Parent Laquisha Tatum testifies about son attacked and cut at Horizon

Good afternoon, everyone.

I am Laquisha Tatum.

I am speaking on behalf of my son that actually was in custody at Horizons.

He had two situations during the time that he was there.

Last year, I reached out to the Justice Department stating that my son was attacked by staff.

The case was unfortunately unfounded.

I don't know why.

I don't know what evidence that was used to have them to make that claim.

But if they would have went back into my son's record, they would have saw that the pictures was taken.

There was no way that my son fell.

He was attacked.

He stated that there were staff standing outside the door.

Making sure that everyone was, you know, on P's and Q's so that the staff that attacked my son was not seen or no one was able to bust in that room while he bust my son's lip.

He was, his lip was bust on the top and the bottom and the report stated that he fell.

We all know that that's not what happened.

I would like to know, being that these children are being held accountable for their actions, what happened to staff and what actions are being held accountable towards them with the abuse that they are doing?

This is...

It's not something that's new.

It seemed like it's getting pushed under the rug because I have reached out to multiple people and not one have contacted me yet and said, Ms.

Tatum, I'm here to help you.

I heard what happened to your son.

Moving forward, this year he was in there for ankle monitor violation.

We still don't have no concrete evidence on neither one of his cases, so I don't understand why the case is still going on.

As long as it is, it's about to be two years that these cases have been standing, and I have to get a paid lawyer for these cases to understand what's going on.

May 10th this year on Mother's Day, to be exact, my son was cut severely.

He was in the hospital, Harlem Hospital, for five days.

Okay?

Five days.

The situation happened at around 10 o'clock that night.

I didn't get a call until about 4 o'clock in the morning saying that they needed my consent to sedate my son in order for them to perform the proper

procedures that they needed in order for him to have his hand stitched up because between both hands he had 46 stitches and in the back.

On his back, he received three different cuts, and he had to get staples.

I reached out to 50 million people in the Justice Department.

I didn't hear anything back.

I gave them my claim number.

No one is reaching out.

I reached out to the Department of Investigations.

No one still is telling me what's the status on these situations.

The only one who actually took the time out to reach out to me was Ms.

Stevens.

Appreciate her for that.

I would like to know what happened in these situations, understanding that they told me that there was a shortage in staff or whatever.

That's the reason why they weren't able to assist my son when he got attacked and got cut by his peers.

He almost bled out.

He was in fainting stages because they lacked proper medical attention before they was able to call 911 to see that they honestly and obviously couldn't stop the bleeding.

Yeah, so that was very disturbing.

And I understand that these kids are not.

All innocent, but again, they are human and they do have rights.

I've seen dolls get treated better than them.

Okay.

So yeah, it's just disturbing and disgusting that people even want to sit up here and try to take away their rights as humans and understand the logistics of everything that's going on.

Not every child in there.

Is being held for something that they did and I know that firsthand.

Well, they're still children, but thank you for sharing with us today.