Relisha Rudd

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With every episode this podcast just gets more and more annoying.

Yeah, I'll probably finish it since there's only one more coming, but it's trying my patience.

Me too! +1000. Sort of alluded to above, it is divisive to blame systems for failing but absolve the family, especially the mom who had custody of the blame. It doesn't make you more understanding but less so and I'm generally the textbook bleeding heart.

That tv show referenced seemed like a mess but her unwillingness to take a lie detector test and being thrown off the stage seemed fitting. Don't know why she'd go on but people can't resist media attention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is the kind of podcast that repels conservatives and I can see why. As a moderate democrat it drives me crazy how media tries so desperately to blame "systems" and "circumstances" while letting Relisha's family off the hook. It's crap.

It’s also unnecessary because Relisha was failed by many systems that should have protected her from having bad parents. It can be both - incompetent systems and incompetent parenting - and the useful thing would be exploring how to prevent parents like Shamika and how to protect their children from them. I find a lot of the podcast compelling and thought provoking and it could still be that without this desperation to absolve the family. The willful refusal to honestly address the cause makes figuring out how to prevent future similar problems impossible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It would be easy if it were as simple as taking financial incentives away. This was tried during the Clinton administration. The money isn't very good even incrementally and the reasons the young poor and unprepared have children are complex. This crosses all racial lines.

Yes. This is an interesting column about the “financial incentives” to have kids: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/11/opinion/biden-covid-relief-welfare.html
TLDR: the financial incentives are pretty paltry.
Relisha’s mom had multiple kids and couldn’t afford to pay her rent. Anyone in the US who is having kids for a “financial incentive” is delusional.

[Anonymous]

The father, grandmother and aunt sound like loving people. Shamika called the shots and didn't let the dad step in. She sold her daughter, I believe

[Anonymous]

I've enjoyed the podcast. I don't think it gives any new information, so if that is what you are looking for, it may be disappointing.

I think the podcast is looking at the case specifically through the lens of systemic and institutional failures in the case—of which there were many. I got the sense that ultimately the family blames Shamika (and based on the facts of the case it seems warranted).

I didn't get the sense from the podcast that Jonquilyn Hill thinks Shamika is blameless. She never personally talked to Shamika (who refused to be interviewed), maybe she would have come out more strongly against Shamika if she did get to interview her.

I have worked with homeless families (in Maryland, not the District, but there is a lot of movement between the two). I was pretty shocked that the school accepted on face value Shamika's excuse that Relisha was under a doctor's care and out of school for 18 days. Usually that is the kind of privilege given to MC/UMC people, not homeless families in the welfare system.

I am guessing that this was a very traumatic case for all the adults in Relisha's life (family, social worker, teachers, law enforcement). Really the stuff of nightmares. I hope they are okay.

The family granted interviews because they know it is the only way people will keep looking for Relisha. Thanks WAMU for keeping this story alive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be easy if it were as simple as taking financial incentives away. This was tried during the Clinton administration. The money isn't very good even incrementally and the reasons the young poor and unprepared have children are complex. This crosses all racial lines.

Yes. This is an interesting column about the “financial incentives” to have kids: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/11/opinion/biden-covid-relief-welfare.html
TLDR: the financial incentives are pretty paltry.
Relisha’s mom had multiple kids and couldn’t afford to pay her rent. Anyone in the US who is having kids for a “financial incentive” is delusional.

If you are educated and have a stable job, you are right it seems delusional.

But if you grow up poor and you are still poor, then that person increasing their income a little bit - even if it’s just $50 - seems like a good idea

I didn’t read the article but nowadays the “incentive” usually comes when the children are labeled as disabled and then there are disability benefits and maybe eventually social security as well. This becomes the only income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be easy if it were as simple as taking financial incentives away. This was tried during the Clinton administration. The money isn't very good even incrementally and the reasons the young poor and unprepared have children are complex. This crosses all racial lines.

Yes. This is an interesting column about the “financial incentives” to have kids: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/11/opinion/biden-covid-relief-welfare.html
TLDR: the financial incentives are pretty paltry.
Relisha’s mom had multiple kids and couldn’t afford to pay her rent. Anyone in the US who is having kids for a “financial incentive” is delusional.

If you are educated and have a stable job, you are right it seems delusional.

But if you grow up poor and you are still poor, then that person increasing their income a little bit - even if it’s just $50 - seems like a good idea

I didn’t read the article but nowadays the “incentive” usually comes when the children are labeled as disabled and then there are disability benefits and maybe eventually social security as well. This becomes the only income.

