Kymberley
I perfected 'BITCHYNESS'
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2000
- Posts
- 1,866
Mother of boy killed by dogs avoids jail term
By Tim Bryant
Of The Post-Dispatch
Gladys Loman, her son Rodney McCallister was mauled to death by dogs.
Wendi Fitzgerald/P-D
The mother of Rodney McAllister Jr., the 10-year-old mauled to death in March by stray dogs, no longer faces a child endangerment charge as a result of a deal completed Tuesday.
The deal, worked out over the past month, calls for the mother, Gladys Loman, to enter a parenting program at the Center for Women in Transition in the 2600 block of Ohio Street.
Assistant Circuit Attorney Pippa Barrett said that jailing Loman, 35, on the misdemeanor charge dropped Tuesday would have made little sense.
"This is a woman with no parenting skills," Barrett said.
"Of paramount concern" now is the safety of Rodney's older brother, who is in foster care, the prosecutor said.
In addition to taking part in the parenting program, Loman could get employment help and treatment for a drug problem, authorities said.
Those programs are part of her conditions of probation imposed by Dunklin County Circuit Judge Stephen Sharp in Kennett, Mo.
Loman is on probation in Dunklin County on a separate case. She pleaded guilty in court there on March 28 of flourishing a weapon, a felony, by chasing her boyfriend with a kitchen knife, said Stephen Sokoloff, the Dunklin County prosecutor.
The incident happened about two years ago in Malden, Mo., where Loman was living at the time. Dunklin County is in the Bootheel.
Stray dogs killed Rodney in Ivory Perry Park in St. Louis on March 6, only 100 yards from where he had lived with his mother in an apartment in the 5400 block of Cabanne Avenue.
The boy had gone to the park to play basketball. A man cutting through the park on the way to work discovered the body under a tree the next morning. Loman told police she had last seen Rodney the evening before and didn't know where he had been all night.
Loman's lawyer, Jerryl Christmas, said Loman continues to struggle with Rodney's death.
"As you know, this was very traumatic for her," Christmas said.
Loman hopes to be reunited, perhaps by the end of the year, with her other son, who is in the foster care of an aunt in southeastern Missouri, Christmas said.
He said he has put the city on notice that Loman plans to sue the city over Rodney's death for allowing dogs to run loose.
"Our main question is, 'Why did this happen?'" Christmas said. "Why do we have to have a tragedy of this magnitude to happen before action was taken?"
Reporter Tim Bryant:\E-mail: tbryant@post-dispatch.com\Phone: 314-621-5154
Now folks, the rest of the story. This little boy, left his home around 4pm the day before. His mother was not there when he got home from school, she rarely was home, and frequently locked her kids out of the house.
When the police went door to door that morning they had found her son eaten to death, (which is how he died, they ate him while he was still alive and screaming for help. He died only after the shock and loss of blood and damage from their teeth to vital organs killed him) they were using information from the local schools about what children were absent that day and with a first name of Rodney. That was the name on the basketball they found beside him.
When the police got to her house, they asked her where he was. Her first reply was school. They told her he was not there. She then said, "he sometimes spends the night with a friend but I can't remember where they live or what the kids name is."
Remember he is 10 years old. They eventually tell her he is the boy they have found in the park. She continues with her story that he was at a friend's house so the police continue to find this friend and finally contact the mother of the child this lady claimed was the home he was at soo often.
The friend's mother had only met Rodney once, and had never met his mother, nor had Rodney ever stayed the night there. So where was it her son stayed when he was not at her house?
The police believed that he was locked out so often at night because the mother was off on drug binges, that this 10 year old boy and his brother slept in any shelter, burned out buildings, abandoned cars, or park benches they could find. They lived in North St. Louis, which is truly the ghetto of this town and so violent that the police are reluctant to patrol there. Nightly, there are drive by shootings.
Rodney's teachers described a little boy who had two sides to him. One, very happy and outgoing and extremely loving during school. Always a child that wanted to help out and be praised for doing a good job. He often came to school in the dead of winter with nothing more than jeans and a t shirt on.
The teachers at that school gave him and his brother jackets and gloves to keep them warm.
The other side of Rodney was that of a child who hated his life once he walked out of the school yard. He never wanted to go home, he rarely spoke of his mother. He was a sad child when discussions of family came up in class.
Now please would someone tell me why we must spend our tax dollars to teach a woman that has had two children how to be a mother. Why must we forgive her for that awful morning when her son's flesh was torn from his body in chunks as the pack of dogs devoured his living, breathing. struggling helpless little body. Why must we feel the need to comfort her and ease her guilt and provide her with a way to stop punishing herself for her son's most horrific death?
Do we need someone like this teaching other parents about how to be a mommy? That is what she wants to do now, educate other parents about raising children.
Personally, since I live with the reminder of that helpless child screaming for his life while those starving animals feasted off him, I think she should to. And I don't think we should make a hero out of her. I only wish for a moment, she could be made to feel 1% of the pain and torment and fear that her son felt those last ten minutes of his life.
