STATE SAYS DCS WORKERS BUNGLED DRUG CASE

Two state social workers made an inexcusable mistake when they waited three
days to respond to a report that a child had swallowed crack cocaine, the
state commissioner of children's services said yesterday.

The Department of Children's Services worker assigned to the case, Angela
Rushing, has already served a three-day suspension without pay and was back
on the job yesterday, state DCS Commissioner Viola Miller said.

Rushing's supervisor, Sandra Williams, committed suicide while an internal
investigation into the DCS workers' responses was pending. Miller said she
didn't know what punishment Williams would have received if she were alive.

"Drugs and child, and the fact that the child was taken to a hospital, and
that the call came from the police - anytime you get that set of
circumstances, that's what we call a 'drop-your-pencil-and-run' case,"
Miller said yesterday. "You go."

The child, a 19-month-old boy in Wilson County, survived. He was
temporarily placed with a foster family and has since been turned over to a
family member.

When Lebanon police called DCS on Oct. 30 to report that Tyhesia D.
Shannon's child had tested positive for cocaine at a local hospital,
Williams should have followed agency policies and responded to the call the
very same day, Miller said.

Instead, she and Rushing waited until Nov. 1 to see the child and interview
the family about allegations of abuse and neglect, Miller said.

The family was interviewed at a local DCS office, which Miller deemed to be
another bad judgment call on the part of her employees. Those interviews,
she said, should have taken place at the child's home to assess the living
environment there - an issue that came into play later when DCS placed the
little boy and his two siblings, 7 and 10, under the care of their
grandmother, who lived in the same house as the mother.

At the time, Williams and Rushing understood that Shannon lived with the
grandmother, DCS spokeswoman Andrea Turner said. However, DCS officials
realized about a week later that the grandmother and other family members
in the house were involved in drugs, said Bonnie Hommrich, DCS deputy
commissioner for protection and prevention. The agency then took custody of
the three children.

"Even in those first office visits, it came out that the mother was using"
drugs, Hommrich said. "I think it all played into the fact of why we"
launched the internal investigation. "Because there was more than just not
going out on that interview that demonstrated questionable judgment in
reacting to this."

Williams' husband, Glenn Williams, has said his wife did nothing wrong in
the case and that the internal review of her actions hit her very hard
emotionally. She and Rushing had been temporarily reassigned to desk duty
pending the outcome of the internal investigation.

Miller said she didn't know why Williams committed suicide and said she
didn't think that the internal investigation alone could have triggered it.

Rushing could not be reached for comment this week. There was no answer
last night at a possible phone listing for her.

Hommrich said Rushing's punishment didn't deserve to be harsher because
she's "a young person with (Child Protective Services) and followed
direction from the supervisor," Williams. Child Protective Services is a
division of DCS that handles referrals of abuse and neglect allegations.

Shannon is being held in the Macon County Jail after her indictment earlier
this month in Wilson County on charges of child neglect. DCS asked her to
take a drug test Nov. 1, which registered positive for cocaine and
marijuana, Turner had said.

The whereabouts of the toddler were unclear yesterday. Turner would say
only that the child was placed with a member of Shannon's family. Turner
would not identify the family member because of laws ensuring privacy for
children involved in the DCS system.