Daycare Owner Who Tried to Kill (By Hanging) a Toddler Receives Probation: Another Example of White Privilege Within the Criminal and Child Welfare Systems
A Minnesota woman, Nataliia Karia, of Minneapolis, was arrested in November 2016 after police and prosecutors said she hanged a toddler in her care from a homemade noose in her basement. Karia then fled after the father of another child in her care — rescued the toddler — who survived the incident by the grace of God. Karia then drove off in her minivan, running over and injuring two men before trying to commit suicide by jumping from a bridge. Karia, was subsequently and rightfully charged with attempted murder of the child and criminal vehicular operation running over the men. She pleaded guilty.
Karia’s attorneys offered up the utterly ridiculous defense argument that several years of domestic violence at the hands of her husband had led to her actions and caused her to become mentally ill.
And if the above isn't bad enough, the judge in the case, Judge Jay Quam, instead of sentencing karia to prison — and after allowing her to take a plea deal counting her 20 months in jail awaiting the trial as time served — only sentenced her to 10 years of probation, court-ordered mental health treatment, and around two months of wearing an electronic home monitoring tether. Karia is now living with her adult son but cannot have unsupervised contact with her daughters or other minors; which seems to be the only fair part of the sentencing.
Apparently, Judge Quam agreed and/or sided with the assessment of the defense doctors, and concluded that Karia was “a low risk” to re-offend. And called her actions “the perfect storm of factors unlikely to ever be repeated.” Are you kidding me? Still, and per my research and personal/professional experiences, I highly doubt that CPS would have allowed a black woman charged and convicted of the same crimes — in addition to mental health issues and psychotic behaviors — to retain custody of her children.
We are living in the era of mass incarceration, mandatory sentencing, and the gross over-representation of black families within the child welfare, all of which have created a cultural genocide which has continued to disseminate the black family and community.
To think that a dangerous and homicidal woman who was charged with caring for children — who then tried to kill a defenseless child in one of the worse ways imaginable, and then runs over two more people causing great bodily harm to both victims — gets no prison time for her heinous crimes, really gets under my skin. Not only does white privilege allow this woman to play, and clearly be seen as, the victim but it also allows her to weasel her way out of the (complete and sole responsibility) long-term consequences of her actions.
As a black woman and advocate from a low-income background — who has been subjected to both the criminal and child welfare systems — I know for a fact that had Karia been a poor black woman that the outcome would have likely been very different, certainly more punitive. After all, domestic violence, and dare I say mental illness, is just as prevalent in the black population as it is in the white population, yet and still, rarely does such a defense and/or mitigating factors hold weight in court (criminal or civil) for black women and men.
The Karia case demonstrates and/or exposes the hypocrisy of the system by highlighting the racist double standards on which our criminal justice and child welfare institutions are founded upon.
While white drug addicts and/or white mentally ill individuals have no issues enlisting compassion and support — and little to no jail time — from judges and prosecutors, black people suffering from the very same issues and/or problem enjoy no such perception and instead are viewed and treated as criminals not worthy of support who need to be punished. The very same mechanisms — racism and white privilege — that are on display in the Karia case also explains why between 60 and 70 percent of people convicted and sent to prison on non-violent drug charges are black, yet, black and white people use and distribute drugs at roughly the same rates.
In conclusion, institutional and structural racism and discrimination — and more importantly white privilege — within our criminal and child welfare systems are real and not going anywhere any time soon. That said, I, and the many other advocates out there, will continue pointing out the injustices and wrong doings and working towards making all our systems more equitable.
#AfricanAmericanChildWelfareAct #BlackFamilyMatters #NAFPAorg #BlackLoveMatters #BlackLivesMatter #BlackFamiliesBelongTogether #BlackHistory #KeepBlackFamiliesTogether #RacistDHS #AbolishCPS
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Latagia Copeland-Tyronce, MSW, CADAS, is a longtime parental rights and social justice advocate, child welfare reform activist, writer/blogger, and journalist whose work has been featured in BlackMattersUs and Rise Magazine. She is the founder, president, and executive director of the National African American Families First and Preservation Association (NAFPA) a groundbreaking 501c4 nonprofit origination, the first of its kind, devoted exclusively to the protection and preservation of the African American (Black) Family though policy and legislative advocacy.
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