Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

Mother Videotaped Striking Child in Parking Lot Begging For Girl's Return

Aired September 23, 2002 - 06:28   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.


CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the mother videotaped striking her child in a parking lot is begging authorities to return the girl to her family. The 4-year-old was placed in foster care after her mother's arrest over the weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MADELYNE TOOGOOD, ACCUSED OF ABUSE: I've never been on vacation without Martha. I've never been anywhere without Martha for four years. She didn't deserve what she got. She didn't deserve it. I shouldn't have did it. It was my fault. But just give her to somebody that she knows. My baby right now is with people she don't know, on top of what I did. She's been took away. She don't, she never did nothing wrong and she's going to want to know why we haven't come and got her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CALLAWAY: Now, the Toogood case tops our legal grounds segment this morning with legal analyst Kendall Coffey. He's actually in Atlanta with us this morning.

It's good to have you here.

KENDALL COFFEY, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Hey, good morning, Catherine.

CALLAWAY: I know this Toogood case has really got people talking everywhere.

COFFEY: Oh, it's very upsetting.

CALLAWAY: It is upsetting. You know, we're seeing her now actually talk to the media and saying that she's remorseful for what she's done. Is that going to help her case at all?

COFFEY: Well, she's saying all the right things now. But the concern of state authorities is twofold. First of all, she faces the system as a criminal defendant. She's allegedly committed a serious crime.

CALLAWAY: Right.

COFFEY: But at the same time, she appears to be an abusive mother. So child protective services have their own issues and they are very serious ones. And the state authorities are not likely to think that this was the first event of child abuse and they want to make darned sure that it was the last one.

CALLAWAY: You know, there's not a lot of discussion that taking her out of the situation, the daughter out of the situation was a bad decision. But why were the other two children left behind?

COFFEY: Well, the other two children are with the father. That's no evidence that there is abuse there.

CALLAWAY: No evidence, but if they're living together...

COFFEY: They're examining them closely. And one of the things that's important, they've taken the child away from family because they want a neutral examination to get the child's history, not only in terms of physical abuse, but mental abuse. And sometimes if you leave a child with family members, it's harder for authorities to get the truth.

CALLAWAY: And there has to be concern from the authorities that the family situation is not a good one, aside from the mother, because wasn't the sister, Toogood's sister was also charged with failing to report child abuse, Margaret?

COFFEY: The Toogood sister failed to report child abuse. There is an odd history, a transient life that I think authorities are going to be very concerned with. So while I think there is no immediate discussion of permanently terminating parental rights, there are a lot a lot of issues. There are going to be evaluations. There's going to be testing and a huge amount of supervised follow-up.

CALLAWAY: Kendall, I know you've seen a lot of these cases. Do you think she's going to lose custody of this little girl?

COFFEY: Well, I think there's going to be a significant period until authorities have complete confidence that she can be with this child unsupervised. That means psychological work, case workers, perhaps the appointment of an independent guardian ad litem, because as we talked about before, it's just going to seem not credible to prosecutors to think that this was the only time given the odd history. They're going to put a lot of safeguards in place before they consider letting the child back unsupervised with the mother.

CALLAWAY: This case is getting a lot of media attention. And unfortunately this goes on all the time, these type of child beatings or alleged child beatings. How is all that going to play in this case, all the media attention this has gotten?

COFFEY: Well, I think the media attention is very helpful because just as there's a question as to whether this was the only time this child was abused, how many thousands, tens of thousands, maybe millions of children have abuse that no video cameras catch? So when you get an example like this that has really captured the public's attention, it's an important opportunity to explain the system and let's talk about the sister who was charged with failing to report child abuse.

CALLAWAY: Right. The decision... COFFEY: That's a very important message that everyone ought to remember today.

CALLAWAY: I know like in 18 states it's actually against the law to not report child abuse.

COFFEY: There's, in many states there are, and other states have similar provisions that increasingly put on all of us a responsibility to make sure if we see child abuse, we've got an absolute duty to report it.

CALLAWAY: Well, that kind of puts us in an awkward situation. I know we've all been places where we've seen someone strike a child. Maybe they were spanking them, but not with a balled fist like we saw in that video. What do you do? You know, you don't want to get in legal trouble. Can you get in legal trouble if you intercede? What is the prognosis here?

COFFEY: Well, most of the states laws there's absolutely no possible liability for making a report. If you make a report in any kind of a good faith, you're protected under the law. And I think most of us can exercise some judgment here. You see a parent yelling at a child, sometimes even a single swat on the flat of the hand, that's very, very different than what was seen on videotape with Madelyne Toogood.

CALLAWAY: Right.

COFFEY: If any of us see anything like that, we ought to be on the phone immediately.

CALLAWAY: Get on the phone but don't get in the middle of it, is that what you're saying?

COFFEY: That's the best thing to do. Get the authorities on it as fast as possible.

CALLAWAY: All right, Kendall.

You know, I know there's a lot of things to talk about in legal grounds this morning. But I did want to spend most of the time, or all the time on Toogood, because it has raised so many good questions, so many good questions.

COFFEY: Well, that's what a lot of us are thinking about this morning.

CALLAWAY: All right, Kendall Coffey, thanks for being with us again.

