Thanks to Alderman Meyer for emailing us bloggers this police release.
Date: July 8, 2007 (15:02)
Reference: SERIOUS CHILD ABUSE
For Release: Immediate
Saturday, July 7, 2007 5:47 pm 1630 West 42nd Street
A two year old child is in serious condition at University Hospitals in Iowa City. He was taken there by air ambulance after initial treatment at Genesis Medical Center.
The little boy was found unresponsive when emergency personnel responded to a medical assistance call at 1630 West 42nd Street at 5:47 pm Saturday.
It is very apparent that the child sustained a severe beating as there was extensive bruising and trauma to the majority of the child’s body.
The mother, LIZABETH GARCIA, 24, has been arrested and charged with CHILD ENDANGERMENT with SERIOUS INJURY. She claims that the injuries happened as long as three days ago but that she did not seek medical attention for the child because she was afraid that DHS (Iowa Department of Human Services) and the police would get involved. Therefore the child was left to suffer.
Garcia said that injuries happened when she left the child in the care of her boyfriend while she went to work. The location of the boyfriend is currently unknown.
The boyfriend has been identified as HERMAN CARL MORRIS, also known as JAMES DOZIER or JAMES WILLIAMS. He is a black male, 27 years old, 5”10” tall and weighs 170 pounds. He is currently wanted on arrest warrants unrelated to this horrific crime. Those warrants, from the Davenport Police Department and Rock Island County include:
• Sex Abuse 2nd degree
• False Imprisonment
• Felon in Possession of a Firearm
• Assault with Intent to Commit Sex Abuse
A car owned by Garcia is unaccounted for and it is thought that Morris/Dozier/Williams might have that car. The vehicle is a green, 1995 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme four door. It has Iowa license plates 520 SIN.
Anyone having any knowledge concerning this information and/or the location of the Morris/Dozier/Williams is asked to immediately notify their local law enforcement agency or Crimestoppers.
20 comments:
My guess this guy is a kind we are attracting here from Chicago or elsewhere. Not exactly the kind of people Malin and the boyz were hoping to attract to this city is it? Well, let me guess, these folks live in low income apartments? Just a guess.
Build them and they will come....
Thanks QCI - I was going to do a post but you beat me to it. And thanks Keith for getting us this information. Maybe someone will see something that will help. I am going to try to post a link to a picture of the guy, hope it works.
Wanted for child abuse
YAY - it worked. this is such a tragedy. I can't imagine letting someone like this near my child, let alone in charge of the child's welfare. The pain this baby must have gone through for three days.
The "mother" is as disgusting as the animal who hurt this baby. If this had happened to one of MY children, I'd be in jail for killing the S.O.B. ! I have no sympathy for these women who pop out babies and hop from boyfriend to boyfriend. Once I became a single mother, I STAYED that way until my children were raised. I made my bed by having kids. I had to lie in it and put them first. I don't regret it for one second!
I hope these two rot. I agree with the person making a snide comment about the low income housing, too. We don't need anymore criminal havens in this town!!!
Another update from DPD:
A second child from the residence has been sent to a medical facility for examination due to the presence of bruising and complaint of pain.
Please help us locate this man.
He may also have a female child with him at this time.
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Anon - I have so much respect for those who realize when they create a child they must put the child's needs ahead of their own desires. Too many people still want to live self-centered lives and society is seeing the effects. People say its the rise of single parents. It's not, its the rise of irresponsible parents and you definitely sound like you wouldn't fit that category!
That 2nd child needs to be placed with relatives or foster care after the medical attention. That mother needs to be arrested and caned. Let's have a big black guy beat the hell out of her for several days, and then deny her medical attention.
If the guy wasn't on the lease, the entire family should have been evicted. We need to get rough and tumble with these people and get them to move out of this town. Let's get back to basic and decent good values instead of low income housing hand outs.
That is why I am happy about the RDA and the boat hardships because they gave tons of money to our community to support the tons of poverty services we offer in Davenport. Hey - Bettendorf doesn't do it, we do. And we obvioulsy pay for it.
