Center Unafraid to Get Graphic in Its Mission
By Troy Goodman
Originally published by The Salt Lake Tribune, June 21, 2001
Working at the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome requires employees to talk a lot about child murder and infant death.
And the job could get even more gruesome as the Ogden-based center expands its child abuse data center and the high-tech tools it uses to teach others how to avoid killing babies in a fit of rage, said the group's deputy director, Robert Parrish. All center staff members are committed to halting or exposing this brutal form of child abuse.
One ghastly project the center recently launched is a computer-animated video of babies being shaken to death, or at least to the point of internal hemorrhaging, that is being used in Utah courtrooms to help judges and jurors understand the medical trauma such an act can trigger.
"We've been working with pathologists and a computer animation expert on this PowerPoint display" that can be adapted to the specifics of each shaken baby episode, Parrish said. "It's taken us light years ahead."
The center's mission, in fact, is to talk openly—even graphically—about how shaking a child is extremely dangerous. Parrish is the group's legal aid and hires himself out to prosecutors and law enforcement groups to help convict parents or caregivers who may have harmed or killed a baby in this way.
"These cases really live or die on the ability to explain very complex issues to the juries" who can't always believe a suspect meant harm to an infant, said Parrish, formerly with the state Attorney General's Office.
He also said murder convictions against parents or caregivers remain rare even though an increasing number of shaken baby cases have made their way into courtrooms in recent years—across the nation and in other countries. Parrish, who has been sworn in for three Utah cases during the past year, returned this week from London after helping British police adopt anti-shaken baby measures.
If a baby dies from being shaken by an adult in Utah, he said, current law allows prosecutors to seek a murder conviction based upon a legal concept called "felony murder." So far, though, no one has been convicted under this charge, which is basically felony child homicide.
The center also has made its way into hospitals and homes. Earlier this month, the group launched a project to distribute videos and educational material to new parents—via delivery rooms around Utah.
The center also is working to establish a central reporting database to better track the numbers of shaken baby cases in the state and, eventually, throughout the nation. Utah's health insurance companies have signed on to back prevention efforts, experts said, after citing the unnecessary cruelty and the high cost of caring for a child with Shaken Baby Syndrome.
Child abuse peaks when babies are 2 to 4 months in age, which is when infants are crying the most, according to the center.
