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* The question here is whether this could’ve been prevented…
Kadiedra Shontell Speed’s experience in Illinois’ child-welfare system has included being placed with adoptive parents who ended up abusing her, stays in psychiatric hospitals, addresses at four homes in the last five years and several arrests for fighting, according to court records and sources.
Now 20, she’s still a ward of the state after her failed adoption, years earlier. Over Labor Day weekend, she had another run-in with the law — this time with deadly consequences.
After arguing with her 34-year-old roommate, Speed left in a rage and returned hours later, allegedly stabbing the woman to death in their basement apartment in Joliet, Will County prosecutors and neighbors say.
* Back in 2009, another state ward named D’Andre Howard stabbed his fiancee’s sister, father and grandmother to death, prompting an internal investigation…
A report in 2012 by the DCFS inspector general about that case — in which Howard was found guilty and is now serving three life sentences — was supposed to lead to greater oversight of hundreds of older wards, who typically are in “independent living” programs run by social service agencies that DCFS hires. Inspector General Denise Kane revealed Howard had a history of sexual assault arrests and a “long history of violence” that “indicated an urgent need for services.” But she concluded “a lack of communication among involved professionals,” including DCFS’ sexual abuse services coordinator, led to a DCFS contractor inadequately supervising Howard.
Whether child-welfare workers missed warning signs of potential violent behavior by Speed is difficult to assess. There’s no indication the fights she had in high school caused any serious injuries, and her most recent involvement in the court system before her murder arrest involved her winning an order of protection in February against a parolee boyfriend she said beat her up.
Go read the whole thing and tell us what you think.
posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 11:03 am
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===Go read the whole thing===
No thanks. The excerpt is tragic enough.
Comment by 47th Ward Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 11:09 am
So will Quinn fall on the sword for this? After all, the Quinn folks and Rauner bashers want Rauner to take the fall for every nursing home incident.
Comment by Team Sleep Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 11:10 am
Please bare in mind that the Social Service providers, who are underfunded by the way by the State if Illinois, have absolutely zero authority to force services on a 20 yr old. Her status as a ward of the state for purposes of abuse or neglect does not negate her rights as an adult.
Comment by Proud Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 11:11 am
TS - Right, because PQ is making millions on this.
Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 11:12 am
To prevent a violent act of this nature, you have to be able to predict the individual is a murderous time bomb waiting to go off. Not sure that’s the case here.
Comment by Wensicia Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 11:19 am
I am such a softie. This is not political. This is tragic. Everyone deserves blame for this. Anyone who has ever worked with DCFS say’s the same thing. It’s an awful experience. Why? They are underfunded. It’s sad.
Comment by Walter Mitty Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 11:20 am
Team Sleep - I am interested to know how Rauner would fund DCFS to increase oversight in cases like this?
Comment by Illinoise Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 11:29 am
11:12 - Pat Quinn is the Governor. If one of his agencies fails, he should take the heat.
Illinoise - that is a good question. But - again - Pat Quinn is the Governor and the buck stops with him.
Comment by Team Sleep Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 11:32 am
I agree with Mr. Mitty. This sad tale is not about politics. Occam’s razor applies; this was all about destiny, and not in a good way.
Comment by Keyser Soze Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 11:37 am
I read this earlier this AM and it is horrific. Our society is not structured to prevent every bad thing from happening. It never was but it is getting worse all of the time (Decreased numbers of CPD).
We do not want to pay higher taxes so there are cuts. Cuts on services that help weaker members of society are usually the first to go. Hence, matters like this occur.
Comment by Belle Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 11:45 am
Oh, don’t get me started on DCFS…
We just finished fostering a child who could very well end up in the same situation.
DCFS needs to monitor the homes more, but the foster parents need more control. Waiting 18 months for a psych eval (and no, you can’t go to a doctor on your own) is ridiculous. Then your doctor prescribes medication but that has to go through an approval process that can take months as well.
I would like to know what the alleged abuses were by the foster parents, though. The article doesn’t say.
Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 11:54 am
Oops, the DCFS comment above was me. Using a new computer….
Comment by Stuff Happens Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 11:58 am
At face value, this appears to be slightly different than the Howard case. If my memory serves me correctly, part of the shock in the Howard case was that he was picked up by local police not long before he went to the fiancee’s family home and committed the murders. Should police have let him go? Did they have enough to hold him? Would holding him have prevented the murders? It doesn’t seem like those questions were ever really answered. In full transparency, I have not seen the internal investigation’s findings.
Even if the Howard-prompted investigation had addressed those questions, this most recent crime would have likely still happened since there was no reported authoritative interaction with Speed between the argument with her roommate and the murder she is accused of committing.
