Child Services Had OVER 25 Reports Before He Died- The Story of Rashid Bryant

Child Services Had OVER 25 Reports Before He Died- The Story of Rashid Bryant

Introduction

The little boy had spent most of his life in foster care. His parents had proven time and time again that they were not capable parents, but a judge would say otherwise, and he along with his eight siblings would be returned to a home full of chaos and horror.

Background and DCF History

Rasheed Bryant was born on December 13th, 2018, to his mother Jaboris and his father Christopher Bryant in Opa-locka, Florida, and he also had 10 other siblings. Rasheed’s case is one that is incredibly sad, and it’s made even sadder by the fact that there’s nothing written about his personality or his likes. There was also no memorial, no vigil, and no proper obituary written for Rasheed.

So before Rasheed was even born, his parents were already well known to Florida’s Child Protective Services. Rasheed’s mother Jaboris’s DCF history began back in June of 2004 when she tested positive for marijuana at the birth of her second child. The next year, DCF would receive a report saying that there were two small children playing outside at Jaboris’s house unsupervised. At the birth of her third and fourth child in 2010 and 2011, Jaboris would again test positive for marijuana. Now, since this had been a recurring thing at this point, the family was referred to a private agency for services.

There were two reports filed with the DCF hotline in April of 2013: the first one saying that Christopher had punched Jaboris in the stomach while she was pregnant, and the second was a report that Christopher was running away from the police while holding one of his small sons in his arms and then throwing him into a car. The family was then put under DCF supervision, and three months later, Jaboris would again test positive for marijuana at the birth of her fifth child. These drug results on top of the prior allegations led child services to removing the children from the home. This time, however, the children were returned to their parents less than a month later on August 8th, and a judge would continue to oversee the family.

Now, there were also reports prior to Rasheed’s birth that the home was filthy and that a relative who often watched the children would smoke methamphetamine in front of them. DCF had also been told that the home had no water, there were roaches everywhere, and the children weren’t going to school nor bathing nor eating properly. The mother and father were also said to have been smoking marijuana with crack at this time, and they were selling their food stamps. There was also another report that said that Christopher had punched his oldest son in the face and then thrown him into a fence, and there was yet another report saying that Jaboris, her sister, and the oldest son had beaten up a neighbor and the two adults had been arrested.

Criminal Records and Living Conditions

So like their substantial DCF history, Jaboris and Christopher also had lengthy criminal records. Jaboris had actually been arrested 26 times prior to Rasheed’s death, including aggravated battery, burglary, car theft, armed robbery, armed carjacking, kidnapping, and assault with a deadly weapon. Christopher’s history is less extensive, but it’s still significant: he had been arrested 14 times, including charges of fraud, dealing in stolen property, cocaine possession, domestic violence battery, robbery, grand theft, burglary, and child abuse.

And when I said the home was dirty, it wasn’t just dirty; it was said to be uninhabitable. The children were apparently sleeping on the floor, the entire house smelled of feces, and at one point, almost all the children had an open, red, raw skin infection.

Then in 2018, the year Rasheed would be born, DCF would receive more than a half dozen reports about Jaboris and Christopher’s children, which would result in two investigations. During these investigations, it was noted that the family’s water was again or still shut off, and Jaboris had not paid the rent in two months (Christopher was in jail at the time). Another report that occurred in August of 2018 alleged that the children—there were now eight of them—were often left unsupervised, and the 15-year-old would be the one in charge. DCF, however, offered no services to the family at this time.

Christopher’s own mother even told DCF investigators that her son and daughter-in-law were not properly taking care of the children and were using drugs. She also told them that the older children were not attending school. Christopher’s mother would also encourage one of Christopher and Jaboris’s children—one of the older ones—to speak with DCF, and he would report that his mother had no money and no food. He stated that his mother uses drugs, gives him whoopings with her hands, and hits him in the stomach and legs.

Less than a month before Rasheed was born, a report came into DCF saying that the family was now living in a car. Christopher and Jaboris denied this, saying that they were staying at a nearby motel; however, they could provide no proof of that. And finally, on November 22nd, 2018, all eight of Jaboris and Christopher’s children were taken into DCF custody. The following month, baby Rasheed would be born on December 13th.

Foster Care and Initial Reunification Plans

Only two days after he was born, child protective services would take him into custody as well, and he would go live with a foster family while his siblings would live with their paternal grandmother. However, Jaboris and Christopher wanted all of their children back, so they agreed to take various parenting classes as well as go to therapy sessions. They also agreed to find jobs and provide stable housing for the kids.

