The death of Janiya Thomas merits more concern than animals

Bravo for the opinions and concerns expressed in the Herald's Page 1A lead article about our county commissioners regarding the heavy response by animal lovers and the absence of great expression of concern about Janiya Thomas, a little girl whose life of horror ended in a freezer.

I share a feeling of guilt for not writing sooner. I've thought exactly the feelings the commissioners showed in their comments.

I hope the public failure I represent is because most of us are appalled and hesitate, and then another terrible story of the same kind replaces it. Endless empathy or sympathy.

But that doesn't help. Somehow the commissioners and others in the field have to press for better solutions.

The one thing that occurs to me is that when other news reports on Janiya's case indicated the "social agency" responsible for providing a measure of protection for Janiya closed the case when her mother indicated non-cooperation. That is unacceptable. Somehow it should be possible, as eventually happened, to bring her before the court to be forced to cooperate.

George Trudeau

Bradenton

This story was originally published November 9, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "The death of Janiya Thomas merits more concern than animals ."