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Tuesday, February 24, 1998
Society's protectors bent, broke and ignored rules
By ANDREW SCHNEIDER WENATCHEE -- It may never be known how many children were victimized in what has been called one of the nation's largest child sex rings. But it's clear the lives of many children here were devastated not by rape or molestation, but by the actions of the very people sworn to protect them from harm. Vivid accounts of the sweeping investigation that resulted in criminal charges against 43 people show that people with badges, state credentials and mental-health licenses pursued convictions with a damaging zeal, sometimes exceeding their authority and expertise. Hired to provide treatment, they cajoled and coerced damning accusations from terrified youngsters who often later recanted. Four years after horrific stories of rape and abuse surfaced here, scores of children remain separated from parents, brothers, sisters and friends. The state has put 17 of the 60 children up for adoption. Numerous children say they were hurt horribly -- not by rapists but by state Department of Social and Health Services caseworkers and counselors and therapists hired by DSHS or its Office of Child Protective Services. Their stories are corroborated by clinical reports, CPS episode reports and interviews. "It was the system -- CPS, the police and counselors, that really hurt all those kids the most," said Sarah Doggett. Doggett, now 19 and living in California, was one of those Wenatchee kids. Today, her anger spills out in a stream of words: "It hurts to be a young girl all of a sudden ripped away from her family, all that she has known and loved, told that her parents did horrible things to her, shoved in a mental hospital, given drugs, told by police and CPS -- people she'd been taught to trust -- that she's lying when she won't say something happened that didn't." A five-month Post-Intelligencer investigation has found that a few CPS workers and therapists bent, broke or ignored regulations, laws and ethical standards designed to ensure the rights and proper care of children receiving state-ordered therapy. Among the findings:
Juana Vasquez doesn't think so. A former associate dean at Spokane's Gonzaga University, she returned to her hometown in 1988 to work as a DSHS supervisor. Her career in state government was short. She says she and two other Wenatchee staff members were fired after complaining about "blatantly inappropriate" actions of DSHS caseworkers, therapists and Perez. "Counseling sessions became interrogations, placements (in foster homes) were used as threats. Warnings that they'd never see their parents again were held over the children's heads if they failed to say they had been abused," Vasquez says. "Imagine what this did. Just try to imagine how those poor, poor children felt. "Counselors who followed the rules and placed the health, the feelings and the needs of the children first were replaced with others who would pursue the criminal investigation needs of the police and prosecution. This is not social work."
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