Time for investigation into authorities' actions in Janiya Thomas case

Investigate what authorities did in Janiya Thomas case

Kudos to Jessica De Leon and others at the Herald for keeping the story of Janiya Thomas's death alive. Not only is her death and the gruesome treatment of her body abhorrent, but adding insult to injury is the despicable lack of concern and follow-through evidenced by the Manatee County Sheriff's Office Child Protective Investigative Division, the Bradenton Police Department, and Child Protective Services.

The old bureaucratic apology of "Sorry, it just slipped through the cracks" is not and never has been good enough. From the stories in the Herald it is clear that many people knew that something was terribly wrong when Janiya was not seen for at least a year, but did little about it.

And now, from the lead article in the Nov. 6 Bradenton Herald we learn that "... there wasn't much more they could have done, because they knew Janiya 'had been dead for a long time.' "

They knew this and didn't do anything about it? How did they "know" this? What were the facts that led them to "know" that she was dead?

If they positively knew the she was dead, why didn't they call for police action right away? Why did they wait until Oct. 19 to let someone know that they "knew" she was dead?

I will await (hopefully) a full and in-depth investigation of who did what, when, and why. But this all smells really bad.

The descriptions that come to my mind right now are malfeasance, or perhaps nonfeasance, on the part of all the government officials involved. If this is found to be true, there should be firings and jail time for those who did not do what should have been done.

Randy McCrea

Bradenton

This story was originally published November 10, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Time for investigation into authorities' actions in Janiya Thomas case ."