State Custody, Zero Protection: The Death of James Reese Jr.
On April 15, 2021, James Edward Reese Jr., four years old, was found on the bathroom floor of a Jacksonville house. Alexander Pino, his kinship caregiver, said James slipped in the tub. First responders saw bruises that did not fit that story. At Wolfson Children’s Hospital, doctors documented a skull fracture, bleeding inside James’s head, and older healing fractures that no one had reported or explained. Six days later, on April 21, James died. Florida had taken James from his mother in the name of safety. Florida placed him with relatives and promised supervision. Then Florida looked away.
In April 2020, the Department of Children and Families removed James and his three siblings from their mother, Karissa Garcia, after a domestic violence incident involving her partner. The court gave legal custody to the state. The state turned daily responsibility over to Family Support Services of North Florida, the private contractor that runs foster care and in home services in Duval and Nassau counties. The philosophy behind this arrangement seems straightforward. The state holds the power and the purse, the contractor handles the day to day work, and children benefit from a local team that knows the community. The state selected kinship care for James, placing him with relatives, Alexander Pino and Michelle Sipko. The theory said family would be safer than strangers. The practice told another story.
By early 2021, small signs had begun to stack up. The caregivers fell behind on vaccinations. Daycare turned James away. On April 7, 2021, the caregivers brought the children to a clinic for shots. The clinic recommended a physical exam for James, a full check by a pediatrician within two weeks. That exam never happened. No case manager forced the appointment. No supervisor flagged the failure as an urgent risk. On a supervised video call, Karissa Garcia saw a swelling on the back of James’s head. She reported what she saw. She was told James was not feeling well. No one took him to a hospital that day. No one brought him to a doctor the next morning. The warnings sat in notes while time passed in a house that would become a crime scene.
On April 13, a Family Support Services case manager visited the home. The visit was either the required monthly check or a response to Karissa Garcia’s warning. The worker recorded that the home appeared tidy and that the children seemed fine. Two days later, paramedics carried James from the same home with a fractured skull and bleeding inside his head. If the injuries were present on April 13, the visit was cursory. If the injuries were not yet present, the visit still failed its purpose, because the clear warning signs, the daycare exclusion, the clinic’s recommendation of a physical exam, and the mother’s alarm about the head swelling, all pointed to a child who needed to be seen by a doctor immediately. The visit did not produce that basic action. The system checked a box, then James was injured in a way that doctors later called homicide.
On the morning of April 15, according to police statements and hearing testimony, Alexander Pino was home with the children. Pino said he bathed James, stepped out, and returned to find James unresponsive. At one point, first responders were told James had already been dressed for school but had been put back in the tub after an accident. Later, that detail vanished from the account. At the hospital, a pediatrician trained in child abuse evaluation concluded that the injuries were consistent with being struck and thrown. A neuropathologist later called the death homicide. A detective testified that James’s eight year old sister described a loud bang in the bathroom and a scream. Doctors do not take sides in these cases. They describe what the body shows. James’s body showed a pattern of violence, not a simple fall in a tub.
On April 21, James died. On April 22, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office labeled the case a murder. Investigators searched the house and found printouts about head bleeding in children. That kind of detail reads like a failed script. It looks like someone wanted a story to tell when the questions started. The questions did start. By May 13, Alexander Pino and Michelle Sipko turned themselves in. Prosecutors charged Pino with second degree murder and aggravated child abuse, and charged Sipko with aggravated manslaughter and child neglect. A judge held Pino without bond. Sipko received a high bond that was later reduced, and she was released to home detention with monitoring. In August, a grand jury upgraded Pino’s charge to first degree murder. As of the latest court calendars, Pino remains in jail awaiting trial. Sipko remains out on bond. The criminal case will run its course. The question for the public is not whether a jury returns a verdict. The question is why James was in that bathroom at all.
Florida’s privatized child protection model sets up layers of responsibility that are easy to describe and hard to execute. The Department of Children and Families holds legal custody when a court removes a child. The Department contracts with a lead agency, in this case Family Support Services of North Florida, to manage placements, visits, and services. The lead agency employs or subcontracts case managers who visit homes, verify safety, and coordinate care. Guardians ad litem may be appointed to speak for the children’s interests. Dependency judges issue orders, review case plans, and depend on agency reports to make decisions. In theory, the structure builds checks and balances. In practice, the structure lets gaps open between the layers. James fell through those gaps.