Sorry, I will get off my soap box now.
By Tim Bryant
Of The Post-Dispatch
Gladys Loman, her son Rodney McCallister was mauled to death by dogs.
Wendi Fitzgerald/P-D
The mother of Rodney McAllister Jr., the 10-year-old mauled to death in March by stray dogs, no longer faces a child endangerment charge as a result of a deal completed Tuesday.
The deal, worked out over the past month, calls for the mother, Gladys Loman, to enter a parenting program at the Center for Women in Transition in the 2600 block of Ohio Street.
Assistant Circuit Attorney Pippa Barrett said that jailing Loman, 35, on the misdemeanor charge dropped Tuesday would have made little sense.
"This is a woman with no parenting skills," Barrett said.
"Of paramount concern" now is the safety of Rodney's older brother, who is in foster care, the prosecutor said.
In addition to taking part in the parenting program, Loman could get employment help and treatment for a drug problem, authorities said.
Those programs are part of her conditions of probation imposed by Dunklin County Circuit Judge Stephen Sharp in Kennett, Mo.
Loman is on probation in Dunklin County on a separate case. She pleaded guilty in court there on March 28 of flourishing a weapon, a felony, by chasing her boyfriend with a kitchen knife, said Stephen Sokoloff, the Dunklin County prosecutor.
The incident happened about two years ago in Malden, Mo., where Loman was living at the time. Dunklin County is in the Bootheel.
Stray dogs killed Rodney in Ivory Perry Park in St. Louis on March 6, only 100 yards from where he had lived with his mother in an apartment in the 5400 block of Cabanne Avenue.
The boy had gone to the park to play basketball. A man cutting through the park on the way to work discovered the body under a tree the next morning. Loman told police she had last seen Rodney the evening before and didn't know where he had been all night.
Loman's lawyer, Jerryl Christmas, said Loman continues to struggle with Rodney's death.
"As you know, this was very traumatic for her," Christmas said.
Loman hopes to be reunited, perhaps by the end of the year, with her other son, who is in the foster care of an aunt in southeastern Missouri, Christmas said.
He said he has put the city on notice that Loman plans to sue the city over Rodney's death for allowing dogs to run loose.
"Our main question is, 'Why did this happen?'" Christmas said. "Why do we have to have a tragedy of this magnitude to happen before action was taken?"
Reporter Tim Bryant:\E-mail: tbryant@post-dispatch.com\Phone: 314-621-5154
Now folks, the rest of the story. This little boy, left his home around 4pm the day before. His mother was not there when he got home from school, she rarely was home, and frequently locked her kids out of the house.
When the police went door to door that morning they had found her son eaten to death, (which is how he died, they ate him while he was still alive and screaming for help. He died only after the shock and loss of blood and damage from their teeth to vital organs killed him) they were using information from the local schools about what children were absent that day and with a first name of Rodney. That was the name on the basketball they found beside him.
When the police got to her house, they asked her where he was. Her first reply was school. They told her he was not there. She then said, "he sometimes spends the night with a friend but I can't remember where they live or what the kids name is."
Remember he is 10 years old. They eventually tell her he is the boy they have found in the park. She continues with her story that he was at a friend's house so the police continue to find this friend and finally contact the mother of the child this lady claimed was the home he was at soo often.
The friend's mother had only met Rodney once, and had never met his mother, nor had Rodney ever stayed the night there. So where was it her son stayed when he was not at her house?
The police believed that he was locked out so often at night because the mother was off on drug binges, that this 10 year old boy and his brother slept in any shelter, burned out buildings, abandoned cars, or park benches they could find. They lived in North St. Louis, which is truly the ghetto of this town and so violent that the police are reluctant to patrol there. Nightly, there are drive by shootings.
Rodney's teachers described a little boy who had two sides to him. One, very happy and outgoing and extremely loving during school. Always a child that wanted to help out and be praised for doing a good job. He often came to school in the dead of winter with nothing more than jeans and a t shirt on.
The teachers at that school gave him and his brother jackets and gloves to keep them warm.
The other side of Rodney was that of a child who hated his life once he walked out of the school yard. He never wanted to go home, he rarely spoke of his mother. He was a sad child when discussions of family came up in class.
Now please would someone tell me why we must spend our tax dollars to teach a woman that has had two children how to be a mother. Why must we forgive her for that awful morning when her son's flesh was torn from his body in chunks as the pack of dogs devoured his living, breathing. struggling helpless little body. Why must we feel the need to comfort her and ease her guilt and provide her with a way to stop punishing herself for her son's most horrific death?
Do we need someone like this teaching other parents about how to be a mommy? That is what she wants to do now, educate other parents about raising children.
Personally, since I live with the reminder of that helpless child screaming for his life while those starving animals feasted off him, I think she should to. And I don't think we should make a hero out of her. I only wish for a moment, she could be made to feel 1% of the pain and torment and fear that her son felt those last ten minutes of his life.
Sorry, I will get off my soap box now.
