In the News
Philadelphia Inquirer
October 15, 2003
Agency could have saved girl, suit says; DHS's search for the family of Porchia Bennett of S. Phila. was not thorough, contends a suit on her 3 sisters' behalf
A South Philadelphia 3-year-old who was beaten to death in August could have been saved if the Philadelphia Department of Human Services had worked harder to find her family, a lawsuit filed yesterday in federal court alleges.
Porchia Bennett's body was found wedged between a mattress and a wall Aug. 17, just three days after a call came into the department's hotline alleging that children in her family were being beaten.
Porchia's aunt, Candice Geiger, 19, and her aunt's boyfriend, Jerry Chambers, 31, have been charged with beating her to death.
For six years, the agency had been supervising Porchia's mother, Tiffany Bennett, 27, and her children after an older sister was found to have shaken baby syndrome.
But three years before Porchia's death, the department lost track of the Bennett family. Human Services workers could not find Tiffany Bennett after she and her children left a homeless shelter in 1999, and the city closed the case.
The suit, filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, was brought on behalf of Porchia Bennett's three sisters, ages 10, 7 and 4. It claims Tiffany Bennett could have been found because she was using public assistance and her children were in city public schools.
Human Services workers made only "perfunctory" efforts to find the family, the suit alleges, by sending out letters, checking state public-assistance records once, and visiting prior addresses.
"This family was in the Philadelphia area and findable," said Nadeem A. Bezar, the lawyer representing the Bennett sisters in the case. "They were receiving benefits from the city and state and attending schools."
The family is seeking financial compensation in excess of $150,000 and a guarantee that the department will improve its system of tracking families, Bezar said.
Department spokesman Ted Qualli said in a written statement that the agency had already begun to review and strengthen its procedures after Porchia's death.
"The primary agenda for the Department of Human Services is the protection of children in Philadelphia from abuse and neglect," Qualli's statement said. "This mission has been, and continues to be the driving force behind all of our efforts."
The lawsuit offered new details about the abuse Porchia and her sisters suffered.
On Aug. 14, three days before Porchia died, the department received a call saying that a man named "Smokie" - later determined to be Chambers - was "beating the children as if they were men" and that "Smokie's hands were swollen from beating the children," the lawsuit says.
The caller told the department that the children were dirty and they were being confined to the one filthy bedroom that Geiger and Chambers were renting in a house. The girls had not been attending summer school, the caller said.
After watching Porchia being beaten, two of her sisters found her body wedged between a mattress and a wall in the bedroom. The room had a "foul odor" when authorities entered and was strewn with open medication and dirty clothes and dishes, the lawsuit says. Authorities also reported finding punch marks in the door.
Porchia's sisters had bruised eyes and bore welts on their legs and backs from beatings with an extension cord, court documents said. The girls have been placed in a foster home.
Tiffany Bennett, who left her children with Geiger and Chambers about a year ago, faces four counts of child endangerment. Bennett, Geiger, and Chambers are scheduled for preliminary hearings Oct. 22.
