A Children’s Protective Services (CPS) worker was caught on undercover video encouraging a 14-year-old girl to become a prostitute.
Keisha Bazley, a Texas mother of nine, said she turned to CPS to help with her 14-year old runaway delinquent daughter, who later dropped the bombshell on her.
“My daughter told me that the worker had been telling her she should do these things, so she said she decided to video her,” Bazley told Fox 26 Houston on Friday.
CPS was housing the girl at a hotel with dozens of foster kids in Harris County.
In the video, the CPS worker tells the girl to become a prostitute after the girl said she wanted food.
The Bazley’s lawyer Mike Schneider said the disturbing interaction showed the worker “giving her an incentive” to become a sex worker and “almost a threat of not having her needs being met, if she didn’t do what this woman very explicitly told her to do.”
“I’ve never seen that happen before where the commissioner of CPS comes in from Austin, just to apologize about something horrible that’s been done to a child involved with CPS,” Schneider said. “It’s bad enough if it’s just one bad rogue worker. It concerns me that it may be bigger than that, and they need to make sure it’s not just one person, and they’ve got to find a way to protect these kids.”
Bazley filed a formal complaint against the CPS worker, saying that if she had done that to her daughter, “I would lose my kids.”
“If me, the parent, was to do something like this to my child, I would be bashed,” said Bazley. “I would be called a horrible parent.”
“This should not happen to girls in their care. It should not happen. It’s unacceptable,” she added.
Th Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) said in a statement that the CPS worker has been fired.
“DFPS is aware of the video and has taken action. The person in the video – who was employed as CPS support staff – was dismissed from her position August 10,” DFPS Spokesperson Melissa Lanford said. “The safety and appropriateness with which children in care must be treated is our paramount concern. Nothing less will be tolerated.”
