More on McDowell Case- Norwalk Homeless Mom Arrested for Wrong School District

Tonight the NAACP got into the act, funding legal representation for homeless mom Tonya McDowell, who was charged with grand larceny for the offense of lying about her address on a school form application to send her five -year old son to kindergarten in Norwalk.  They retained Attorney Darnell Crossland, who was introduced to the press as the next Johnny Cochran. With all due respect to the late Johnny Cochran, he will be best remembered as the guy who got off OJ Simpson, guilty as sin of the double murders of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman.  Not sure you want to make that comparison at the outset, if your claim is that Ms. McDowell has been treated unjustly.

The NAACP asserted that Ms. McDowell had been strip searched upon her arrest, and that the officer in charge was instructed to ” search her like they do in Niantic.”  Reportedly, the officer objected, but was told to do it anyway, and complied.  Much hullballoo ensued, rightly so. A strip search for a parent who lied about a school district?  Sounded rather zealous to me, and to many others.  Chief of Police Harry Rilling reviewed the videotape and invited Ms. McDowell’s attorney to see it as well. Conclusion? No cavity search, no real “strip search”.   Did Ms. McDowell lie or were her statements manipulated by others?  At this point, we don’t know.  

 The NAACP also disclosed that Ms. McDowell was questioned by narcotics officers while being charged with this crime, hinting that another agenda was at work by the Police Department, and that they might have been trying to solicit information about drug use in the area. On these facts, the attorney and the NAACP were vague.   Mayor Moccia said  on The Lisa Wexler Show that McDowell was charged with selling narcotics within limits of a school.  More than that, we don’t know yet.

Also disclosed was the fact that the Norwalk prosecutor, Suzanne Mieux, is Mayor Dick Moccia’s stepdaughter.  I didn’t know that.  If so, that might explain Mayor Moccia’s resistance to dropping this case altogether.  He really should.  As more facts come out, it becomes clearer that this woman was singled out for some reason, that she really is homeless, and that the system has utterly failed the little boy.

 I asked Attorney Crosland if  this case was about getting the case against McDowell dismissed, or about making the case that all children should be able to go to whatever school they want , regardless of their residence.  He said that his first duty was to his client, of course, but that there was also a movement to allow residences of grandparents to count as well as parents.  Crosland agreed with this movement. 

Incidentally, Mayor Moccia said that the boy was now attending school in Bridgeport because he was living with his grandmother.  Ms. McDowell contradicted that- she said in fact that they were staying with friends in Bridgeport, not relatives.  The family appears to be truly homeless.  Why won’t Mayor Moccia step up to try and make this case disappear?  If 20 other parents per year try the same thing, and their only punishment is disenrollment, then why make an example of this poor woman?  She needs help, not jail.

Crosland  stressed that he thought much of this was  about tight budgets, about cities trying to save money in tough times. I don’t agree.  Ms. McDowell got caught in the wrong bureaucracy.  A lie to the Housing Authority was not merely a lie on a school application form.  The Housing Authority has legal staff, and they have duties to report falsehoods when they see them.  Once reported to the prosecutor, the issue of judgment arose.  Therein lies the crux. This particular prosecutor chose to go ahead and prosecute this case.  Perhaps if she had done more research about similar incidents in the past, she would have handled it differently. She might simply have brought it to the school’s attention and a due process hearing would have begun, instead of a criminal prosecution.  Now Ms. Mieux’s back is up against the wall.  Politicians like Sen. Larry Cafero are supporting her. She is probably listening only to the people who tell her she is right.  That is what happens sometimes in life. 

 Ms. Mieux, I write this to you. Hear your inner voice and drop the case.  You are going down a road you can’t win.  Homeless parents don’t deserve incarceration, they deserve a hand up.

Norwalk Woman Arrested for Wrong School District?

