GABRIELLE CRAWFORD - 8 Months/ Disabled (2/2011) - Tampa FL

The death of an 8-month-old disabled child last month is being treated as a homicide.
Rosielee Crawford was charged Friday with two counts of aggravated
child abuse and one count of child abuse after turning herself in.



Tampa police say the 33-year-old admitted using inappropriate force that
broke her son's arm and leg on in December, and police say she didn't
she didn't seek medical attention until she discovered the child was not
breathing the next morning.
The Department of Children and
Families reports that Rosielee Crawford's four other children had been
removed from her care because of her substance abuse, concerns about
physical injury, inadequate supervision and domestic abuse.
Gabrielle Crawford is the ninth child with an active case to die in the Tampa area in the past two years, the agency said.
http://www.weartv.com/template/inews_wire/wires.regional.fl/2dba168a-www.weartv.com.shtml

Tampa woman charged in death of infant son

Updated: Saturday, 04 Feb 2012, 3:55 PM EST
Published : Saturday, 04 Feb 2012, 3:09 PM EST



TAMPA - A 33-year-old woman was arrested Friday on a variety of charges stemming from the December death of her infant child.
Rosalee
Crawford was booked into the Hillsborough County Jail on two counts of
aggravated child abuse and one count of child abuse.
She was denied bond in her first appearance before a judge on Saturday morning.
According
to a Tampa Police Department report Gabrielle Crawford stopped
breathing on December 2, 2011. The little boy was transported to Florida
Hospital where he was pronounced dead just before 9 am.
The
Medical Examiner’s Office preliminary death report determined the eight
month old child died as the result of homicidal violence. Investigators
attempted to talk with Crawford but she refused to grant an interview.
On
Friday morning after hearing about a media report about her child’s
death, Crawford contacted the Tampa Police Department. During an
interview with a detective she allegedly admitted to using inappropriate
force on the child the day before he died.
Crawford did not seek
medical attention even though the child suffered a broken arm and leg.
When she discovered he was not breathing the next morning she did not
immediately seek medical attention.
The investigation continues and additional charges may be filed.
Crawford
has a long list of prior run-ins with law enforcement in the area.
She’s been arrested on five previous occasions since 2000 for a variety
of crimes including disorderly conduct, grand theft and worthless check
charges.
http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/local/hillsborough/child_abuse_death_tampa_mother_arrest020412

TAMPA, Fla - A Tampa mother charged with child abuse, made her first appearance in court Saturday morning.

Rosielee Crawford, 33 years-old, is charged with two counts of aggravated child abuse and one count of child abuse in the death of her nine-month son. Tampa police found the child not breathing December 2, 2011 and transported him to Florida Hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

According to police, Crawford originally denied police interviews after medical examiners declared the child had died from homicidal violence.

After seeing an article about the incident in a local newspaper, Crawford reached out to authorities for an interview.

Crawford told police that she had used aggressive force with her son, breaking his arm and leg on December 1, 2011. Police said Crawford told them she did not seek any medical help for her child's injuries. The next morning, Crawford found her son not breathing.

Police took Crawford to Orient Road Jail. She was not granted any bond.

Crawford's next court appearance will be Wednesday January 8th at 8:30 a.m

Read more: http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_tampa/mother-denied-bond-in-9-month-olds-death#ixzz1lWGzGsqF

Gabrielle Crawford wasn't born into this world. He was born into a death sentence.
What
his mother did; what the child protection network was supposed to
prevent; what medical science is supposed to treat all eventually
succumbed to neglect, rules and regulations and eventually to the grave.
It's
a toss-up as to what is more amazing — that an 8-month-old boy had to
suffer such a horrible life and death, or that he managed to last as
long as he did?
Rosalee Crawford, the boy's mother, has been
charged with two counts of aggravated child abuse in connection with
Gabrielle's death. Those charges could be upgraded pending final autopsy
results.
Those results will include information noting the child
died after his mother broke his arm and leg while trying to stop him
from crying. What the official coroner's report won't include is an
additional cause of death by bureaucracy.
Gabrielle was born prematurely on March 11, 2011 with multiple birth
defects, including hydrocephalus, or water on the brain. He wasn't
expected to live to 2. But he never even got that far.
Officialdom
knew Rosalee Crawford was hardly mother-of-the-year material. Over the
years, Crawford's substance abuse problems, mental health issues and
history of domestic violence were well known to law enforcement and the
Department of Children and Families.
How well known? By the time
Gabrielle was born, the state had removed Crawford's four older children
from her care. Now one would think if you have a deeply troubled woman
with all the maternal instincts of a tree stump, it would have been
advisable to quickly make sure Gabrielle and his twin brother, Micha,
also would have been placed in a safe environment.
Instead, the
children were given to their mother, who at the time was residing at
Alpha House, which shelters mothers in crisis. But who was truly in the
midst of a crisis here?
Because of Gabrielle's severe medical
issues, Alpha House refused to accept the child, according to DCF.
Mother and sons had to leave.
Rosalee and her children got their own apartment. On Dec. 2, the day
Gabrielle died, Rosalee took the children to a friend's apartment.
Gabrielle wouldn't stop crying. Paramedics arrived to find an
unresponsive 8-month-old with broken limbs and a large blue mark on his
forehead.
Gabrielle became the ninth child in an active DCF case
to die in just the past two years in Hillsborough. No other DCF region
in the state has a higher child mortality rate.
That may seem like
something is amiss. But the most important thing to remember is how bad
everyone feels. It doesn't help Gabrielle, but isn't it the thought
that counts?
Alpha House is an organization that does excellent
work. But before the agency turned out Rosalee Crawford and her
children, it might have been a good idea to move heaven and earth to
make sure an already unstable woman had a place to go to that could
provide care for her needy children.
DCF pointed to Gabrielle's
death as a perfect example of why Hillsborough Kids Inc., the DCF
subcontractor for child protection, should have lost its $65.5 million
state contract. To be sure, for $65.5 million it is probably not too
much to ask that extremely at-risk children like Gabrielle be a priority
for child protection.
Still, ultimately the buck and the coffin stops at DCF.
At
last Gabrielle Crawford's short, miserable, violent life is over. At
last he's in a better place away from his mother, away from Hillsborough
County, away from all the bureaucracy that failed him.
But at least everyone feels just awful.
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/a-dead-baby-was-failed-by-many-in-the-case-of-gabrielle-crawford/1214906