Charges: Crack-smoking mother left infant with violent teen
TACOMA, Wash. -- The woman accused of leaving her infant child with her troubled teenage son so she could spend the night smoking crack was charged Thursday with criminal mistreatment.
Pierce County prosecutors say 40-year-old Robin Ross left her 9-month old and her 2-year old in the care of their 14-year-old brother on the evening of Nov. 30.
While Ross was allegedly out smoking crack, the 14-year-old -- referred to as C.J. in court papers -- assaulted the infant, according to prosecutors.
When Ross returned home the next morning, she found the infant unresponsive and called 911. Doctors soon learned the child had suffered severe head trauma. Doctors told investigators the boy is 80 percent brain dead and likely will not survive the injuries.
Police soon interviewed C.J., who allegedly told them he was jealous of and doesn't like his infant brother. He said while he was babysitting the kids, the infant spit on him and started crying. He said that made him angry, so he hit the boy with a rubber ball and a pillow and then violently shook him, according to prosecutors.
C.J. said he realized he'd injured the baby, but didn't call 911 because he didn't know his address and was scared he'd get in trouble.
Ross said C.J. has a history of anger problems and has been violent in the past. In fact, just a few weeks prior to the Nov. 30 incident, Ross said C.J. held a knife to his 10-year-old brother's neck, prosecutors said. In an interview with police, the 10-year-old said C.J. had punched him, choked him, and hit him with a bat in the past.
Prosecutors say Ross was well aware of those violent incidents, yet chose to leave her infant in C.J.'s care.
C.J. has been charged in juvenile court with first degree assault.
Pierce County prosecutors say 40-year-old Robin Ross left her 9-month old and her 2-year old in the care of their 14-year-old brother on the evening of Nov. 30.
While Ross was allegedly out smoking crack, the 14-year-old -- referred to as C.J. in court papers -- assaulted the infant, according to prosecutors.
When Ross returned home the next morning, she found the infant unresponsive and called 911. Doctors soon learned the child had suffered severe head trauma. Doctors told investigators the boy is 80 percent brain dead and likely will not survive the injuries.
Police soon interviewed C.J., who allegedly told them he was jealous of and doesn't like his infant brother. He said while he was babysitting the kids, the infant spit on him and started crying. He said that made him angry, so he hit the boy with a rubber ball and a pillow and then violently shook him, according to prosecutors.
C.J. said he realized he'd injured the baby, but didn't call 911 because he didn't know his address and was scared he'd get in trouble.
Ross said C.J. has a history of anger problems and has been violent in the past. In fact, just a few weeks prior to the Nov. 30 incident, Ross said C.J. held a knife to his 10-year-old brother's neck, prosecutors said. In an interview with police, the 10-year-old said C.J. had punched him, choked him, and hit him with a bat in the past.
Prosecutors say Ross was well aware of those violent incidents, yet chose to leave her infant in C.J.'s care.
C.J. has been charged in juvenile court with first degree assault.
Remember kids, drug addiction is a disease...therefore, totally excusable. You get a free pass when you're "addicted". And hey, doesn't this harken back to an idea we had of drug testing welfare recipients? Hmm, wonder whatever happened to that idea? I'm sure it wasn't a good idea anyway....
 @cm257n7 Yep it's only ok to drug test me so I can earn money to hand them. Could never drug test the people sitting home with their hand out wanting me to pay them. How would they buy drugs with their welfare if we drug test them? Horrible that anyone would suggest this.
Here you go again liberals. How many kids does this waste have? How much welfare is she given so she can go smoke crack?
I know how we can fix this, we just need more gun laws.
 @Alex Clayton hey wow! another irrelevant comment about guns....you nitwits need to stop polluting every thread with your off topic weird comments. these subjects you crammed together have nothing to do with each other.
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now, go shine your guns or something.
 @SwampThing Nice to see "SwampThing" admit that he could really care less how many children are killed or maimed for life.
