Juvies

"My son's favorite words are, 'I don't care.'"

by Mike Newall

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Published: Jun 17, 2009

In the last nine months, Philadelphia has lost a police officer, an infant, two small children and a young mother in reckless accidents caused by kids who walked away from the city's juvenile-justice system. Not kids who were released, or discharged. Just kids who left and went home to live in plain sight. Probation officials never brought them back into custody, and people died.

Last June, 16-year-old Andre Butler was scheduled for a placement hearing at Family Court on 1801 Vine St. He'd been in a juvenile center in the Poconos but had become incorrigible and was to be placed in a new facility. Before appearing in front of a judge, Andre escaped from a van and went home to his mother's house in West Philly. For three months he lived there, terrorizing neighbors with his fighting and stealing. A juvenile bench warrant was issued, but probation officials never seized him. Finally his mother called police, but when they arrived Andre was no longer home. A few days later, he barreled a stolen Cadillac Escalade into Isabel Nazario's police cruiser, killing her.

In April, 18-year-old Donta Cradock failed to return to Summit Academy, a juvenile residential facility near Pittsburgh, after an Easter weekend home pass. His mother, Vanessa, says she repeatedly informed probation officials of Donta's whereabouts, asking them to take him off the street. No one ever came, she says. One evening last week, after a botched robbery, Donta plowed a Pontiac Grand Am into a Third Street stoop, killing an 11-month-old girl, a 6-year-old girl, a 7-year-old girl and a 22-year-old mother.

Donta is now partially paralyzed.

On Sunday afternoon, Vanessa Cradock sat in a neighbor's living room (she left her own home after receiving death threats) and told her side of the story.

"I knew he was never going to go back once they let him come home," she said. "I told them don't send him home."

Donta has been arrested eight times since the age of 12 — five times for gun violations. He was most recently serving 13 months for armed robbery. He was granted his first home pass in January, to see how he'd behave without constant supervision. He returned to 1801 Vine St. at the appointed time and sheriffs transported him back to Summit. Soon, though, he was placed in isolation for fighting with school faculty, says Vanessa. In April, Donta was granted a second home pass.

"I said, 'Go back, Donta, just go back, you'll be graduated the 26th of June,'" recalls Vanessa. "But he wouldn't listen. My son's favorite words are, 'I don't care.'"

Donta moved in with his stepbrother Ivan, now the co-defendant in the alleged quadruple murder. On the morning Donta was scheduled to return to Summit, Vanessa says she went to 1801 Vine to warn probation officials of her son's intentions. She says she sought out his probation officer (whose name she provided) but the officer had yet to arrive at work. She says she talked with her older son's former parole officer, and the officer told her a warrant would be issued and police would eventually get him. Frustrated, she called Summit and gave them Ivan's Eighth Street address and the license plate of the vehicle the boys were driving. She called the school every few days for the first month, she says, and was told the information had been passed on to juvenile probation. In the meantime, Donta's friends have told her, police stopped Donta twice, both times placing him in the back of a cruiser as they checked for outstanding warrants. Either the warrant wasn't yet in the system or Donta gave a fake name, because he was twice let go.

"I knew I was going to lose my son to the streets," she says. "I just never thought it would be like this. But I don't cry for Donta. I cry for them children."

Family Court Administrative Judge Kevin Dougherty did not respond to phone calls and e-mails for this story. Neither did Chief Probation Officer James Sharp. A woman who answered Donta's probation officer's office phone said the officer was on vacation. Family Court's reticence makes it hard to assess the credibility of Vanessa's claims, though Dougherty told the Inquirer that he does not believe her.

Dougherty has also said, in other published reports, that as early as April, Donta was identified as the top priority for a new Family Court/Police task force formed to track down dangerous juveniles. The task force executed a search warrant for Donta on May 30, Dougherty said. A man who identified himself as Donta's stepfather said Donta and Vanessa no longer lived at the address. (It is not clear what address police raided; Vanessa said she knew nothing of the raid.)

In any case, Dougherty did not explain why it took probation officials 48 days to visit the home of their most-wanted juvenile fugitive.

A juvenile probation officer's caseload can stretch upward of 50 kids, say courthouse sources. The District Attorney Office's Juvenile Unit assists in tracking down the city's hundreds of wanted juveniles, but it only has seven investigators.

"We desperately need funding to sustain a proper level of prosecution and investigation," says Angel Flores, chief of the Juvenile Unit. "We're left shaking our heads."

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