Two Philadelphia social workers were among nine charged yesterday in the death of a Danieal Kelly, a 14-year-old girl who starved to death in 2006, her body eaten by bed sores to the bone.

Unveiling a blistering grand jury report today [PDF], District Attorney Lynne Abraham blasted the city’s Department of Human Services as an indifferent and callous agency that had let Kelly die needlessly.

Drawing gasps at a news conference in which she showed a photograph of Kelly’s bloody, emaciated corpse, Abraham urged the state to take over DHS – a call that was not embraced by state officials.

The grand jury report contains just one photo of Danieal after her death (be forewarned: it’s horrifically graphic), but even it cannot convey the full horror of what this young girl must have suffered, not only at the hands of her mother, but through the wanton neglect of Philadelphia’s DHS and the private agency it contracted to provide services she never received.

This may be the worst example I’ve seen of the state’s failure to perform even the minimal duties expected of it: to guard the safety of its citizens.  If it fails—fundamentally fails, at every level of responsibility—in even this basic endeavor, how can anyone argue it is competent to manage our health, our children’s education, or the economy?  And keep in mind, this isn’t an issue of strained resources or overwhelmed caseworkers—the DHS in Philadelphia is well-funded and staffed, and doesn’t even provide services directly to clients.  It simply decides if action is warranted and then refers cases to private agencies to provide the actual services.  Yet it failed even at what amounted to button-pushing.

It’s true that in Danieal’s case, a private agency demonstrated callous indifference towards her plight, even as it was busy forging paperwork and bilking taxpayers for nonexistent services rendered.  But it could get away with it because its customer, the Philadelphia DHS, was complicit in its crimes.  One administrator even admitted to the grand jury that falsifying and backdating reports was common practice at the agency.

This isn’t an isolated incident.  You can’t find no less than nine adults, four of them social workers, responsible for a person’s death and assume this was a tragic exception to the rule.  As the grand jury wrote in its report:

The fate of a sweet and promising child depended on the willingness of a number of particular adults to do the bare minimum of what they were supposed to do. Danieal’s mother, her father, DHS employees, the agency that contracted with DHS to provide services for Danieal and her family – these make up a rather large cast of characters. Yet, had just one of them performed their duty or done their job, Danieal would be alive today. The combined criminal negligence that transformed the little girl in the school portrait into the shriveled corpse in the autopsy photographs was so callous, so cruel, and so relentless, it constitutes nothing less than homicide.

Indeed.  If I could, I’d charge every one of these people, with the possible exception of Andrea Kelly’s friends, with murder.  And even her friends are morally if not legally culpable when they knew how badly Danieal was suffering and didn’t say a word about it to anyone.

Not that it would have made any difference, given how the city handled the case.  The maggot-infested bedsores covering Danieal Kelly’s body aren’t the only things that have rotted to the bone.

He cites an unnamed source who claims that a second informant was involved in the break-in of Frederick’s home that ultimately led to the deadly no-knock raid:

Last week I received a tip that there may have been a second man involved in the break-in at Ryan Frederick’s house. My source has spoken to the man a few times over the last few months, and says the man has confirmed not only that he and Steven [the initial informant in the case] together broke into Frederick’s house at the behest of the police, but that the two had been working as paid police informants for months—and had actually broken into several houses around Chesapeake, all with the blessing of Chesapeake police officers. [emphasis mine]

Balko later interviewed this alleged second informant (whom he identified as “Reggie”), who revealed that Steven had struck a deal with the police to get evidence on an alleged pot-growing operation in Frederick’s garage, in exchange for “help” on credit card fraud and grand larceny charges he was facing. Reggie and Steven then broke into Frederick’s garage, although Reggie refused to confirm that they had pulled the burglary with the cops’ knowledge, apparently fearing retaliation.

A few days later, Chesapeake cops hit Frederick’s house on a no-knock warrant. Frederick fired through his front door, killing detective Jarrod Shivers. He now faces capital murder charges in Shivers’ death, as well as a felony charge of manufacturing marijuana, even though police found only a small amount of pot in the home.

