Fisher: No one took notice of boy's life of torture until it was too late

By Patty Fisher
November 1, 2006

If only someone had been a witness to Raijon Daniels' life.

If only someone -- a neighbor, a relative, a cop, a social worker -- had seen the 8-year-old boy's Richmond bedroom. The door that locked from the outside. The duct tape that bound him to his bed. The video system with which, police say, his mother spied on him from the next room.

If only someone had asked Raijon if he'd eaten that day or had asked him to take off his shirt, which hid bruises, rope marks, cuts and bed sores.

Perhaps you wouldn't have to be reading this.

Raijon died Friday, apparently after swallowing household cleaner. His mother, Teresa Moses, was arrested on suspicion of murder, torture and child endangerment. One police officer told reporters it was the most disturbing crime scene he'd ever seen.

In the 15 years that I've covered child welfare, I've seen a lot of sad cases.

But none like this one.

Apparently the abuse had been going on for a year or more. During that time, police and the Contra Costa County Children & Family Services had contact with the family. His school reported concerns about him to the county. After that, his mother pulled him out and began home-schooling him.

As one child welfare advocate put it, there were more red flags than at a Russian May Day parade.

But it seems no one knew about Raijon's secret life of torture until it was too late to save him.

That's the part of this story that I just can't accept.

Why did Raijon have to die before someone took notice?

County officials will file a report to the state, and within a month we should have some answers.

To be fair, social workers can't be everywhere at once. Abusers can be clever in avoiding detection. Even when the system works, there are tragedies.

About 1,500 children die from abuse or neglect in this country each year, according to federal statistics. That's four every day. Most are killed by their own parents.

The vast majority of kids who die from abuse are infants and toddlers. It's relatively easy to shake a baby to death or drown a toddler in the bathtub.

But an 8-year-old is harder to kill. An 8-year-old can fight back.

According to police reports, Raijon tried to fight back when his mother locked him in his room and whipped him. He ran away twice. Both times he was returned to his mother, a 23-year-old supervisor at UPS.

Teresa Moses was 15 when she had Raijon. I don't know her story, but I know that a girl that age has no business raising a child by herself.

On Tuesday, Lynn Yaney of Children & Family Services refused to discuss the case with me. Child welfare records are confidential.

``Surely we make mistakes,'' Yaney said. ``If we do, and something bad happens, it's devastating for us because this is our job -- to protect children.''

County Administrator John Cullen, who for years was the county's social services director, disputed police accounts that social workers didn't follow up on reports about Moses. But he wouldn't say what social workers did or speculate about how things could have gotten so bad.

``Whenever a tragedy like this happens, if there were serious errors we would correct them,'' he said. ``But I also try not to pre-judge.''

I suspect there will be a lot of pre-judging going on anyway. And there will be pressure on Contra Costa and other counties to remove more children from their homes, so as not to take the chance of another tragedy occurring.

That would be the wrong way to react. It would be a step backward from the current attempt to reform the child welfare system by helping families before there's serious trouble.

It's tempting to think those reforms could have helped this family, that counseling or parenting classes would have saved Raijon's life. But even under the current system, there were plenty of opportunities for someone to intervene.

Apparently, no one did.