Here's the thing...It's easy to sit here and complain about "these kind of people" being attracted to "certain kinds of housing". Whether they live in Davenport or in Chicago, the USA suffers either way. I'm more interested in hearing about solutions to these problems than how we should shift them to some other town.
The solution is that we don't have one. For our city though, the solution is to stop attracting these people here and stop build bad low income rentals and focus on the people who actually need and want help.
Instead of the easy way out, make these project fit into the middle class neighborhoods, stop concentrating poor people in one area of town, and give everyone a safe place to live.
I agree that better planning is important. But to me, shifting around where these people live seems like the easy way out. The root cause of the problem is not where they live (although for their neighbors it may seem that way). I sure as heck don't know what the solution is. It's obvious that large, long-term changes are needed. I think stuff like this is on the right track.
Anon 3:50
Of course this guy HAD to be from outside of davenport. No one who grew up here would do such a thing right?
Maybe if this woman's neighbors actually treated her like a 'homegrown' neighbor they would have seen the pattern of abuse instead of shutting these 'vagrants' out.
A good start to "a fix" is electing the right aldermen to support the city departments and not those of special interest landlord groups. These lobbyist have ruined this city and will continue to do so if we don't stop them. And to think Ambrose wanted to use volunteers to do housing inspection, what a joke!
I think we are all talking about potential "fixes": it's just that some are short-term and some are long-term.
Well, its ridiculous to have yet another discussion on this when there is such an important pressing matter at hand, but I'll bite.
Pioneer, you are wrong. You don't think where "these people" live is the problem. It's a huge problem. People strive to better themselves when they have positive examples. When you populate all your low income into pockets you isolate them from positive influence. The right plan is mixed income neighborhoods. Every new development should be required to provide a percentage of houses sold only to low income families. This should be regardless of the sale price of the surrounding homes. We need low income people to be in every neighborhood, not just one of their own so they can be surrounded by people who have some level of success. QCI's lofts are a good example of this.
This also makes it easy to spot the trouble-making few who give all low income housing a bad name and keeps the decent majority of low income people from being victimized (as studies prove happens) by their misbehaving neighbors.
For instance, Prairie Heights should be including some houses for low income people. They won't though.
My father worked as a child abuse investigator for DCFS in Davenport for thirty years -- this is terrible, but by no means extraordinary, or something Davenport never had before. Nor is it limited to "low-income" areas -- it's just that the middle classes are much smarter about not getting caught.
...and snarky chick is RIGHT ON about the benefits of mixed-income housing!
I also think mixed income housing is a good idea. I don't think it's a silver bullet that will solve everything, but it seems to be much better than isolating the poor in ghettos.
Everything I've read seems to say it's a better approach to the problem.
It's not just low income housing. Just because you don't make a lot of money doesn't automatically make you a child abuser or a criminal. And a lot of low income housing has required background checks and won't let you rent if you have ANYTHING on your record. Criminals come from all income backgrounds, maybe you should open your eyes.
Let me first start by saying that I am horrified by the abuse this child had to endure. It truly saddens me.
I also feel as though I should comment on the low income subject.
I happen to be a divorced mom of two sons and we are a low income family. I have never in my life been arrested nor has anyone in my immediate family. I've never engaged in criminal activity or have had any warrants.
I moved to Iowa City after visiting here and falling in love with the atmosphere. My sons and I are African American. My 5th grader is reading on a ninth grade level. My youngest son was tested and his math is well above the state average for his grade.
We are from Chicago. I hate to even mention that at times because of the bad name it has been given
here in Iowa.
I just want to show you that not all low income individuals from Chicago are bad. I wanted to raise my children in a diverse neighborhood. I do live in subsidized housing but, the whole building isn't subsidized. Just a few units. Yes we are low income but, we aren't surrounded by poverty.
I believe that people are a product of their environment. With that being said I feel confident that my children will grow to be highly successful self sufficient young men.
i am the girlfriend of the biological father and it saddens me to hear wat i have have heard and wat has been done to my boyfriends son to hear that any child has been hurt brings tears to my eyes. To let things like this happen to a little boy has put a strain not only on me but on the pain that the family. To think that anyone would ever lay their hands on little innocent children is the most worst thing that anyone could evr do to a child.
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