Ready to get real mad?
A Child Protective Service (CPS) employee was fired after telling a 14-year-old girl in foster care to become a prostitute.
The vile interaction was secretly recorded by the young girl and later released, but interestingly enough, there was no mention of such video during a recent court hearing.
Keisha Bazley is a Texas mother of nine who needed help with her 14-year-old daughter, who was running away and causing trouble at school. So, Bazley turned to CPS.
Like dozens of other foster kids, this young girl is being housed by CPS at a hotel.
The video released to Fox 26 Houston allegedly shows an exchange between the young teen and a CPS worker who tells the girl to be a prostitute.
"My daughter told me that the worker had been telling her she should do these things, so she said she decided to video her," Bazley told Fox.
This is just one case that has been exposed because the young girl was clever enough to start secretly recording this person. Who knows what other discussions this and possibly other CPS workers have had with foster kids?
You know, those foster kids they're supposed to be protecting...
"If me, the parent, was to do something like this to my child, I would be bashed," Bazley said. "I would be called a horrible parent. I would lose my kids."
After watching the video, family law attorney Mike Schneider told FOX 26 that the CPS worker was not only encouraging her to become a prostitute, but it was almost a threat.
"And giving her an incentive to do so, and almost a threat of not having her needs being met, if she didn't do what this woman very explicitly told her to do," said Schneider.
The judge overseeing this young girl's custody case was never shown the video.
Bazley, the young girl's mother, filed an official complaint with CPS and the agency's commissioner, Jamie Masters, apparently went to Houston from Austin to personally apologize to Bazley and her daughter.
"This should not happen to girls in their care," Masters said. "It should not happen. It's unacceptable."
An apology was not enough for Mike Schneider.
"I've never seen that happen before where the commissioner of CPS comes in from Austin, just to apologize about something horrible that's been done to a child involved with CPS," Schneider said. "It's bad enough if it's just one bad rogue worker. It concerns me that it may be bigger than that, and they need to make sure it's not just one person, and they've got to find a way to protect these kids."
Protecting children is literally in their job title.
From Fox 26:
In a statement to FOX 26, Texas Department of Family and Protective Services spokeswoman Melissa Lanford said, "DFPS is aware of the video and has taken action. The person in the video — who was employed as CPS support staff — was dismissed from her position August 10. The safety and appropriateness with which children in care must be treated is our paramount concern. Nothing less will be tolerated."
It all feels like too little, too late.
The damage was done. Predators always prey on the weak, and these foster kids are an easy target in their eyes.
Ironically, when KRIV News asked Schneider if CPS would remove a child from a home that was actively encouraging that child to take up prostitution, he said, "they should, and they would."
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