The opinions expressed in this piece are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carolina Journal or its publisher.
- “No parent should have to bury their child.” — King Theodin, The Two Towers, by JRR Tolkien
On Saturday, May 24, Briauna Morgan received a call at work from the Person County Department of Social Services (DSS) to tell her that her one-year-old son, Kemari, had died earlier that day. She didn’t get an in-person visit with a grief counselor or someone trained in delivering terrible news. She didn’t get an in-person visit at all, just a phone call to tell her that she would never see her baby boy again.
Kemari had died at the foster placement where he spent much of the last year. Person County Child Protective Services (CPS) removed him, along with three of Briauna’s other children, from Briauna’s care, and she has spent much of the last year trying to get them back.
CPS forcibly took those children away from their mother, broke up their family, and put them in the homes of strangers. CPS and the DSS system bear responsibility for the children they take, and they failed at the highest possible level of destructive incompetence and deliberate neglect. Accountability for this child’s death falls squarely at the feet of Person County DSS, and tragedy of this magnitude demands a reckoning…