Maya Angelou cautions to tell the truth, not the facts.  But I like to start with the facts- then maybe, if we are lucky, we can discern some truth.  What we know is that a Norwalk woman, Tonya McDowell, was arrested in Norwalk for lying about her residency so that her five year old son could attend the public schools in Norwalk. She was charged with felony grand larceny for “theft of services” to the tune of over $15,000 which is what Norwalk claims is the cost of one year’s worth of public education.  http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/policereports/article/Bridgeport-woman-arrested-for-registering-son-in-1340009.php

What else do we know?  According to Richard Moccia, the Mayor of Norwalk, who appeared on The Lisa Wexler Show , Thursday, April 21, 2011, Ms. McDowell was also arrested for selling narcotics within the proscribed limit of a school.  Ms. McDowell has a criminal record which includes robbery. Ms. McDowell’s last known residency in Norwalk was when she registered at a homeless shelter in 2009.  According to Mayor Moccia, the original criminal complaint came from a private party who complained that she was being physically threatened by Ms. McDowell.  The boy’s father is currently incarcerated.   You can hear the entire interview yourself here:   Mayor Moccia Interview Lisa Wexler Show 4/21 .

So now that we know at least some of the facts, we need to ask: Are these facts relevant?  Do we care about the history or actions of the mother, when the issue really concerns the education of a young child.  Prof.  Boyce Watkins does not think so.  He thinks the mother’s criminal record is immaterial because he believes every child should have the right to receive a great public school education, and in his view, the mom was doing the right thing in lying in order to achieve this end.  Hear his interview on the show as well at  Whole Show April 21 including Prof Watkins .

Why does this case provoke such strong reactions?  Because of Francie Nolan, the heroine of A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, whose mother washed floors,  sacrificed, and even lied, so that her daughter could get the education she deserved. We rooted for Francie, we cried when she received that diploma.

This case provokes strong reactions because we all know that where a kid goes to school can determine his or her entire future.  Because we all know that there is injustice, inequity, and too much disparity between our best public schools and our worst ones, often located within blocks of each other. Forget about blocks away from each other- they might as well be worlds away from each other. Because we all know that we have to do better, that no matter what the troubles of the parents, our children deserve better.

Here is the other hand of the story:  The other hand is that adults make choices and those choices have consequences. There are adults that work hard to break the cycle of poverty, drug abuse and crime so that their children can attend better schools, because those adults can afford to pay for them.  For adults  who are poor but who wish for a better life for their kids, there are many government programs and subsidies designed to give those kids a leg up.  Sometimes the kids themselves have to show the initiative and promise, other times it is as simple and as cruel as a winning lottery ticket.

I asked Prof Watkins a pointed question that he could not adequately answer: If you take the position that all kids deserve the best education, then why charge admission of over 50k per year at Syracuse University, where you yourself are employed? Why shouldn’t higher education be subject to the same standard as you would hold the lower grades, and how can you justify earning your salary at an institution which so obviously discriminates on the basis of one’s pocketbook? He couldn’t answer, and neither can we, without admitting something that all of us already know. The world isn’t perfect. Money still buys privileges, including that of a better education. Therefore, one needs to work hard and earn money.  Your other alternative? Don’t have kids you can’t afford to raise.

I can argue both points of view because I’ve seen real life examples of those hard-working adults, and yet I know too that no kid deserves bad parents. No kid should have to be resigned to a fate of hopelessness and poverty because of the unhappy accident of having parents who made poor choices.

What would I do here?  The answer is this particular case seems pretty simple, and I believe Mayor Moccia will do his best to achieve a just result.  On the charge of lying about a school district, an investigation should be held as to where the mother really, truly lives. If she has a residence in Bridgeport, as is being supposed, then her child should go to school there, but the state should be involved to supplement his education with head start, day care and other programs that will be useful to the child and enable the mom to have time during the day to work. The state should help her find a job because with that criminal record behind her, she is virtually unemployable otherwise.  If she is homeless, Mayor Moccia has said that Norwalk has a program to help her and her child enroll in school and job training programs.

On the criminal end? I would drop the charges of grand larceny.  Incarcerating the mom won’t help anyone, and besides, the mother did not do anything to deserve being  jailed. She did not commit an act of violence that would require her to be quarantined from society.  She lied on a school form.  Big deal.  She got caught. I can already hear the pleas of people saying that if she isn’t adequately punished, then what will stop other mothers from doing the same thing?   Nothing ever has and nothing ever will. Until we really address the inequities in our school districts, this kind of thing will keep happening.  It’s hard to blame a parent for trying.

Next stop? Do what is in the best interests of the family.  Maybe this little boy will be tomorrow’s Francie Nolan.