Human trafficking investigation involving teen in Cuyahoga County custody: I-Team

CLEVELAND (WJW) – Video released to the FOX 8 I-Team shows how a young girl in the care of Cuyahoga County social workers became involved in a human trafficking investigation.

Her mother also speaks out.

We have shown you time and time again issues related to children living in a social worker office building in Cuyahoga County. In this case, the teenager was in this building under observation.

But the police found the girl far away from there.

Back in February, Independence police found two teenage girls stranded at a hotel.

One was a 16-year-old foster child who had been living in the downtown Jane Edna Hunter Building, the headquarters of Cuyahoga County Social Workers.

But after asking some questions, Independence police took steps to bring in a human trafficking task force.

The 16-year-old claimed she had been sexually abused.

Police body camera video shows her telling an officer, “This is not a good thing.”

“No, it’s not. What happened?” The officer responded.

We showed this teen’s mother the police video. She told us her daughter had been living in the office building for months waiting for the county to find the right nursing home.

But her daughter got into trouble inside the building and often left the building to run in the street.

“That makes you sick. “It scares you,” her mother said. “Seeing that, knowing that happened. They told me that my daughter would receive better care in the Department of Children and Family Services.”

Police video also shows the teen asking police if she was listed as “missing” on the way back to the county building.

“When you put my name in, did it say I was missing?” she said. “I’ll stay on the west side.”

“She had the freedom to do whatever it took to live an adult life,” her mother added.

For years, the I-Team has reported on violence and other problems with children in the district’s care facility in this office building.

For this story, we found nearly 120 cases of juveniles reported missing associated with this address over a six-month period. Everything has been missing for some time.

The district issued a statement:

“Jane Edna Hunter is not a residential facility and is a last resort for youth whose parents cannot or will not care for them. DCFS staff have no legal authority to physically restrain, restrain, and/or prevent a child in their care from leaving the JEH building unless there is an imminent threat of significant harm to the child, staff member, or visitor . Sometimes we find ourselves in a situation where we cannot say no to a youth being placed in our building. We created a Youth Care and Wellness Team to provide a variety of enriching and varied activities for youth awaiting placement and continue to work with multiple child care systems to find more placement options for children and youth in need. Additionally, Cuyahoga County is moving forward with plans to open a Childhood Wellness Campus to better meet the needs of children served in the county.”

The teenager in this case is now participating in a program to help youth who may be victims of human trafficking. The teen was charged with crimes, but she may also have been a victim.

Her mother admits she had problems with her daughter at home, but she never expected that with the teenager in county care.

“You can call me angry. You can point to things that happened in my past. I’m not mad. I am an excellent mother. You shouldn’t take other people’s children and set them up for failure,” she said.

The district considers the children living in this office building to be the most troubled children and it is very difficult to find a foster home for them. However, the district has told us that most of the children living there only stay there for a few days at most.

We also asked the district when the new facility might open.

We were told via email: “A cross-system planning committee is scheduled to meet in the coming weeks with the aim of establishing additional schedule details, operational protocols, partnership opportunities and child-centered best practice models.” The project is expected to come online in phases and Different levels of care and treatment are integrated over time.”