In October 2012, Hallandale Beach police caught a whiff of trouble. They received a report that the mother was having “custody issues” with Melvin. That report may have been in conjunction with a service call to the home in which cops responded to a fight between the parents.
A report generated at that time referenced the missing child, stating: “It is not known if the child is alive.”
The Broward Sheriff’s Office, which investigates abuse and neglect in Broward under contract with the Department of Children & Families, didn’t learn any of that because the report was “screened out” by DCF’s child abuse hotline, even though Dontrell’s extended family had previously been under the supervision of Broward’s privately run child welfare agency, ChildNet.
More months passed.
Dontrell returned to DCF’s radar Wednesday night after another call came into the child abuse hotline. As a result of that call, which was not “screened out,” a child protective investigator went to the family’s Hallandale Beach home — finding the two children instead of the expected three.
Read more here:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/01/10/3176643/hallandale-beach-police-seek-father.html#storylink=cpy