tammzenn
02-09-2007, 11:18 AM
Police: Boy, 10, forced to strip, stand out in cold
Mother, friend charged with endangerment
By ROBIN BROWN, The News Journal
Posted Friday, February 9, 2007
The 10-year-old boy's punishment could have proved fatal: He was forced to stand outside naked this week, on a day so cold the high temperature reached only 22 degrees, police said.
New Castle County police found out what had happened when his mother called and asked that he be removed from her home due to disciplinary problems.
Simone Roundtree, 30, and her friend Katrina Batista, 27, were arrested Wednesday at their home near Newark, said New Castle County police Cpl. Trinidad Navarro.
Roundtree and Batista were charged with conspiracy and two counts each of endangering the welfare of a child and arraigned by video in Lewes.
Roundtree was sent to Baylor Women's Correctional Institution near New Castle on $2,000 bail. Batista was released on $8,000 bail, he said. Police did not explain why her bail was higher.
No one answered the door Thursday at their town house in the first block of Westerly Street in Whispering Pines, across from Kimberton Apartments.
Neighbors said they often saw the boy out in the cold before school and afterward -- until his mother got home at 6 or 6:30 p.m. Several neighbors said he refused offers of help, invitations to go into their homes or hot beverages.
"We met him because he was locked out of his house in the cold," said neighbor Bethany Bassett.
She got him to come in twice, after he was outside for more than an hour, she said.
"He's very quiet, very well-behaved," she said. He wouldn't accept anything to eat or drink, Bassett said. "He just sat by the window and watched his mother's house. He was very afraid of getting into trouble for going into somebody else's house."
Bassett never met his mother, but met her friend once. "She explained that he was outside because of a misunderstanding, that he was supposed to be at a friend's house," Bassett said. "I feel so terribly for him. As a parent, I can't even imagine it."
After Roundtree's 911 call for a domestic incident, Navarro said, she told officer she was having trouble with her son and wanted him removed. The mother said she no longer could deal with him due to disciplinary problems, including school trouble, he said.
An officer who saw him naked in a living room asked why he had no clothes, Navarro said. The women admitted having forced him to take them off and stand outside as punishment just before police arrived "because they wanted him to see how cold it really was out there," Navarro said.
Also as punishment, he was forced to sleep on a box spring on a basement floor and given a bucket for a toilet, Navarro said.
The Department of Services for Children, Youth and Their Families was notified and placed the boy Tuesday in emergency state custody, Navarro said. No details were released on his medical care or placement.
The Attorney General's Office determined charges on Wednesday, Navarro said.
Putting a child out in sub-freezing cold "shows a parent couldn't have very much regard for the child's health or safety," said child advocate Joseph M. Dell'Olio, executive director of nonprofit CHILD Inc. "It could have killed the kid."
Adults may not realize a child's humiliation, health issues or risk of death.
"When it hurts physically and emotionally, it becomes torture," Dell'Olio said. "And they may not realize it, but they are creating angry people who will go on and carry that anger into adulthood."
(seems the idiot parents are here in Delaware, too!!! :eek:)
Mother, friend charged with endangerment
By ROBIN BROWN, The News Journal
Posted Friday, February 9, 2007
The 10-year-old boy's punishment could have proved fatal: He was forced to stand outside naked this week, on a day so cold the high temperature reached only 22 degrees, police said.
New Castle County police found out what had happened when his mother called and asked that he be removed from her home due to disciplinary problems.
Simone Roundtree, 30, and her friend Katrina Batista, 27, were arrested Wednesday at their home near Newark, said New Castle County police Cpl. Trinidad Navarro.
Roundtree and Batista were charged with conspiracy and two counts each of endangering the welfare of a child and arraigned by video in Lewes.
Roundtree was sent to Baylor Women's Correctional Institution near New Castle on $2,000 bail. Batista was released on $8,000 bail, he said. Police did not explain why her bail was higher.
No one answered the door Thursday at their town house in the first block of Westerly Street in Whispering Pines, across from Kimberton Apartments.
Neighbors said they often saw the boy out in the cold before school and afterward -- until his mother got home at 6 or 6:30 p.m. Several neighbors said he refused offers of help, invitations to go into their homes or hot beverages.
"We met him because he was locked out of his house in the cold," said neighbor Bethany Bassett.
She got him to come in twice, after he was outside for more than an hour, she said.
"He's very quiet, very well-behaved," she said. He wouldn't accept anything to eat or drink, Bassett said. "He just sat by the window and watched his mother's house. He was very afraid of getting into trouble for going into somebody else's house."
Bassett never met his mother, but met her friend once. "She explained that he was outside because of a misunderstanding, that he was supposed to be at a friend's house," Bassett said. "I feel so terribly for him. As a parent, I can't even imagine it."
After Roundtree's 911 call for a domestic incident, Navarro said, she told officer she was having trouble with her son and wanted him removed. The mother said she no longer could deal with him due to disciplinary problems, including school trouble, he said.
An officer who saw him naked in a living room asked why he had no clothes, Navarro said. The women admitted having forced him to take them off and stand outside as punishment just before police arrived "because they wanted him to see how cold it really was out there," Navarro said.
Also as punishment, he was forced to sleep on a box spring on a basement floor and given a bucket for a toilet, Navarro said.
The Department of Services for Children, Youth and Their Families was notified and placed the boy Tuesday in emergency state custody, Navarro said. No details were released on his medical care or placement.
The Attorney General's Office determined charges on Wednesday, Navarro said.
Putting a child out in sub-freezing cold "shows a parent couldn't have very much regard for the child's health or safety," said child advocate Joseph M. Dell'Olio, executive director of nonprofit CHILD Inc. "It could have killed the kid."
Adults may not realize a child's humiliation, health issues or risk of death.
"When it hurts physically and emotionally, it becomes torture," Dell'Olio said. "And they may not realize it, but they are creating angry people who will go on and carry that anger into adulthood."
(seems the idiot parents are here in Delaware, too!!! :eek:)