So by August of 2019, a judge would give the parents supervised visits followed by weekend visitation. This plan would rely heavily on the vigilance of the children’s paternal and maternal grandmothers, who were at the house frequently. They were to look for signs of drug abuse or child abuse and report these suspicions to either a case manager or police immediately. The judge’s order also made contingency plans for if one or both of the parents got inappropriate or aggressive during one of their visitations; if so, the visitation would immediately be ended.

What’s the point of even allowing visitation if this is a very clear possibility? And Jaboris and Christopher’s visitation with the children would be canceled only a few months later in October of 2019 when they failed to inform the judge, or anybody else for that matter, that they had moved. The couple, who was supposed to be seeing therapists, holding down jobs, and maintaining stable housing, were doing none of it. They had both missed nearly, if not all, of their scheduled appointments with therapists, and in September of 2019, they had again been evicted and were living at a Clarion Inn near the airport.

At one point during this time that Jaboris and Christopher were trying to regain custody of their children, a judge denied their reunification, and Jaboris got so upset that she refused to go to a visitation with the children. That makes sense: you want your children so bad and you love them so much that you want them back, but you get angry and you’re not going to go see them for something they didn’t do?

The Push for Reunification

So even though nothing had changed, in January of 2020, a judge would allow Christopher and Jaboris to again start having their supervised visits with their children. Then a supervisor with a private case management agency who was overseeing the couple’s children for DCF recommended that the children be reunited with the parents, saying that the conditions of return had been met by Jaboris and Christopher. I’m sorry, what?

But that was absolutely not true, because in the 15 months that the children had been in state care, Rasheed’s parents had done absolutely nothing that the judge had asked them to do. And since Christopher had successfully avoided all of his therapy appointments, instead of saying, “Okay, you didn’t do this, you can’t have your children back,” the judge decided instead to just take that off of his plan, and he was no longer responsible for going to therapy.

They had also in the same month—January of 2020—stopped paying their rent again. So between September of 2019 and January of 2020, they had been evicted, had to live in a car or motel, gotten a new place, and again decided to stop paying the rent. According to confidential DCF records, this reunification of the children and parents was not supported, given that the reason for removal had not been remedied. Christopher’s attorney, however, was insisting that the children had only been removed from the parents’ care because they were homeless. He said that the parents now again had a place to live and the children wanted to be with their parents.

First off, not the reason they were removed, I hope. Secondly, I doubt those children want anything to do with their parents, and they’re not going to have a place for very long since they already stopped paying their rent again.

So the judge would agree with Christopher’s attorney and decided to let the children be reunited with their parents. However, Judge Bakara, the one who was overseeing the family, did not heed DCF’s recommendation that the children should be returned to the parents slowly and not all at once. They asked that she begin with only returning one of the older children. Instead, she ordered that Rasheed and three of his siblings be returned to their parents immediately. The five other children would be returned two months later. The judge said that it was in the best interest of the children to be with their parents, and the judge would tell Rasheed’s parents that they could not go back to their old habits—well, they’re not old habits because they never changed them, and I don’t think that talking to them is going to do a goddamn thing.

So on February 28th, 2020, Rasheed along with three of his siblings were returned to his parents, and the children were sent home without any supportive services to help Jaboris. The parents were also at this time given liberal unsupervised visits with the remaining five children. And about a month later, to everybody’s surprise, Jaboris would give birth to her 10th child; she had previously denied in court that she was pregnant at all. Only three weeks after the birth of her 10th child, the judge decided to return the remaining children to her, and it was noted in a DCF file that this new baby was deemed to be in a safe home.

Rasheed’s Broken Leg and the Termination of Supervision

In August of 2020, only a few months after Rasheed and the first three children had been returned home to their parents, caseworkers discontinued all supervision of them. At that point, the records say there was no ongoing assessment of the children’s safety performed each month, despite federal regulations mandating it. And in October of 2020, a judge ordered that all oversight of the entire family be terminated. They were on their own. They were good parents again in the judge’s eyes, I guess.

So as I said, supervision was cut off from the first four children in August, and complete supervision of all the children was cut off a few months later in October. However, in May of 2020—prior to either one of these dates—Rasheed had broken his leg, and Jaboris had given three different stories as to how it had happened.

She first would say that he was dropped into his playpen by one of his siblings. However, a text would later be found to her sister saying that she quote “beat his ass,” and six days later Jaboris would text another aunt a picture of Rasheed’s leg badly swollen. Around two weeks after Jaboris had texted about Rasheed’s injuries—so he’d had a broken leg for two weeks with no medical treatment at this point—a family volunteer advocate for children who had been working with the family noticed the little boy’s leg injury, and it was reported to the child welfare caseworker.