So the 14 was watching a 9 month and 2 year old and almost kills the baby. Then he was violent toward a 10 year old brother. So we know of at least 4 kids this crack mama has. Disgusting. Why are drug addicts allowed to keep breeding?
So the state is probably paying this heathen welfare, now the state will be 'supporting' her and her clown car uterus in prison, supporting her son in prison, pay for the lifelong care of the infant if he survives, and pay to have the other two innocent children in foster care. Â Well, that's just ducky.
WTF is wrong with people! If you can't take care of you kids then give them to a family who can, if crack is more important then your children, give them up for adoption, or better yet use some birth control! This is ridiculous! So many people can't have kids yet these crack heads keep making and abusing them!Â
 @black diamond You are so right, BUT if they give them up, they do not get their State issued "crack" check...
CJ and his crack-head mother need to be put away forever. Beating and shaking a infant for spitting up on you? I hope they both get the same treatment from the other inmates.
Juvenile court??? WTF???? Since poor little innocent baby is 80% brain dead, let him go. Then CJ will be charged with murder and get tried as an adult. He is a monster and should be in jail for life. This monster will only hurt someone else. Why do we as a country, keep monsters that hurt children (and animals) alive?  Who hurts an infant??? I was 14 and babysat my younger brothers many times.  i am just horrified that another baby is brain damaged. Please spay the "mother" too.Â
@Northend --- Charged as an adult?!? That's laughable in this "we can rehabilitate juvenile offenders" state. He will get less than a year, get out, commit more crimes and then murder, just like the kids who killed Tuba Man in Seattle. It's sad, really.
This is a perfect example (and there's many more like it) of a need for court prescribed sterilization. Oh, but it's my right to reproduce. I don't care what anyone says but It should be a privelage to have children. Well Center for Reproductive Rights here's what happens, again and again and again. Who cares about the kids, it's all about the so called adults. We say we care about children. I still don't see it happening. This type of crap happens way too often. Makes me sick.
@69GT Why is it a right to have children? If you have pets and abuse them, you are not allowed to have more. Simple solution. I would rather see tax money go towards sterilization than rehab for this troubled kid (who more than likely is a lifelong felon) orwelfare for crackheads who keep reproducing.
 @69GT Yes it makes me sick too. . If kids are abused and neglected, then the state should immediately take them away on the FIRST Offense, and not wait for this crap to go any furthur.  There have been way too many stories these past few years of the state not stepping up to the plate in time, due to lack of common sense. Too many innocent children have died recently due to the state not doing anything.
 @Silver Lioness While I don't disagree with you, and I know the social workers would love to take this kids out of the home before something like this happens, the courts would never allow it. But, for a moment let's consider that they could take the kids out of the house at the first offense. What do you suggest they do with them? How many are you signed up to take? I personally know of kids who have spent the weekend at the DSHS office, because there was no foster home placment for them. I realize that's not a good reason to leave the kids in a questionable home, but what is the alternative?
Okay so here's my question! When the hell is CPS gonna step up and take these kids away from this pathetic family of dumbasses?
 @Zoso Yeah, and what will Dad say about all this when he gets home from work? Somebody's going to the woodshed for sure!
@TheTruncheon Ha! I'm willing to bet my whole paycheck there is no father figure. I'm also willing ot bet next weeks paycheck all three of these kids have different fathers. And I'm betting the mother is accepting welfare, WIC, etc.
 @SilverGryphon  @TheTruncheon I'm willing to be there are not FOUR 'father figures.' Â
I am curious if the state was involved at all here? If there was an incident just weeks before, why were those kids still in the home? They had to know at the time that there were deeper issues. A crack addict doesn't exactly act "normal". It is quite obvious. And if she was using while pregnant and the kids born addicted, the hospital would know. I would think CPS would be advised at that point as well. The Mom is at fault here, but I think the state dropped the ball as well if they were aware of the situation these kids were in and did nothing.
