Dear editor,
Florida executed Elmer Carroll on May 29, 2013, for the 1990 rape and stabbing of 10-year-old Christine McGowan. Carroll lived in a homeless mens’ mission next door to McGowan.
The 2013 execution news of Carroll forced me to rethink my 57 months of “house-parenting” Key West history that ended in May 2013.
Key West has two licensed by the Department of Children and Families: Seven-bed shelters for foster kids who are sandwiched within a couple of car links to institutional facilities that house 32 indigent mental clients and a homeless shelter for men transitioning out of jail.
The Monroe County Jail website reports recurring arrests coming from these two adult facility addresses.
I spent last summer writing Gov. Rick Scott to address this risky place for Florida’s most vulnerable kids. Ironically, Scott had signed Carroll’s execution document. No response from Scott.
In the last few weeks, I’ve met two social workers with professional doctorate degrees who express “unbelievable” when I described this ongoing “unsafe” for kids in the Key West situation.
Doesn’t Rick Scott learn from his history?
Mike Sawyer
Denver resident
[A version of this letter to the editor ran on page 7 on 5/22/2014 under the headline "Unsafe conditions endanger children"]
