Shannon Column: Lexie Glover, Rest In Peace

Good news for battered and abused children in Prince William County; Social Services Director Jack Ledden wants laptops installed in department vehicles.

This means in the future when county social workers have to kill time while ignoring reports of abused children they won’t be limited to playing trashcan basketball in the office; now they can play Solitaire
on the road!

There’s nothing like the death of 13-year-old Lexie Glover — who should have been protected by Social Services — to get the creative bureaucratic juices flowing, and Ledden is positively bubbling with
ideas.

He wants to increase social worker training; possibly so his staff will understand that after four years of abuse reports regarding one little girl — from upwards of 10 different people — it’s time to invoke
the “where’s there’s smoke, there’s fire” rule.

And don’t overlook his plans to hold more internal staff meetings. Maybe sometime in the future a low-level employee may mention an actual child, since in the past Ledden says casework didn’t usually
rise to his management level because he’s a “big picture” kinda guy.

Finally, in cases where there are three or more invalid complaints about the same child, Ledden has ordered a further inquiry into the child’s situation, just in case. This sounds like progress until you
realize the complaints about Lexie weren’t invalid; they were just ignored.

To refresh our memory, let’s go over Lexie’s case in the four years before she was found lying face down in a stream.

School bus drivers reported she came to the bus stop wearing only a diaper on three consecutive days. Drivers reported seeing her “mother” Alfreedia Gregg-Glover putting Lexie in the trunk of a car.
School counselors twice reported multiple bruises on her arm, saw her with a swollen eyelid and again suspected abuse. A neighbor discovered Lexie standing in his driveway on a cold December
morning wearing nothing but a plastic tarp and suffering from a cut on the back of her head.

In fact, police found more than a dozen incidents of reported abuse dating back to 2004.

But let’s be generous and assume that no one could have foreseen this outcome because besides being a monster, Lexie’s “mother” was a liar. She blamed all the little girl’s bruises, nakedness,
attempted escapes, missed meals and cuts on Lexie.

When confronted with a choice between believing a young girl and her articulate “mother,” Social Services went with “mom.” Time after time after time.

Why didn’t it occur to anyone at Social Services that — even if true — Ms. Gregg-Glover was obviously overwhelmed by Lexie’s problems and it was time to step in and help Lexie?

Ledden’s response? He has a jar in his office with Lexie’s photo taped to it — in keeping with social worker best practices that specify only missing children’s photos are to be taped on milk cartons: The
dead are for jelly jars.

And he’s happy to point to the Memorial Jelly Jar and share his thoughts regarding Lexie’s case, but he’s not sharing information.

Ledden refuses to say exactly how his agency bungled the case and he won’t identify the employees responsible. His excuse is “privacy” for witnesses and state code. But the funny thing is four
witnesses were wearing ribbons at Gregg-Glover’s trial, others were freely talking to reporters and every one of them wanted the details surrounding the case released.

Federal law requires the release of records in abuse-related child deaths and says states “do not have discretion in releasing information, unless disclosure would jeopardize a criminal investigation.” But
Ledden stonewalls; smug in the knowledge that Lexie certainly isn’t going to sue and finding someone else to foot the legal bill will be tough.

Ledden grudgingly admits that in some cases required actions were taken but not within the proper time frame. Although I would imagine that once Lexie’s body was found his office became a beehive of
activity.

This is the usual story of an inert, opaque, bureaucratic paper-pushing factory that decides heads will roll when the reporters start calling and fires the lowest man on the totem pole.

Ledden keeps his job because reviews found “low morale, inadequate staffing and a lack of communication.” Isn’t it remarkable how these studies never find a lack of management?

Why the top echelon was managing up a storm during the four years that Lexie lived in hell. Their efforts just didn’t seem to penetrate down into the bowels of the bureaucracy.

But Lexie, without a high-powered social worker degree or a laptop computer, knew the outcome. As Nancy Frederick, who tried to help her, said, “She was so afraid of her mother. She did everything she
said because she thought she was going to kill her. She was right.”

Michael R. Shannon is owner of MANDATE: Message, Media & Public Relations, located in Woodbridge.