 @LillySpunk My guess is that the State was involved as much as can be said that they get "involved". To take kids out of a home is like getting a mentally ill patient who is a harm to themselves or others committed. So many facets and so many things have to go right. And all of that in an environment of burn out, "not my job", & red tape so THICK that no one wants to stick their necks out and do the right thing, lest they be made the scape goat if it someone sues. If you have every tried to deal in these systems, you would find those that are trying their darndest; but good luck to them.
 @Thunder  @LillySpunk So true.  For every person that is screaming to the media that the State didn't take children away, is 2 more people screaming that the State took away their kids.  The best idea would be for people to stop being such loser d-bags, so that the State doesn't have to step in and protect these people's own children from abuse.  But that is too much to ask, apparently.  Hundreds of thousands of cases each year in this State, and not enough resources to handle them... they're damned if they do, damned if they don't. Â
 @Thunder Yep. These social workers are all supposed to have "the Wisdom of Solomon" by the armchair quarterbacks after something goes horribly wrong.Â
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Well, even Solomon would have been at the very least fired if he tried even suggesting now what he ordered done back in the old days of the story.
 @LillySpunk The "state" is completely overwhelmed by cases such as this, and much much worse. There are simply not enough "social workers" to go around, and not enough of the tax-payer's money left to keep paying to support and "help" those that don't, can't, or won't pull their own weight... and yet insist on continuing to spawn out-of-wedlock kids they are completely incapable of raising correctly.
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It is a natural consequence of the "Great Society" programs instigated in the mid-1960's, among other deep social dysfunctions those programs have aided and abetted to fester their poisons even deeper into the rapidly tattering fabric of our crumbling civilization.
Um, the most depressing story ever. Good job raising your kids mom.
It is absolutely horrifying that the mother knew about the anger issues and violent behavior yet didn't even care.
 @Tattooed_Angel Well, what do you expect? She probably smoked crack while she was pregnant with the baby, too.
I just realized I have no clue what society is like. I am frikin naive!
Be sure to blame the teachers because CJ and his sister attend failing schools, defined as such because those kids don't pass state tests. . .Â
 @justsaying And be sure to blame everything and everybody... except those actually responsible.
What's really illuminating are these stories exemplifying how the decades-long taxpayer-funded "War On Poverty" is really working out... especially now after three generations of wealth redistribution.
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Thanks, LBJ!
 @TheTruncheon "wealth distribution?"  Oh, you mean how, since the 1980s, wealth has been transferred into the pockets of a handful of people, while the job training programs, and schools, lose funding???  Or do you mean how America's corporations have been sold off to vulture capitalists that send our bread-winner jobs, that people in the inner city could have hoped to get, to China and India thereby ensuring that the families in these neighborhoods have no chance in hell of getting a decent job that their grandfathers may have had???  Like that???  Look at the REAL wealth redistribution in America. It's not what you think.  It's in the pockets of the Koch Brothers, it's in the bank accounts of people that don't actually earn the money... they just take American companies, buy them, fire the workers, and send the jobs overseas to people who will work for $40.00 a month with no benefits.  That's the real issue here. (BTW, the majority of welfare recipients live in the Red States.)
 @DT  @TheTruncheon Wondering how long it was gonna take DT to bring up the Koch brothers. Consistency, at least. Obama corporate supporters off-shore jobs like their hair is on fire but not a peep from Flavor-Aid Queen DT.
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"(BTW, the majority of welfare recipients live in the Red States.)"
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That's simply a lie.
Stop saying that.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/compare_state_welfare_spend
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Koch Industries employs over 50,000 here in the US. Many of them Union jobs.
But keep spouting the DailyWorker line, there. Maybe if you tell a lie long enough, people will believe it.
 @DT  @TheTruncheon Current combined market cap of those three companies? $961,000,000,000. Guessing the privately held Koch Industries is a wee bit less than that.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=AAPL
 @DT  @TheTruncheon GE. Google. Apple. Champions of tax avoidance and off-shoring. All HUGE contributors to Obama and the Blue Team.