I’m sorry but this is such an ignorant response. No one is having kids for the financial incentive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've enjoyed the podcast. I don't think it gives any new information, so if that is what you are looking for, it may be disappointing.

I think the podcast is looking at the case specifically through the lens of systemic and institutional failures in the case—of which there were many. I got the sense that ultimately the family blames Shamika (and based on the facts of the case it seems warranted).

I didn't get the sense from the podcast that Jonquilyn Hill thinks Shamika is blameless. She never personally talked to Shamika (who refused to be interviewed), maybe she would have come out more strongly against Shamika if she did get to interview her.

I have worked with homeless families (in Maryland, not the District, but there is a lot of movement between the two). I was pretty shocked that the school accepted on face value Shamika's excuse that Relisha was under a doctor's care and out of school for 18 days. Usually that is the kind of privilege given to MC/UMC people, not homeless families in the welfare system.

I am guessing that this was a very traumatic case for all the adults in Relisha's life (family, social worker, teachers, law enforcement). Really the stuff of nightmares. I hope they are okay.

The family granted interviews because they know it is the only way people will keep looking for Relisha. Thanks WAMU for keeping this story alive.

I agree with you. I enjoyed the podcast and the situation is so heartbreaking.

[Anonymous]

I have enjoyed and also been irritated with the podcast as well. I don’t know what to expect from the last episode. What I am hoping it contains is some refutation of the District’s finding that this was a tragic accident that couldn’t have been prevented. That’s just such BS.

1) The school should never have accepted the excuses being given. Absences that long require a doctor’s note.

2) The family was actively under the supervision of the shelter as well as at least one case manager - probably more than one. Where was that person?

3) The shelter had rules about hiring people with criminal backgrounds. They also had rules about staff fraternizing with residents. Both of those rules were demonstrably broken. Were there any consequences for that?

All things considered, it seems to me that the organization running the shelter as well as the DC department in charge of homeless services is at least partially responsible. DCPS also has policies and is partially responsible for not adhering to them. CFSA chose not to remove the kids from the family when they were involved. Maybe that was the right decision. Maybe not. But realistically, the shelter hired a predator against their own policies and did nothing despite his known fraternization/grooming behavior, and the school failed to follow up on 3 weeks of absences in anything close to a timely fashion. Both of those seem like ways that “this could have been prevented.”

My personal belief is that Tatum either bought or stole this little girl, probably the same day she was last seen on surveillance camera. I believe that his wife found out, and he killed her to cover up his crime. By the time anyone started looking for Relisha, it was too late.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have enjoyed and also been irritated with the podcast as well. I don’t know what to expect from the last episode. What I am hoping it contains is some refutation of the District’s finding that this was a tragic accident that couldn’t have been prevented. That’s just such BS.

1) The school should never have accepted the excuses being given. Absences that long require a doctor’s note.

2) The family was actively under the supervision of the shelter as well as at least one case manager - probably more than one. Where was that person?

3) The shelter had rules about hiring people with criminal backgrounds. They also had rules about staff fraternizing with residents. Both of those rules were demonstrably broken. Were there any consequences for that?

All things considered, it seems to me that the organization running the shelter as well as the DC department in charge of homeless services is at least partially responsible. DCPS also has policies and is partially responsible for not adhering to them. CFSA chose not to remove the kids from the family when they were involved. Maybe that was the right decision. Maybe not. But realistically, the shelter hired a predator against their own policies and did nothing despite his known fraternization/grooming behavior, and the school failed to follow up on 3 weeks of absences in anything close to a timely fashion. Both of those seem like ways that “this could have been prevented.”

My personal belief is that Tatum either bought or stole this little girl, probably the same day she was last seen on surveillance camera. I believe that his wife found out, and he killed her to cover up his crime. By the time anyone started looking for Relisha, it was too late.

I agree with you, although even if the school had called CFSA after five days of absences it might have been too late for Relisha. I think the shelter hiring a two time felon (just out of jail in 2011) was one of the bigger issues in this case. But ultimately the blame falls to Shermika. She didn’t see or speak to her daughter for 18 days and told no one. She kept saying her daughter was with a family member but she gave her to Tatum. She wrote notes saying she was with Dr. Tatum. That man took an 8 year old to hotels and the mother didn’t care. I feel for her traumatic childhood but this doesn’t absolve her from leading to the death of her daughter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have enjoyed and also been irritated with the podcast as well. I don’t know what to expect from the last episode. What I am hoping it contains is some refutation of the District’s finding that this was a tragic accident that couldn’t have been prevented. That’s just such BS.

1) The school should never have accepted the excuses being given. Absences that long require a doctor’s note.

