Posted on 05/07/2003 9:32:17 AM PDT by longtermmemmory
Pre-dawn call brings abuse to light Man alerts Akron police after seeing three boys walking toward I-77 By Andale Gross Beacon Journal staff writer
Jeff Russell did a double take when he drove past three children a week ago in the chilly pre-dawn hours walking toward the highway.
Three boys dressed in T-shirts, the smallest riding on the shoulders of one of the older boys, were heading north on East Avenue near Interstate 77, about a mile away from their Florida Avenue home in Kenmore. They had walked past houses and car lots and were near a gas station.
Russell, a postal worker who spotted the youngsters as he drove a mail truck shortly before 4:30 a.m. April 28, was one of the few people out at that hour.
``What got me was how small they were and what time it was,'' said Russell, 49.
When he telephoned Akron police five to 10 minutes later, Russell didn't realize the boys were fleeing from their home where it is alleged they and two siblings were being abused by their mother and her domestic partner of seven years.
Mary Rowles, 30, and the woman she calls her spouse, Alice Jenkins, 27, each face five felony counts of child endangering. Jenkins also faces two counts of felonious assault.
Akron Police Sgt. Brian Harding said if it weren't for Russell's phone call along with the calls of anonymous tipsters, police might not have learned about the abuse.
``The call was very important. That started the ball rolling,'' he said.
Russell said: ``I was in the right place at the right time.... I'm no hero.''
Sitting on the front porch of his Green home Monday, Russell said there is no way he could have known the children's situation, but he regrets not stopping the moment he saw them.
``You don't see kids walking that early. In hindsight, I should've pulled over and talked to them and found out why they were out there,'' he said. ``But we're always on a schedule. (Managers) don't really care for us stopping.''
He returned to the main post office branch on Wolf Ledges Parkway and contacted police and told them about the boys. It was his call and others that helped lead police to the boys and the house where they allegedly were beaten, poorly fed and locked in a closet for weeks at a time.
Russell said the two older boys looked to be about 5 and the smaller boy about 2.
Police took custody of the boys aged 8, 10 and 14, and later took two more boys, aged 13 and 6, and a girl, 12, from the house.
None of the three boys found on the street was wearing socks or shoes. The 14-year-old told police he had gotten rags from a trash can to wrap his sore feet.
Russell and his wife, Colleen, later learned from news accounts who the boys were.
``If those kids would have kept walking down the street, those women could have woken up, and it could have ended a lot differently,'' Colleen Russell said.
The boys and their sister all are in foster care.
``I think they were the heroes for getting out of the house,'' Russell said.
``Somehow they chose the right time. They made the break and did it.''
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Andale Gross can be reached at 330-996-3743 or agross@thebeaconjournal.com
It was particularly galling to me that the very next day after this story broke, there was a local state senator calling for an investigation into home schooling practices in Ohio. There was no home schooling going on, it was simply a way to effectively and efficiently carry on their abuse behind closed doors and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that latitude was given them due to the "non-traditional family" household.
This is criminal behavior, pure and simple, and the absent fathers as well as social services should be held accountable for enabling these beasts.
I know it is thin comfort, but history shows us, repeatedly, that whenever there has been a definitive change in human society e.g. the Industrial Revolution, the creation/use of the internal combustion engine, the wheel, the evolution from hunter-gather stage to settled communities, there has always been a massive, unsettling of human societies. Alway.
With the advent of the Computer Age, we have passed childhood's end. We have evolved into a new phase of human existance as sure as if we had sailed the seas and discovered a new contenient.
The ying to this yang, alas, is the convolutions - in everything - that we are going though, and will continue to go through till the seas calm. To us who have no choice but to live through it, the passing will take many weary and distressing years; but in the course of human history it will be little more than the blink of an eye.
"To the stars through tears."
Three sons (23,19,15) all self-motivated high-achievers and a wife and mom who keeps us all in line (as best she can)
the handle just came to me one day, sorta like the sound of one hand clapping kind of thing...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.