Consider the April 7 recommendation for a physical exam. A doctor told the caregivers to bring James back for a full check. That instruction should have triggered a clear process. The case manager should have recorded the recommendation and scheduled the appointment. The supervisor should have verified the date and the plan for transportation. Someone should have demanded proof that James was seen by a pediatrician before the case manager signed off on the monthly visit. None of this happened. The recommendation vanished into the haze of a heavy caseload and a contracting chain that rewards timely entries more than thoughtful follow through. The missed exam matters because a pediatrician would have seen the head swelling and bruising and asked hard questions that cannot be brushed aside by a caregiver’s story. The exam would have put James in a safe space, away from the bathroom door and the belt, long enough for someone to see what was happening.
Consider the April 13 visit. The case manager was supposed to verify safety. That means more than looking around a living room and noting that toys are picked up. That means speaking to each child alone, asking private questions, and looking for recent injuries. That means reviewing the warning that Karissa Garcia gave on the video call and following the thread right then. The visit recorded that all seemed well. Two days later, James was on life support. That is not hindsight bias. That is the stark measure of a visit that did not do what it had to do when the facts demanded more than a quick walkthrough.
Consider the role of kinship care. Placing children with relatives can protect bonds and offer stability. It can also hide risk. Relatives may be fast tracked for approval. Training can be thin. Case managers may give relatives more benefit of the doubt. In this case, the relatives were caring for four children, including an infant, on top of their own young children. Stress rises. The chance of a caregiver losing control rises. The system exists to buffer that stress with services, respite care, and close supervision. The record shows missed vaccinations, daycare exclusion, and a missed physical exam. Those are not small slips. Those are warning flares. Those flares were not followed by decisive action. That is failure, not fate.
The burden on frontline staff is real. Case managers in Duval and Nassau have carried caseloads above best practice levels. Turnover has been a chronic problem. Workers cycle through units, and families meet new faces at a pace that shreds continuity. A mother like Karissa Garcia has to repeat her story to a new case manager who does not know her or her children. A child like James has to learn to trust a stranger who will be gone in a few months. Supervisors have to review work for employees who are still learning the job. None of this justifies what happened to James. It explains how ordinary drift becomes deadly. A worker who is behind on visits may accept a caregiver’s answer instead of insisting on a doctor’s appointment. A supervisor who is short staffed may sign off on a note that does not meet the standard for safety verification. A contractor under pressure to meet dashboard targets may declare success because 98 percent of monthly visits were completed, while ignoring that the visits did not include private conversations or head to toe checks. Numbers do not comfort a mother standing at a vigil for her four year old son.
The secrecy of Florida’s child welfare records compounds the problem. The statute that shields abuse reports and case records exists to protect children and families. It also blocks public scrutiny of agency performance. The public cannot read the monthly notes for James’s case. The public cannot see the emails in which Karissa Garcia’s warning was received and discounted. The public cannot review the rapid response review that agencies may conduct after a child dies in care. In the absence of transparency, the agencies issue statements that invoke privacy and investigations. Those statements do not answer basic questions. Who was the case manager on April 13. Who supervised that worker. What was the caseload for each of them. What was the plan to ensure the April 7 physical exam happened. Why did no one take James for an exam after the mother reported a head swelling. These are operational questions, not gossip. These are the questions that tell the public whether a child protection system understands its own duties.
The criminal case against Alexander Pino and Michelle Sipko is not a substitute for accountability in child protection. Prosecutors will present evidence. Defense attorneys will challenge it. A judge will preside. A jury will decide the charges when the case is tried. None of that corrects the reasons James ended up in that bathroom. The contractor and the Department had multiple opportunities to break the chain of events. They did not take them. That is the wrong that belongs to public institutions, not to a jury. James needed prevention, not prosecution. He needed a case manager and a supervisor to insist on a doctor’s exam. He needed Family Support Services to treat a missed appointment like the emergency it was. He needed the Department to verify that kinship caregivers under stress were getting the support and coaching they needed, or to move him to a safer placement if they were not.
When Floridians hear about child welfare tragedies, they often hear about complicated families, addiction, poverty, and violence. Those factors are real. They are not an excuse for what happened to James. The state stepped in and took custody. Once the state takes custody, the state owes a duty of care that does not bend to convenience. The state cannot take the power to remove a child and then claim that it is too hard to verify that a child seen with a head swelling gets a medical exam the next day. The state cannot build a privatized system that layers contractors and subcontractors and then act surprised when responsibility diffuses into nothing. The state cannot point to high turnover and say that is the reason a four year old died, then ask for more money without proving that the next case manager will be trained, supported, and supervised in a way that changes practice.