Like most police informants, Reggie is no angel; he has served time for burglary and grand larceny. But he says he was slapped with a bogus burglary charge in February to keep him quiet about his involvement in the Frederick case, a claim Balko says has support in the public record:

A search of the Chesapeake General Court’s public records presents a time-line that supports Reggie’s story. He was arrested on February 12 on charges of burglary, grand larceny, and credit card larceny. He spoke to my source a few times over the next several weeks. On June 5, the police then added another grand larceny charge, and a charge of entering a house to commit assault and battery. At that point, Reggie stopped talking to my source.

Steven is also still facing credit card fraud charges, which were reinstated after having been dropped in April. He isn’t talking to anybody right now, and in fact is currently on the run from the police, according to WTKR-TV.

Just these allegations alone, if they can be proven beyond Reggie’s word, reveal an alarming pattern of misconduct by the Chesapeake police. Enticing someone to break into other people’s homes is a criminal act, even when the police do it. Even if they had gathered legitimate evidence of drug manufacturing or trafficking, none of it would be usable in court or even to secure a search warrant. This should throw every drug raid the cops have pulled recently into question, assuming the accused experienced a break-in of their home prior to the raid.

But that’s not the end of it.

The police have claimed since the January raid that officers never fired a shot at Frederick. But WTKR reports that six detectives tested positive for “primer residue”, a substance sometimes left on hands after firing a gun or handling a gun that has been fired. And Frederick’s family claims they have evidence of a bullet hole in his home, even though the police allegedly returned after the raid to fill it in.

But here’s the most interesting part:

A second lab report shows Frederick’s Bersa Firestorm .380 pistol is the gun that fired the fatal bullet, as well as a second bullet found by police. There is no indication in the court file where police found the second bullet. The state crime lab also did some testing on a .223 Remington cartridge found in Frederick’s home. However, the lab did not do DNA testing on the cartridge nor is there any indication what kind of weapon fired the round, according to the paperwork. Police search warrants do not show officers located any weapon in Frederick’s home capable of firing a .223 round.

Chesapeake police spokeswoman Christina Golden confirmed some officers are issued Bushmaster M4 Patrol Rifles, which shoot .223-caliber ammunition.

So why, if Frederick owned a pistol that uses .380 ACP ammunition, would a .223 cartridge be laying around his home?  M4 rifles can accept either Remington .223 or 5.56x45mm NATO cartridges.

It seems every new report on this case unearths more questions the police refuse to answer. Meanwhile, Ryan Frederick faces a long stint in jail while his case inches closer to trial, and the drug raids in Chesapeake continue.

93. First Amendment follies:

• A Santeria priest sues a Texas town over their prohibition against animal sacrifice.
• An Illinois delegate for Barack Obama resigned after she used the word “monkeys” to refer to black kids playing in a tree. The real insult, however, is that she was issued a $75 citation for disorderly conduct.
• A professor at Lake Superior State University faces a formal reprimand for offensive material posted on his office door. The university claims the cartoons and other material create a “hostile environment”; the professor says he’s being singled out for his conservative political views.

94. Now go away, or we shall punish you a second time: an Orange County, CA man was wrongly convicted for carjacking and spent 16 months in prison before he was freed. Now the state says it has no obligation to compensate him for the wrongful imprisonment because he implicated himself by accepting a plea deal on the original charge.

95. Infamous until proven innocent: police in Arizona are posting mug shots of accused shoplifters online as a “deterrent”. Hell, what are they waiting for? Just lop off their right hand when they arrest ‘em!

96. Our incorruptible public servants:

• So if you’re convicted of accepting bribes, you lose your job, right? Not necessarily, if you’re a public school teacher.
• Don’t worry, Daddy will take care of it: Federal employees have been racking up personal charges on government credit cards to the tune of $2 million.