The caseworker called up Jaboris and insisted that Rasheed needed to be taken to the hospital, and finally she complied and did so. The caseworker decided to meet Jaboris and Rasheed at the hospital, but Jaboris already had a third story ready and waiting. She told the caseworker that Rasheed had been playing in the top bunk bed (he’s not even two!) and had rolled and fallen out. Jaboris would also lie to the doctor once there; she told him that Rasheed had only injured his leg two days prior to the doctor’s visit, rather than the two weeks that it had actually been.

And it was said that the doctor offered Jaboris two options: an X-ray or supportive care/painkillers for Rasheed. She decided to go with the latter, of course—she didn’t want to get an X-ray done so they could see how bad of a break it was. However, records from the hospital, Jackson North, would show that Jaboris had actually refused the X-ray, and she did not seek any further medical treatment after that for him.

The caseworker would take notes while at the hospital with Jaboris and Rasheed, and she noted that Rasheed could stand on his leg, however, as soon as he realized that it was painful, he would stop walking on the leg altogether. It also said that the doctor suspected no foul play, and the caseworker did not seem at all concerned. Now, while Jaboris never faced any charges for the injury, DCF did end up taking Rasheed away for a little while—why, I’m not sure, since the case worker did not appear to be concerned. However, Rasheed was returned less than two months after he had been seen by a doctor for his leg injury, and that’s the same month that DCF decided to discontinue supervision of him.

The Final Day

So only a few weeks after DCF had cut off all supervision of the entire family, Jaboris would wake up around 10:30 a.m. on November 6th, and she claimed that she found Rasheed unresponsive and not breathing. His lips were blue, his jaw clenched, and foam was seeping out of his nose and mouth. But instead of calling emergency services, she decided to call her sister Ashanti. Ashanti later told police that her sister was panicked, crying, and upset about her baby—though I have a hard time believing that.

On the phone, Ashanti told Jaboris to call an ambulance, and she rushed over. When she arrived at 11:50 a.m., Jaboris was holding Rasheed, and there were no paramedics there. Rasheed was not breathing and had not been breathing an hour before when his mother had found him, yet they still wouldn’t call 911 until a half hour later! And Jaboris and her sister would begin CPR as the 911 operator had instructed them to do, but clearly it was much too late.

Jaboris would tell investigators that after she had found Rasheed unresponsive, she had placed her son on the floor, propped his head up on a towel, and began resuscitation efforts, but red-tinged mucus was seeping from his nose. Rasheed would be taken to Miami Jackson North Medical Center, where he was unable to be revived. He was only 22 months old.

While police were there, they noticed that not only was the home of Jaboris and Christopher filthy, but they had used black garbage bags, tinfoil, cardboard, and even a small mattress to shield their windows from any sunlight—or most likely, prying neighbor eyes.

Autopsy, Arrests, and Sibling Testimonies

When Rasheed’s autopsy was done, the medical examiner confirmed that Rasheed had two skull fractures: one old and one fresh. He also had a healing rib fracture and a recently broken leg. The cause of Rasheed’s death was complications of acute and chronic blunt force injuries; contributing causes were parental neglect and withholding proper medical care. Rasheed’s death was of course deemed a homicide, and it was only a couple days after the toddler’s death that Jaboris and Christopher were arrested and charged with child neglect leading to great bodily harm. But these charges were later upgraded to manslaughter and aggravated child abuse.

When Jaboris spoke with the police, she told them that she had not called 911 right away because she had panicked and didn’t know what to do; she also did not want the other children in the home aware of what was going on. Jaboris also said she had never physically harmed her son and that Rasheed had actually suffered two seizures in the past few months. Jaboris also said that on the day before Rasheed died, he had eaten ravioli, a Rice Krispie Treat, and blue Kool-Aid for dinner. He was then running around and playing with his siblings before they went to bed at 10 p.m.—yeah, with a broken leg, I’m sure he was!

And Rasheed’s aunt Ashanti would back up these claims, saying that yeah, Rasheed was running around and hugging his relatives like usual. One of Rasheed’s siblings, however, had said that she had not seen the little boy walk on his leg since it had been injured months ago. In fact, she said that Rasheed had pretty much been confined to his bedroom, where he would lay in his bed almost all day.

Christopher told detectives that he had no involvement in any of the injuries to his son and hadn’t seen anyone else inflict these injuries either—however, it might have been his siblings, he said. And at the time of Rasheed’s death, the family was again facing eviction.

Now, some of Rasheed’s older siblings would speak with police and tell them what they had witnessed going on in the home. Rasheed’s older brother told police that Christopher would hit Rasheed and he would make Rasheed’s siblings do the same. Christopher and Jaboris would also make the children hold Rasheed’s head underwater, and the children complied because they were scared that if they didn’t, they would be the ones getting beaten.