There are direct fixes that flow from this case. Every doctor’s recommendation in a dependency case should trigger a same day scheduling requirement, with proof of a confirmed appointment before any case note can be closed. Every parental warning of visible injury during supervised contact should trigger an immediate wellness check by an independent medical provider, not by a caregiver, and not by a caseworker alone. Every monthly visit must include a private conversation with each child who can speak, and a head to toe observation when there is any recent concern about injury. Every kinship placement caring for three or more children should receive a formal stress and capacity assessment, followed by scheduled respite hours that are actually delivered. Every case manager’s caseload should be capped at a level that allows meaningful assessment. These steps are not abstract. They are simple habits that prevent funerals.
James’s name must sit at the center of every discussion about reform in Duval County. James was in the custody of the state. James was placed by Family Support Services with relatives who were not keeping up with vaccinations. James was recommended for a physical exam by a clinic, and the exam never occurred. James’s mother, Karissa Garcia, saw a swelling on his head on a supervised call. She reported it. The case manager visited the house two days before James was carried out on a stretcher and wrote that all seemed fine. James died at Wolfson Children’s Hospital. That is the system’s report card. No amount of talk about complex families changes the hard sequence of events that led to the funeral of a four year old boy.
The people involved in James’s life have names and roles that matter. Karissa Garcia warned about the swelling on her son’s head and asked for help. Alexander Pino claimed a bathroom accident and later stood charged with murder and aggravated child abuse. Michelle Sipko was charged with aggravated manslaughter and child neglect and later released on bond with monitoring. Dr. Rebecca Rodriguez Poe told a court that James’s injuries were consistent with blunt force and throwing. Detective Howard Saunders described the eight year old sister’s account of a bang and a scream. Judge Tatiana Salvador ruled that the burden had been met to hold Pino on the charges. Family Support Services of North Florida managed the case. The Department of Children and Families held legal custody. These names are not background characters. These are the actors who frame the reality of a child’s life when the state intervenes.
It is easy to become numb to stories like this. Florida has seen too many. Each time, agencies say they are heartbroken. Each time, they say they are reviewing. Each time, they remind the public that child welfare is difficult work. It is difficult. It is also a profession with specific duties that save lives when performed with discipline. When a mother reports that her four year old has visible swelling on his head, the duty is to get the child seen by a doctor that day. When a clinic recommends a physical exam after shots, the duty is to schedule it, verify it, and confirm it happened. When a case manager visits two days before a child is hospitalized for head trauma, the duty is to look beyond a tidy living room and ask private questions, and if anything is off, to escalate until a clinician has eyes on the child. These duties were not met for James. That is the damning truth that no press release can soften.
There is a line that runs from April 7 to April 15. On April 7, the clinic told Alexander Pino and Michelle Sipko to bring James back for a physical. That did not happen. In the following days, Karissa Garcia saw a swelling and raised the alarm. The contractor did not insist on medical evaluation. On April 13, a case manager visited and recorded that all seemed fine. On April 15, James was unresponsive on a bathroom floor. That is the line. It does not take hindsight to see what should have been done. It takes only the courage to act on what is already known. Florida must decide whether it will require that courage from the people who hold the lives of children like James in their hands.
Nothing can return the days that James should have had. He should have woken up on April 22. He should have gone back to daycare with a small backpack and a snack. He should have raced down a hallway. He should have annoyed his siblings. He should have reminded his mother to watch him dance. He should have fallen asleep on a couch with cartoons murmuring in the background. Those ordinary things were taken from him. The least that Florida can do is to change the ordinary actions of its child protection system, so that the next doctor’s recommendation becomes an appointment, the next parental warning becomes a medical check, the next monthly visit becomes a real conversation that finds the truth while it can still save a life.
James was not a statistic. James was not a line on a dashboard. James was a four year old with a mother who still speaks about him as a boy who loved to move to music and laugh at things that were not funny to anyone else. James should be here. Florida took him, said it would keep him safe, and failed. That is the fact that must drive every question and every change that follows.
Have records, testimony, or documents relevant to this case or similar, email fuckdcf.paul@pm.me
