Over the span of six years, nearly 800 children died of abuse or neglect in the U.S. despite the fact that authorities knew they were in danger.
Most of the children were under the age of 4.
A troubling investigation launched by the Associated Press revealed that too many children are slipping through the cracks when it comes to investigations of abusive families.
The AP took a close look at child abuse cases across the country and revealed that while the system does a poor job of saving these children it has done an amazing job of keeping tragic cases under wraps.
Many of the states could not provide exact numbers and stats when it came to child abuse cases within their own borders.
The AP’s total, however, reached a staggering 786 children who were killed while authorities were investigating their families or had already confronted parents about accusations of abuse or neglect.
The sheer number of children who are dying from abuse and neglect was troubling enough, but to think that authorities could have prevented their deaths is even harder to take.
One report made mention of a 2-month-old baby girl by the name of Mattisyn Blaz.
Her father, Matthew Blaz, was known by authorities to be abusive towards the chubby cheeked beauty.
Only two weeks after the baby girl made her way to her new home, Blaz came home drunk and threw his wife to the floor while she was holding their newborn.
A child services worker came to the home, had a brief conversation with the father and left.
Mattisyn was left in the hands of an incredibly dangerous man and a woman who was too quick to forgive her husband who was battling with serious anger management issues.
It wasn’t long before tragedy struck.
Prosecutors say Blaz spiked the then 2-month-old “like a football” and ended the little girl’s life.
The AP’s investigation marks the first time that such a statistic has been readily available for the public to see.
There is no single, complete set of data that counts how many children died of abuse after an investigation into their safety was already launched.
Officials hope that the AP’s investigation will make the country aware of a serious issue that is costing hundreds of children their lives.
“We all agree that we cannot solve a problem this complex until we agree it exists,” David Sanders, chairman of the Federal Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities, told the AP.
Currently, states report information about child abuse deaths on a voluntary basis. This optional process is allowing for too much secrecy and making it incredibly difficult to pinpoint where the system is going wrong.
A report from 2013, revealed that 17 states decided not to provide the federal government with information regarding how many children had died from child abuse after they had been taken from their homes and reunited with the family a few years later.
