Tameria Greene's mother arraigned; memorial removed - KMSP-TV

By Alexis Wiley
Fox 2 News

DETROIT (WJBK) -- From the outside, the home Semeria Greene shared with her five children looks like any other apartment in its complex, but residents say what happened inside is something none of us can afford to forget.

"There's a lot of hurt and angry feelings down here," said neighbor Sandrew King.

They're hurt because a beautiful eight-year-old never made it to her ninth birthday, and they're angry because they tried to save her.

They expressed their grief by creating a memorial on Tameria Greene's doorstep full of the stuffed animals she would never play with.

"I think it was looked what happened here, not as far as the murder, but... how she fell through the cracks."

But Thursday morning, the property managers took down the memorial just hours before Semeria Greene was arraigned on charges of felony murder and child abuse.  High profile defense attorney Cornelius Pitts is representing Greene, and one of his first requests was that Greene undergo a psychological exam.

"It would appear that there's a serious question as to her emotional and mental state," he said.

While this mother stood before the judge, plenty of officials are trying to figure out who dropped the ball.  Why was eight-year-old Tameria Greene and her four little brothers left in a home with documented cases of abuse?  The Department of Human Services says they tried for two years to have the children removed, but on November 29, a juvenile court referee denied their request, allowing the children to stay in the home.

Now sources inside the juvenile court say CPS sent a substitute case worker to the hearing, who wasn't familiar with the case and could not show enough evidence to remove the children from the home and never issued a request for emergency removal.

Regardless of who dropped the ball, the bottom line is it was dropped and a community wants to make sure that never happens again.

"When the system doesn't look out for us, we're going to cry a little louder, we're going to yell a little louder, we're going to make more phone calls about things that happen down here so it won't happen again," King said.

The toys and mementoes that were left outside the apartment will be delivered to the Greene family in time for Tameria's funeral.