PHOENIX β The attorney for five workers fired from Child Protective Services said today that the report that led to their termination was essentially a pre-determined fix.
"The conclusion was reached before the investigation was done,'' Terry Woods said of the inquiry conducted by the state Department of Public Safety on the orders of Gov. Jan Brewer. He said it is clear to him that once it became public that more than 6,500 complaints of abuse and neglect had not been investigated, a decision was made that someone had to be blamed.
And Woods said his clients were the "scapegoats.''
"The way cops do an investigation is they draw their conclusion and then they go find the evidence to support their conclusion,'' he said. "I think there's a really good chance that a decision was made somewhere up the chain that some heads had to roll and that was the way this thing was going to end.''
In fact, Woods said, the decision that these five would be fired was probably made when they were first put on leave last year.
Also getting the ax last month was Sharon Sergent who was their supervisor and who in turn reported to Clarence Carter, director of the Department of Economic Security.
Since the problem was discovered, Brewer took responsibility for CPS oversight from Carter and transferred it to a new Division of Child Safety and Family Services headed by Charles Flanagan. Brewer intends to call lawmakers into special session this month or next to formally sever the relationship and make the division an independent state agency with Flanagan reporting directly to her.
Carter has insisted he knew nothing about the cases marked "NI,'' as in "not investigated, though he conceded last year in an interview with Capitol Media Services that anyone reading the semiannual reports his agency produced β including lawmakers and the governor β would have recognized that some complaints were not being investigated.
"No one should have been aghast,'' he said in December, even though they were listed as "not responded to" versus "not investigated.''
But Brewer told Capitol Media Services this week she's done looking at Carter's culpability.
"I will tell you that I'm not going to go backwards,'' she said. "I'm moving forward.''
The governor said that, as far as she's concerned, there's no reason to dwell on the issue now that she has "separated him totally from CPS.'' Instead, she wants to focus on the upcoming special session.
