https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2024/02/16/prosecutors-legal-guardians-pulled-10-year-old-out-school-despite-teacher-opposition/
In this case a foster child was murdered slowly starved to death and the school, the neighborhood parents, and her biological parents where all calling and asking DHS to do a safety check.
Why are the state employees who refused to check on her not being charged with any crime? Also their names have not been released.
She was literally never checked on once she was put into foster care.
In: Other
There’s not really an ELI5 answer, but it’s going to be a combination of things:
(1) They didn’t do anything legally wrong. It’s one thing to actually do these things, and another to just not stop it.
Like if you were aware your neighbor was a psycho, and then he went and killed a man, do you think you should be charged? Of course not.
(2) These reports are just one of many. These agents get communications from different people all the time and about plenty of children. They judge these threats on their merits, and decide which ones to take action on. They misjudged that in this case, but that’s not a criminal act.
(3) A variation of the “Good Samaritan” concept, qualified immunity.
It is important to have people whose job is to sift through cases and check in on kids who may be victims of abuse or neglect. But *nobody* would ever choose to do a job if they were likely to get charged criminally for making an honest mistake at work.
If you started charging DHS agents for this, well then there wouldn’t be *any* children being checked up on and saved.
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