2) The family was actively under the supervision of the shelter as well as at least one case manager - probably more than one. Where was that person?

3) The shelter had rules about hiring people with criminal backgrounds. They also had rules about staff fraternizing with residents. Both of those rules were demonstrably broken. Were there any consequences for that?

All things considered, it seems to me that the organization running the shelter as well as the DC department in charge of homeless services is at least partially responsible. DCPS also has policies and is partially responsible for not adhering to them. CFSA chose not to remove the kids from the family when they were involved. Maybe that was the right decision. Maybe not. But realistically, the shelter hired a predator against their own policies and did nothing despite his known fraternization/grooming behavior, and the school failed to follow up on 3 weeks of absences in anything close to a timely fashion. Both of those seem like ways that “this could have been prevented.”

My personal belief is that Tatum either bought or stole this little girl, probably the same day she was last seen on surveillance camera. I believe that his wife found out, and he killed her to cover up his crime. By the time anyone started looking for Relisha, it was too late.

But they did have a doctor's note, from "Dr. Tatum." They took the doctor's note at face value for the first couple weeks, but then the social worker at the school got suspicious and went to the shelter himself. That's when the police got involved and the search for Relisha started. Should he have investigated sooner? Yeah, probably. But the social worker was the first person to raise any questions at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
This is the kind of podcast that repels conservatives and I can see why. As a moderate democrat it drives me crazy how media tries so desperately to blame "systems" and "circumstances" while letting Relisha's family off the hook. It's crap.


It’s also unnecessary because Relisha was failed by many systems that should have protected her from having bad parents. It can be both - incompetent systems and incompetent parenting - and the useful thing would be exploring how to prevent parents like Shamika and how to protect their children from them. I find a lot of the podcast compelling and thought provoking and it could still be that without this desperation to absolve the family. The willful refusal to honestly address the cause makes figuring out how to prevent future similar problems impossible.

This. Aside from having someone supervising her parenting 24/7, it seems pretty obvious that Shamika herself was too impaired to properly care for 1 child, much less multiple children.

[Anonymous]

Shamika failed her child. Point blank.

I tried listening, but also couldn't handle the blame everyone else POV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The father, grandmother and aunt sound like loving people. Shamika called the shots and didn't let the dad step in. She sold her daughter, I believe

That's the conclusion that the webslueths group came to -- that she was sold/trafficked. The family, mother, boyfriend and the boys were shown with the money, new shoes and no Relisha but that's not the only reason they have. Their threads are pages long but they back up a lot of what they conclude. For example, once word got out about Relisha, Kahlil Tatum had a meeting of sorts in the motel room which included an unsavory associate who based on previous criminal charges was thought to be a sex trafficker. He was initially looked at by police but then dropped as a suspect.

One post on there that stays with me is from somebody who says in certain families the mother daughter bond is so broken that the mother will sell or turn out the daughter for a small financial gain. The mother has usually had a broken relationship with her own mom and this goes back generations. Addiction is sure to be involved and lack of early years nurturing. The poster claimed to be a stripper herself and the way she laid it out made sense.

The boyfriend seems ok and I like his voice. Sister Ashley sounds like she is doing remarkably well given that she had Shamika's upbringing. I not a fan of the grandmother. She seems bright but manipulative. Shamika never should have been allowed to raise children but realistically how can you prevent that until something bad happens?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The father, grandmother and aunt sound like loving people. Shamika called the shots and didn't let the dad step in. She sold her daughter, I believe

That's the conclusion that the webslueths group came to -- that she was sold/trafficked. The family, mother, boyfriend and the boys were shown with the money, new shoes and no Relisha but that's not the only reason they have. Their threads are pages long but they back up a lot of what they conclude. For example, once word got out about Relisha, Kahlil Tatum had a meeting of sorts in the motel room which included an unsavory associate who based on previous criminal charges was thought to be a sex trafficker. He was initially looked at by police but then dropped as a suspect.

One post on there that stays with me is from somebody who says in certain families the mother daughter bond is so broken that the mother will sell or turn out the daughter for a small financial gain. The mother has usually had a broken relationship with her own mom and this goes back generations. Addiction is sure to be involved and lack of early years nurturing. The poster claimed to be a stripper herself and the way she laid it out made sense.

The boyfriend seems ok and I like his voice. Sister Ashley sounds like she is doing remarkably well given that she had Shamika's upbringing. I not a fan of the grandmother. She seems bright but manipulative. Shamika never should have been allowed to raise children but realistically how can you prevent that until something bad happens?

So do the websleuths think she's potentially still alive?