Saturday, October 4, 2008

In Memory of Gabriel Tobin - Breaking News

See the Tacoma Tribune news story in their paper today regarding the 11.8 million dollar jury verdict below for 2 year old Gabriel Tobin who drowned in July 2004 in Lake Tapps.

I will blog more about the failures by the child care licensing agency and the Attorney General's Office in this case.

This is a thank you to the jury who were reasonable and prudent in their review, analysis and assessment of the case.

As a former child care licensor, now an activist for parents and the public I testified at this trial.

I thank the citizens who sat on this jury and were the reasonable judges to hear this case.

The failures in licensing that led to Gabriel Tobin's death started from the beginning in 2001.

The Attorney General's Office in my opinion is the biggest failure in this case. Myself, licensors and the supervisors were taught again and again over the years how to license properly.

Now the Attorney General's Office in opposition to the training they gave me and others brought this to court to support the the managers who oversaw the poor and improper licensing of this day care home.

I made a public disclosure request to find out how much taxpayer money they put into defending these state bureaucrats. Mary Kay Quinlan was the supervisor out of Pierce County and the jury found her at fault in this case.

Christine Gregoire was Attorney General and under her watch other children died. The Attorney General's Office in my opinion has been used as a public defender lawyer to suppport DSHS management personnel from being held accountable for their failures.

The Attorney General's Office is required to serve the citizens of the state of Washington not entrenched bureaucratic managers.

I will be writing more details in the future. I'm buried with some other social justice work at the moment.

Please leave any questions you'd like me to clarify about the state's role in this matter.