In Rasheed’s final weeks, his brother reported that his skin looked like it was about to fall off and his stomach was sunken in. He also said that he and his other siblings would try to sneak Rasheed food and blankets whenever his parents were not looking. All the children in the home said that they would hear Rasheed crying from getting beaten, and his crying would only lead to more beatings.

And Rasheed’s older brother also told the authorities that he too was abused. He said a relative who had moved into the home with the family would whip him with belts and tie a rope around his penis while they were in the shower. Rasheed’s older brother also told authorities that he had noticed something was wrong with Rasheed’s leg about two months prior to his death. The teen had placed Rasheed in his bed and noticed that he cringed and cried whenever his leg was touched. And when he tried to rub Rasheed’s thigh to maybe help it feel better, Rasheed would push his hand away. When the teen reported the injury to his mother, Jaboris massaged the thigh, which clearly hurt him and made him walk around on it.

The then-16-year-old brother also described another incident, which he called “the stroke”: Rasheed, who had been eating ravioli, vomited it all over the bed. Moments later, he noticed that the little boy was laying on his back with his legs up in the air, stiff and shaking. When that happened, Jaboris had put a spoon in Rasheed’s mouth because his tongue had become stuck to the roof of his mouth. She said Rasheed cried for about 20 minutes, and his brother said he doesn’t remember if his mother sought any medical treatment after that—I’m going to go with a no.

And after this “stroke,” as the brother called it, Rasheed could no longer move his right arm at all; it was dead.

Now, one of Rasheed’s older sisters had been living with an aunt for one reason or another—probably ’cause her parents sucked—but she had gone over to Christopher and Jaboris’s house to visit on November 2nd, and when she did, she noticed that Rasheed was not only looking smaller, but she remembers him being limp on his right side, vomiting after eating, and having to be propped up against a wall in order for him to sit. She said Rasheed’s eyes were also moving in different directions at the time. So this poor little boy had a traumatic brain injury for days prior to his death.

Cover-Up, Record Releases, and Aftermath

Only days after Rasheed’s death, the State Child Welfare administrators filed to get custody of the remaining siblings, and in this filing, it said that Rasheed had died after sustaining multiple injuries due to severe abuse and medical neglect while in the care of his parents. Now, under Florida law, DCF must release their records when a child dies of parental abuse or neglect, but Florida’s child welfare agency violated this law and they refused to release records to the public. Can’t imagine why! They were saying that Rasheed’s cause of death had not yet been determined to be from abuse or neglect, contrary to what their filing for custody of the other children said.

So the Miami Herald, as well as about a dozen other media companies and advocacy groups, sued department administrators at DCF in February of 2022 when they refused to release them. The judge who was handling the case recognized that DCF had a tough job, but she also noted that the agency had ample evidence that the little boy had been abused from the medical examiner report as well as reports from the Miami-Dade Police and the State Attorney’s Office. The judge then ordered DCF to turn over these records to the media and public on March 1st, 2022.

And apparently DCF also looked into a discrepancy between photos of Rasheed that had been entered into an internal casework system and GPS tracking data that was embedded into the photos, and this discrepancy raised the possibility that the caseworker did not actually go to see the family on the days and times that she said she did. On one occasion, an agency email says that the caseworker copy-and-pasted from a prior home visit to document the results of a later visit.

And around the time that the kids had been returned to Christopher and Jaboris, the DCF case file said that the house was clean and tidy. When Rasheed had died, however, less than 11 months later, there were holes and pockmarks in the walls, garbage littered the floors, the shower and tub were full of mold, clothes and other possessions were stored in garbage bags, mattresses didn’t have sheets, the ceiling was leaking, and there was what appeared to be a stain from human waste or blood on a mattress blanket and part of the floor. It was a chaotic mess.

So the caseworker who had been working on Rasheed’s case had been placed on a leave of absence without pay a week after Rasheed’s death. She was then fired on December 2nd, 2020. And only five months earlier, this particular caseworker had actually been praised in an employee review for working with Jaboris and Christopher to have their kids returned to them.

And unbelievably or not, given everything we’ve already heard at this point, Jaboris would give birth to her 11th child while she was in jail. Christopher Bryant and Jaboris Jere pleaded not guilty to the charges; they are now awaiting trial and are being held without bond. Rasheed’s funeral was held on December 7th, 2020, at the Trinity Funeral Chapel; he was then buried at the Dade Memorial Cemetery.

Outro and Patreon

Well, thank you for listening to all of Rasheed’s story today. There are so many, many failures in this case: Rasheed’s parents, his aunt, DCF, police, the judge. Jaboris and Christopher should not have had any children, let alone 11 of them. They had no means to care for them, nurture them, or love them. It makes me so angry and so sad for Rasheed, who had been born into a life where he stood no chance from day one.