PFSA Director Angela Liddle reacts to the death of a two-year-old child in York.

Nothing to do with this?

“It seemed like so many people outside who had nothing to do with this.”

So spoke York police officer Andy Baez in his trial testimony, as quoted by reporter Rick Lee in a story that appeared in the York Daily Record and Sunday News on Nov. 11.

Officer Baez made that observation in retelling how he rushed the horrifically beaten and unconscious 2-year-old Darisabel Baez (no relation) from the York apartment where she lived with her mother to an ambulance waiting outside on a day last April.

Darisabel died the next day. Her mother’s boyfriend, Harve L. Johnson, has been convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Her mother, Neida Elizabeth Baez, has been convicted of third-degree murder but not yet been sentenced.

A pathologist testified at the trial that the little girl had suffered 150 separate injuries.

There is unsettling quality to Officer Baez’s statement. “It seemed like so many people outside who had nothing to do with this.” In a way, his statement is a chilling indictment—an indictment of the rest of us.

Where were the rest of us when this little girl was, as the trial testimony indicated, beaten again and again?

Where was the rest of her family? Where were the neighbors? Where was anybody who might have had even an inkling that something was amiss inside the walls of the apartment where she lived with her mother? Could she have been saved?

There is no way to know, of course. But, sadly, this case is not unique. It happens more frequently across Pennsylvania than most people care to know.

My organization, the Pennsylvania Family Support Alliance, is in the business of helping distressed families and providing training in recognizing and reporting child abuse—so we do know.

Fifty children died from abuse in Pennsylvania last year, four more than 2007 and 19 more than 2006. By anyone’s measure, even one is too many.

Twenty of the children who died last year were under 1 year of age. Twenty-five were between the ages of 1 and 4. One was between 5 and 9, and three were between 10 and 14.

In the overwhelming majority of cases, the perpetrators in these fatal incidents were the child’s mother or father.

Every one of us has a responsibility to report any suspicion of child abuse or neglect. When in doubt, let a caseworker from a county children and youth agency investigate. That’s better than doing nothing and allowing another child to become a Darisabel Baez.

If you suspect a child is being abused or neglected, we urge you to call the ChildLine at 1-800-932-0313 to report it. Please, remember Darisabel Baez.

Angela M. Liddle is executive director of the Pennsylvania Family Support Alliance.