EDITORIAL: The burden rests with all of us
Renesmay Eutsey loved mermaids, unicorns and strawberry ice cream cones. She was a little girl with a radiant smile whose favorite colors were pink and purple.
We don’t know much more about the 9-year-old with special needs whose tiny body – marred by suspected signs of abuse and frail from suspected starvation – was found in the Youghiogheny River Sept. 4 after she was reported missing 14 hours earlier from her Dunbar home.
We don’t know much about the other four children living in the same household, either, other than that a battered 6-year-old boy weighed just 24 pounds when he was admitted to a hospital last week. Likewise, his 11-year-old sister was malnourished and forced to endure horrific acts of torture, court documents have revealed.
What we do know for certain is neither Renesmay nor her siblings deserved the life of torment investigators say was perpetuated at the hands of the two women – the foster parents – entrusted to the children’s care and now charged with homicide.
Nor did the youngsters in a separate, equally horrifying abuse case reported just days earlier in which a Redstone Township couple stand accused of locking their five children in a flea-infested bedroom that police said “functioned as a dungeon” – no beds, boarded-up windows, feces covering the walls, and limited clothing and food. Court filings allege a stun gun was used to punish the children when they disobeyed their parents.
The questions are many, and the community is outraged. Rightfully so.
Who failed these children, among the most vulnerable in our population?
In the wake of the heinous cases, two Fayette County lawmakers are preparing legislation targeting systemic failings that may have contributed to the abuses, and ultimately Renesmay’s death.
State Rep. Charity Grimm Krupa will propose legislation to stiffen penalties for child abuse and establish a more effective watchdog for child welfare agencies. Her counterpart, Rep. Ryan Warner, is seeking co-sponsors for a bill he is calling Renesmay’s Law, which would revamp the state’s Children and Youth Services system. Last week, he reintroduced a measure that would establish child torture as a crime in this state. Startingly, Pennsylvania is one of about a dozen states that has no such law on the books.
“While no law can eliminate evil, we have a duty to ensure that the systems designed to protect children are as strong and responsive as possible,” Warner said in a news release.
At a candlelight vigil for Renesmay last Saturday, organizer Ebony Floyd told those gathered, “Now, it’s time to get angry. Why didn’t anybody notice? This is not something that happened overnight. Everybody failed that girl. Enough is enough.”
She’s right. The burden rests with all of us.
“If you see something, say something” – the slogan attached to the national campaign targeting terrorism – applies here, too.
A child’s life could depend on it.