frustrations so that there’s a log if something happens, but that’s all I can do. I can’t actually do anything to protect this child/the siblings from his parents or himself without facts. Having “a feeling” doesn’t mean Jack.

So from my own experience... maybe people DID see this coming and there wasn’t anything that could be done. You can’t just randomly call CPS and say “the kids behaviours are extreme lately and mom is extra stressed”. That’s not a thing. It blows

jmo
 
moody_chicago said:
Yeah the system is messed imo. I’m not in Florida but I will say that even where I am, with free health care, sometimes, there’s just so little options. and that’s IF the parents want to use resources. IF they are actively going to admit what they’re doing isn’t working. IF they’re going to admit they are part of the problem. IF they want to help further. Not everyone is cut out to be a parent, let alone a parent to a kid with special needs. And it SUCKS. And you can’t report a parent for not taking their kid to therapy or for not being a good role model.

I’m working with a child right now who is making things really hard...he is actively making terrible choices (he is not on the spectrum) and I will just say that his parents are very very near their breaking points. Are they utilizing the free resources? Nope. Are they able to swallow their pride and admit they are contributing to the problem? Heck no. Do I predict that the father might snap and hurt the kid? Oh. Absolutely.
But there’s no history of abuse, there’s nothing to report. NOTHING. You can’t even say “dad seems detached and is at the end of his rope” because you need to be objective. I document word for word when mom expresses her frustrations so that there’s a log if something happens, but that’s all I can do. I can’t actually do anything to protect this child/the siblings from his parents or himself without facts. Having “a feeling” doesn’t mean Jack.

So from my own experience... maybe people DID see this coming and there wasn’t anything that could be done. You can’t just randomly call CPS and say “the kids behaviours are extreme lately and mom is extra stressed”. That’s not a thing. It blows

jmo
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And if the child retaliates physically, the parents can call 911, have the kid hauled off and dropped into the system. They go on about their lives. Maybe the child gets the help they need, maybe not. You’re right it is so messed up. It’s heartbreaking. JMO
 
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