Comment by Dirty Red Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 12:17 pm
Some of these sorts of of tragedies happen no matter what you do. The equivalent would be expecting a fire department to prevent all fires, or a police department all fires. But many of these sorts of occurrences are the direct or indirect result of trying to run a government starved for money. In business you would shed the lines that just couldn’t be made profitable without too large an investment. But a state can’t say “we’re going to stop doing education so we can adequately fund DCFS and DNR”.
Comment by steve schnorf Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 12:29 pm
“crimes”. Jeez
Comment by steve schnorf Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 12:29 pm
==So will Quinn fall on the sword for this? After all, the Quinn folks and Rauner bashers want Rauner to take the fall for every nursing home incident.
==
Another victim heard from
Comment by Demoralized Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 12:44 pm
Demoralized - please do not think I am absolving Rauner of any blame for what happened while his firm and his various holding companies oversaw nursing homes. There is no excuse for any of it.
But ever since Pat Quinn has been in office, nothing ever seems to be his fault. The state’s fiscal health, education disparities, the botched early release program, NRI, IDOT problems and patronage and likely this are all someone else’s fault. But he sure let people know that Dan Hynes single-handedly ruined cemeteries and that Bruce Rauner is 100% to blame for everything that happened in “his” nursing homes.
Comment by Team Sleep Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 1:14 pm
In both cases, the core issue is transitioning a teen from more restrictive care to an Independent living situation or even a Transitional living situation(TLP). While there are still issues with wards in foster care(relative/traditional/specialized)being successfully transitioned from a home environment to an ILO or TLP, those issues often pale in comparison. It really is preferable for kids to remain in a home environment to prepare them to be adults and function in the community but that is not always reality.
ILO means the ward is living independently in an apartment. Depending on the agency, the rent may be paid directly to the landlord by the agency. The ward gets money for food, basic needs(sometimes through a weekly or monthly stipend that they need to learn to budget) but they also need to obtain employment and/or be enrolled in college. If she was in an ILO, you are not allowed to have roommates- so she was in direct violation of the rules. If not, she was in an unauthorized placement.
To put this in perspective, many of us parents don’t believe that our own children at 18/19/20(some even 25) can effectively handle/manage living on their own in an apartment. But these kids come with such significant trauma and lag behind in the skills and support necessary- it is hard to fathom how we would believe that they would fare as well or better as children without this baggage.
This was a policy shift several years ago(like about 14-15) in the attempt to better prepare older wards aging out of the system- since that is the largest population of DCFS wards. Prior to this, many kids went straight from group/residential care to on their own and out of the system. There’s obviously still a lot of work that needs to be done.
Comment by carbaby Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 1:23 pm
I am more than willing to dump on Quinn and Madigan for this because their complete mismanagement of the budget has without a doubt created some of these issues.
But I’m not going to take the bait here. Lets not forget that IL provides many more services to the developmentally disabled than any other states. This does not happen in TX because people with similar problems will be in prison or homeless.
Yea, you end up with some tragic cases, but at the end of the day IL still tries to do much more for people in these circumstances than other states.
Comment by the Patriot Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 1:44 pm
Too bad kids like Kadiedra Shontell Speed aren’t rich greedy banks/ers…. then she would be too big to fail and we would Marshall whatever resources are needed for her. We really have some funky priorities in this country!
Comment by Proud Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 2:52 pm
These stories are just horribly sad.
Comment by A guy... Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 3:02 pm
In the State of the States Report, Illinois ranks 43rd in services to people with developmental disabilities.
Comment by Jerome Horwitz Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 3:13 pm
Illinois provides more DD services than any other state and “This does not happen in TX because people with similar problems will be in prison or homeless.”
Say what? Please get a copy of the Braddock ‘State of the State in Developmental Disabilities’. Texas and Illinois are about equal. Illinois is middle of the pack and down compared to other states. Other studies show actual spending adjusted to inflation keeps dropping.
These are sad situations that are never going to stop completely particularly when the case workers have 200+ cases and psych testing comes a year later because the bucks are not there. Oh, but taxes are too high.
Comment by zatoichi Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 3:31 pm
and it sounds as if this young woman’s problems are MI related, not DD
Comment by steve schnorf Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 3:32 pm
== it sounds as if this young woman’s problems are MI related, not DD ==
It does. This is such a horrible story that might have been different. Forget campaigns or who wins Governor, it is just tragic.
Comment by Formerly Known As... Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 7:35 pm
Zatoichi -
caseworkers have 200+ cases?
No. I do not think so.
Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Wednesday, Sep 24, 14 @ 9:11 pm
I read it twice.
It is pretty hard to hang this on anyone, except whomever placed her into her failed adoption years ago.
Yes, she had run-ins with the law when she was apparently 15 or 16.
But she had completed her GED, was working, and as far as we know was a functioning adult.
And that is the key.
Adult.
If you want to find fault with the state, go back ten or twelve years ago to when she was abused by her adoptive parents…but we don’t know if that abuse occurred months or even years after the adoption.
Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Thursday, Sep 25, 14 @ 6:37 am