Children’s Advocates Fault Placement of Slain Boy

In the wake of the slaying of 12-year-old Rodney Haynes, allegedly killed by older boys who lived with him in a group home, child welfare advocates criticized the Los Angeles County Probation Department system that places youths.

Haynes reportedly sneaked out of the Passageway group home Tuesday night in Calabasas with the two boys, ages 16 and 17.

Several hours later he was found in a trash bin, apparently beaten to death by a rock and a stick.

The two teenagers, who have allegedly admitted beating Haynes, have been charged with murder.

Children’s advocates say residents of youth homes should be more closely monitored.

“Group homes need to create effective monitoring systems for their staff and their kids--monitoring is a serious, serious problem at these homes,” said Andrew Bridge, a lawyer at the Alliance for Children’s Rights.

Jenny Weisz, a children’s lawyer for Public Counsel, a nationwide advocacy group for low-income people, said she was concerned about the difference in age between Haynes and other boys in the home.

“This child was so small--he should not have been put in a group home with kids like these, who were so big and wiser to the ways of the world,” she said.

The oldest of the murder suspects weighs 200 pounds. Haynes was only 4 feet 10 and barely 85 pounds.

His body was kept at the Los Angeles County morgue most of Saturday as his cash-strapped guardians sought some way to pay for burial.

“I never thought I’d be making funeral arrangements for a 12-year-old,” said the boy’s co-guardian, Diedra Lampley.

By evening she had found a funeral director who agreed to pick up the body and help her get financial assistance, possibly through government or social service agencies.

Haynes’ only known relatives, older siblings in their early 20s, are unstable and unable to help, Lampley said.