Scene Of Squalor -- 19 Children Found Huddled In Filthy Home
CHICAGO - Officer Patricia Warner bent down amid the cockroaches, the filthy clothes and the rotting food that littered the West Side apartment. Police had found 19 cold and hungry children there late Tuesday, and Warner was helping the kids get dressed when one of them looked up at her.
"Will you be my mommy?" the child asked. "I want to go home with you."
The scene in that apartment, Warner said yesterday, was probably the worst she has come across in her 10 years as a Chicago police officer. She and three other officers went to 219 N. Keystone Ave. to investigate reports that drugs were being sold through a front-room window.
Instead, the officers found the children huddled on bare mattresses, wearing little but soiled diapers and dirty underwear, sharing a gnarled bone with the family dog.
"I was in shock that there were that many kids in the apartment," Warner said. "We just kept finding kids under blankets."
The apartment had little heat. Neither the refrigerator nor the oven worked.
"There were several children sleeping on a mattress in the corner," Sgt. Russell Mueller said. "They were lying like hamsters and gerbils do when there's no room, kind of wrapped around each other, on top of each other."
All but one of the children were age 9 or younger.
Seven adult relatives of the children - five mothers, a father and an uncle - were charged with contributing to child neglect. "The only remorse they showed was they didn't want to be arrested," officer Maggie Gutierrez said.
A sixth mother was not charged because she was in the hospital giving birth to her third child.
All but one of the children were taken to an emergency shelter run by the Department of Children and Family Services, the largest single influx of children the state agency has faced.
Lavonne Hughes, grandmother of three of the children, complained that she repeatedly had reached out but was rebuffed by authorities. DCFS, Hughes said, had been contacted Friday about the conditions in the apartment.
"I have called DCFS several times with no response," she said. "People do care about their children. I do love my grandkids, but all I can do is go by the book. My hands are tied."
When police arrived at 11:10 p.m. Tuesday to investigate the tip of narcotics sales, they were let in by an adult. Two men were asleep, including one who was alone in a bedroom while the children slept on the floor or packed onto a mattress, police said.
No drugs were found.
Police arrested those three adults and three more who arrived as the children were being taken out.
The woman who had rented the apartment rarely paid the entire monthly fee of $380, according to the building's landlady, who asked that her name be withheld.
The landlady added that she had no idea that the renter's sisters and their children, as well as the men, lived there. She said that when she stopped by, she was refused entry into the apartment.
Police said the adults failed to grasp the gravity of the children's plight, questioning why the officers were taking the kids away and why they were arrested.
All but one of the children were examined at hospitals and then taken to the Columbus Maryville Emergency Reception Center, said DCFS spokeswoman Martha Allen. A 4-year-old boy who has cerebral palsy was taken to Children's Memorial Hospital, where he was listed in fair condition last night, a hospital spokeswoman said.
That boy had several marks on his body consistent with abuse, including burns possibly caused by cigarettes and fresh and healed welts, police said.
All but that boy seemed to be in good health, Allen said, and they were placed in protective custody pending a formal custody hearing.
Allen said the woman who gave birth was contacted by DCFS when another of her babies showed signs of drugs in its system. DCFS took protective custody of the baby born yesterday, though neither Allen nor hospital officials commented on that child's health. Material from Associated Press is included in this report.