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I could be wrong. Maybe ol' DT could be posting on her American-made I-phone, Android phone, tablet or PC/Mac. Sure wouldn't want to support those $40 a month workers, now would we? It would be like Al Gore selling his Current channel to oil interests. That would never happen now, would it?
annnnd yet one more mother of the year candidate. maybe its time to stop reading these effed up stories.
 @SwampThing Not time to stop reading them; time to start writing much better endings. Ones that include phrases such as "relinquished all parental rights and agreed to permanent sterilization" and "permanent custody awarded to highly qualified relative committed to getting kids the extensive help they'll need to overcome the crappy start 'Mom' gave them."
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And the best one of all, "saving the taxpayers hundreds of thousands in decades of wasted resources for the cost of two 19-cent bullets."
 @MargeGunderson  @SwampThing you have any idea how hard that is? my ex BF's sister is a drug addict. He had to build a case which took years in order to gain custody of his nephews. Then she decided to go to rehab for the 10th time and the state gave her back her kids. My ex could no longer fight the state. Her boys are now 18, drug addicts themselves and complete losers. If she had every physically harmed them i am sure she'd be 6 feet under by now. States need to step up and take kids away from abusive parents regardless. Sadly the mission of CPS is reunification of families. Until they put kid's first, it won't happen.
 @MargeGunderson That's exactly the problem: the more kids that are born = bigger welfare checks.Â
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It's insane to reward dysfunctional baby-makers to create even more dysfunction. This 14 year old says he didn't know his address? Come on, that's something taught to children at 6 or 7 years old... in decent families that actually care about their kids. Of course decent families don't wander off to do drugs and leave their babies to... uncaring fate.
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This awful story stinks on so many levels. The only thing that's obvious about this travesty is that the entire "system" is broken and in failure mode. It's only a matter of time until it completely shuts down.
I'm sure all the kids, including the 14yo were born addicted to crack.  CJ and the 10 yo need serious serious help for many years before they can become a productive members of society. The baby has no chance. The crack addict who gave birth to these kids needs to be sterilized, and if a "problem" should occur during the sterilization, oh well!
I am not at all upset with C.J. He has issues but what child would not have issues if they had a mother who smoke crack and cared less for her kids. Who knows how long he has had to live with this. As for the baby, its sad that this baby will never be able to enjoy the beauty in life and there is nothing that can be done. Now the mother is a cold heart little girl that needs to be punish for her sons doing and her doing. I have no respect for her.Â
 @Just my say Agreed.  I would be willing to bet that C.J. was a crack baby himself which likely left him with some serious problems.
 @stamperzann  @Just my say I was thinking that, too. Much as I detest these violent assaults that leave infants brain damaged, I just can't get mad at C.J. when he's as much a victim here as his poor little sister.
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While fear was obviously the main motivator in him not calling 911, it's sad and scary that he may have been truthful in not knowing his own street address at age 14.Â
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I hope he gets the extensive help he needs for the physiological damage the crack has done to his brain and body, the developmental delays caused by his so-called mother's lack of nurturing, and what this horrific incident will do to his already fragile psyche.Â
 @Northend The answer is not always lock them up. Their are people who need someone who cares for them and show them the way. You keep showing nothing but hate toward people, you will live in a hateful place. Even if I did not know that he lives in a crack house, his age still shows that something is wrong. Why don't you reach out and try to understand someone before taking a dump on them.
 @MargeGunderson  @stamperzann  @Just my say his extensive help should be prison. Not knowing he lives in a crack house? come on. Stop with the he needs help crap. if he abused YOUR kid you wouldn't be singing this song
 @MargeGunderson  @stamperzann  @Just my say Reading this heart wrenching story, the thing that actually popped out for me was that he was so forthcoming with the police. In other words, kids without developmental delays would most likely have lied. It struck me that, as you point out, he is probably DD. Meaning this was not volitional so much as a reaction that he may not have understood the consequences of. I do not understand why we can not require these types of breeders (can't call them mothers), to be sterilized either surgically (less likely to fly), or chemically.
Sterilize her please. Then throw down a very long, long pit.