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Town Hall Meeting Scheduled to Discuss Florida Children Services

Aired June 03, 2002 - 13:11   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: A town hall meeting tonight in Miami will address problems at the Department of Children and Families and the disappearance of a little girl. Five-year-old Rilya Wilson has been missing for more than a year. She was supposed to be monitored by child welfare agents. But the DCF admits it does not know where she is.

With more, we're joined by CNN's Susan Candiotti, who has been tracking this story -- Susan.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, good afternoon. Apparently what we're learning more and more now, Carol, is that Rilya Wilson's case is not an isolated case. We were hearing this since the day she disappeared, or since we all found out about it. And now, we're expecting at any time a report to be filed by the child welfare agency here in Florida to outline exactly what the situation is.

It was supposed to be filed more than an hour ago, and the authors say that it is delayed for some reason, that it will be coming out any time now. However, reportedly and for the last couple of weeks, the state of Florida has indicated that there have been more than 400 children missing. Than some people said 300 children missing. Now we're hearing a number of about 120.

We are also hearing from police departments, at least including in the city of Miami alone, who said that since Rilya Wilson's disappearance, case workers who work for the state of Florida have been coming in to report other cases, situations of children who are missing in their care, and that they have been instructed by their supervisors at the Department of Children and Family Services to come in and file reports even though case workers were supposed to be doing this all along.

We have seen a memo dated from July of last year telling case workers to report all cases of children that they cannot account for, children in the state, in the state of Florida's care, that they are to report them to the state of Florida police officials immediately. Apparently, that has not been done.

So, all of this is providing the backdrop for a town hall meeting scheduled to begin about 7:00 Eastern time tonight at a local Baptist church that has been put together by a coalition of community leaders, including those led by African-American state representatives, who will be -- they are not calling this a gripe session, but nevertheless, certainly, people will be venting their frustrations. That is what is expected to occur tonight.

All in all, we still can report to you that there are virtually no solid leads in the disappearance of five-year-old Rilya Wilson despite, Carol, a $50,000 reward -- Carol.

LIN: Susan, did I hear you correctly? Some 300 children down there could be unaccounted for? How do you lose 300 kids?

CANDIOTTI: That is a very good question that no one has been able to answer. In the beginning, we heard 400, then we heard 300. Now we're hearing around 120. And we're waiting for this final number.

And your question, how do you lose them? Well, in part we know in the case of Rilya Wilson, it is because of, in part, case workers who evidently, according to officials, were not doing their job, were not following up on children. We read another report that I just acquired about a case worker who for example called to check up on a child and was told, well, the child is somewhere with the mother and they left the country. And the case worker took apparently that person's word over the telephone and didn't check any further. That is according to a police report. So when you ask how do these things happen, human error.

LIN: All right. So it could be paperwork or these children could actually have met foul play. I mean, are the police or the FBI involved in searching for these kids?

CANDIOTTI: Well, remember, some of these reports are just coming in. And it depends. The FBI would get involved if there was evidence that these children had crossed state lines. Other than that, it is up to the state of Florida and local and state law enforcement authorities to try to locate these children. But clearly, it is a mess and people have been saying for a long time it has been a mess.

LIN: Yes. All right. Thank you very much, Susan Candiotti with the latest on that investigation. That meeting tonight should be pretty interesting.

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