482 children died. Now what?

482 children died. Now what? Carol Capó

April 11, 2011 If 482 children had died in Virginia because of tainted formula or shoddy cribs, there would be people going door to door to recall all the suspect cans and cribs they could find.

If 482 children had died in Virginia because the brakes on a certain make of car were faulty, we would have demanded action from Congress — and got it.

482 children did die in Virginia, over the 11-year period that ended June 30, 2010. But they weren't sickened by bad food or suffocated by collapsing cribs or crushed by careening cars. They died because the people who loved them, or should have, killed them or let them die.

That astounding number is the count of children who died of abuse or neglect at the hands of a caretaker, in just this state in just this period of time....

In Hampton Roads, in that time, 196 children died....
This is what we know about those 196 children: They were almost all babies. About half never got to celebrate their first birthday, and three-quarters were no older than two.

We know how they died: The single most common cause was inflicted head injury.

We know who killed them. 60 percent died because of the action or inaction of a parent; 11 percent were the victims of a parent's lover, usually the mother's.

http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-nws-capo-column-0412-20110411,0,1411662.column