SUSPEND THE STATE, NOT THE MIGRANT SHELTER

Tennessee state officials continue scrambling to cover their exposed backsides. That’s about the best way you can put it when trying to explain the ridiculous hoopla and eventual license suspension, and — yes, we think discrimination — aimed at Chattanooga’s shelter for unaccompanied minor children.

After all, wouldn’t you think that complaints of possible sexual assault and battery at the shelter should result in some form of state investigation, intervention or at least accountability against any and all shelters or facilities in charge of children?

But no. Despite the fact that there have been other similar allegations against other shelters, the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services suspended only one — just one —residential child care license in the past five years, that of the Baptiste Group, the federal contractor that operated the shelter in Chattanooga for unaccompanied migrant children.

And, well, duh, the shelter operators believe the state unjustly targeted their facility.

“Other agencies under the licensing authority of the Department who have had similar allegations of inappropriate conduct by staff members with minors in their care and custody have not had orders of summary suspension issued against them and have been allowed to continue to operate,” according to a petition for review filed in Davidson County Chancery Court on July 20. “The only difference between those other agencies and [The Baptiste Group] is the fact that TBG is a minority-owned business and serves the unaccompanied minor population who primarily come from Central America.”

The Baptiste Group isn’t excusing the abuse, if it happened. Rather, it is disputing the way the state handled the allegations and the suspension.

“”While in no way condoning the actions of those terminated former employees or discounting the egregiousness of the allegations, the immediate suspension of operations based on those allegations while not doing the same for other agencies with similar incidents demonstrates bias and prejudice,” the lawsuit states.

If you doubt the concern about discrimination, consider the state’s response to the Times Free Press request for data from DCS about how many allegations of child abuse the department received in the past five years related to 29 residential child care facilities licensed and operating in our state.

Jennifer Donnals, DCS chief of staff, didn’t deny the statement. Rather, she said the department could not provide that data since the department does not track allegations based on location.

“Our records are based on the name of the alleged perpetrator or name of the alleged child victim, not the location of the allegation or the workplace of the alleged perpetrator,” Donnals wrote in an email.

What? DCS is responsible for tracking and regulating specific shelters in real, specific places in real, specific communities. If DCS doesn’t track allegations by location, how does its staff know where to investigate? How do they know to which police jurisdiction to turn over information when they decide there’s nothing to it or they don’t want to look further? After all, that’s what happened in Chattanooga.

Here, the state punted on the first allegation of abuse. When it received a second allegation that a worker was seen “kissing” a child, they punted again, saying “kissing” is not listed as an act of sexual abuse. State officials said that when allegations don’t meet defined Child Protective Services investigation levels, incidents are reported to law enforcement.

In the same response to the Times Free Press that allegations are not tracked by location, Donnals said the department would not be making any public comments related to the pending litigation.

Gee. We wonder why. On May 20, DCS declined to investigate a child abuse complaint against an employee at the Chattanooga shelter. On June 3, the state made an unannounced visit to the shelter and interviewed six children, one of whom told a DCS worker he saw an shelter employee kissing a child there. State inspectors wrote in their summary on June 3 that the “physical inspection had yielded no findings or need for corrective action.”

But those two abuse reports sparked an internal investigation and investigation from local and federal law enforcement, eventually leading to the two arrests. A month later, (during which time DCS did not interview any other children, despite shelter operators requesting such) Chattanooga police charged a female shelter employee with sexual battery by an authority figure, coercion of a witness and tampering with evidence. Eventually, police would arrest a second woman. Two days later, the state suspended the residential child care license of the Baptiste Group which had operated the shelter.

Maybe what should be suspended is the fumbling Tennessee Department of Children’s Services and a state government that — though it approved this shelter in May 2020, then renewed and expanded its license in February — didn’t seem to care about the shelter or its operations until it became a focal point of the GOP’s immigration hysteria this May and later garnered Chattanooga Police criminal charges.

The fact that only this shelter was singled out for suspension just puts a cherry atop all of this ongoing bias.