COFFEY: Thanks, Catherine.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com





For Girl's Return>


Aired September 23, 2002 - 06:28   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the mother videotaped striking her child in a parking lot is begging authorities to return the girl to her family. The 4-year-old was placed in foster care after her mother's arrest over the weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MADELYNE TOOGOOD, ACCUSED OF ABUSE: I've never been on vacation without Martha. I've never been anywhere without Martha for four years. She didn't deserve what she got. She didn't deserve it. I shouldn't have did it. It was my fault. But just give her to somebody that she knows. My baby right now is with people she don't know, on top of what I did. She's been took away. She don't, she never did nothing wrong and she's going to want to know why we haven't come and got her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CALLAWAY: Now, the Toogood case tops our legal grounds segment this morning with legal analyst Kendall Coffey. He's actually in Atlanta with us this morning.

It's good to have you here.

KENDALL COFFEY, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Hey, good morning, Catherine.

CALLAWAY: I know this Toogood case has really got people talking everywhere.

COFFEY: Oh, it's very upsetting.

CALLAWAY: It is upsetting. You know, we're seeing her now actually talk to the media and saying that she's remorseful for what she's done. Is that going to help her case at all?

COFFEY: Well, she's saying all the right things now. But the concern of state authorities is twofold. First of all, she faces the system as a criminal defendant. She's allegedly committed a serious crime.

CALLAWAY: Right.

COFFEY: But at the same time, she appears to be an abusive mother. So child protective services have their own issues and they are very serious ones. And the state authorities are not likely to think that this was the first event of child abuse and they want to make darned sure that it was the last one.

CALLAWAY: You know, there's not a lot of discussion that taking her out of the situation, the daughter out of the situation was a bad decision. But why were the other two children left behind?

COFFEY: Well, the other two children are with the father. That's no evidence that there is abuse there.

CALLAWAY: No evidence, but if they're living together...

COFFEY: They're examining them closely. And one of the things that's important, they've taken the child away from family because they want a neutral examination to get the child's history, not only in terms of physical abuse, but mental abuse. And sometimes if you leave a child with family members, it's harder for authorities to get the truth.

CALLAWAY: And there has to be concern from the authorities that the family situation is not a good one, aside from the mother, because wasn't the sister, Toogood's sister was also charged with failing to report child abuse, Margaret?

COFFEY: The Toogood sister failed to report child abuse. There is an odd history, a transient life that I think authorities are going to be very concerned with. So while I think there is no immediate discussion of permanently terminating parental rights, there are a lot a lot of issues. There are going to be evaluations. There's going to be testing and a huge amount of supervised follow-up.

CALLAWAY: Kendall, I know you've seen a lot of these cases. Do you think she's going to lose custody of this little girl?

COFFEY: Well, I think there's going to be a significant period until authorities have complete confidence that she can be with this child unsupervised. That means psychological work, case workers, perhaps the appointment of an independent guardian ad litem, because as we talked about before, it's just going to seem not credible to prosecutors to think that this was the only time given the odd history. They're going to put a lot of safeguards in place before they consider letting the child back unsupervised with the mother.

CALLAWAY: This case is getting a lot of media attention. And unfortunately this goes on all the time, these type of child beatings or alleged child beatings. How is all that going to play in this case, all the media attention this has gotten?

COFFEY: Well, I think the media attention is very helpful because just as there's a question as to whether this was the only time this child was abused, how many thousands, tens of thousands, maybe millions of children have abuse that no video cameras catch? So when you get an example like this that has really captured the public's attention, it's an important opportunity to explain the system and let's talk about the sister who was charged with failing to report child abuse.

CALLAWAY: Right. The decision... COFFEY: That's a very important message that everyone ought to remember today.

CALLAWAY: I know like in 18 states it's actually against the law to not report child abuse.

COFFEY: There's, in many states there are, and other states have similar provisions that increasingly put on all of us a responsibility to make sure if we see child abuse, we've got an absolute duty to report it.

CALLAWAY: Well, that kind of puts us in an awkward situation. I know we've all been places where we've seen someone strike a child. Maybe they were spanking them, but not with a balled fist like we saw in that video. What do you do? You know, you don't want to get in legal trouble. Can you get in legal trouble if you intercede? What is the prognosis here?

COFFEY: Well, most of the states laws there's absolutely no possible liability for making a report. If you make a report in any kind of a good faith, you're protected under the law. And I think most of us can exercise some judgment here. You see a parent yelling at a child, sometimes even a single swat on the flat of the hand, that's very, very different than what was seen on videotape with Madelyne Toogood.

CALLAWAY: Right.

COFFEY: If any of us see anything like that, we ought to be on the phone immediately.

CALLAWAY: Get on the phone but don't get in the middle of it, is that what you're saying?

COFFEY: That's the best thing to do. Get the authorities on it as fast as possible.

CALLAWAY: All right, Kendall.

You know, I know there's a lot of things to talk about in legal grounds this morning. But I did want to spend most of the time, or all the time on Toogood, because it has raised so many good questions, so many good questions.

COFFEY: Well, that's what a lot of us are thinking about this morning.

CALLAWAY: All right, Kendall Coffey, thanks for being with us again.

COFFEY: Thanks, Catherine.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com





For Girl's Return>