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[dramatic music playing]
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[911 operator speaking]
[man speaking]
[911 operator speaking]
[man speaking]
[dramatic music playing]
[woman] I have reported a vehicle accident
near Juan Creek on Highway 1.
[woman] What caused a family to drive over a cliff
to their death? That's the question
multiple agencies are investigating.
[woman] Jen and Sarah really were the kind of parents
that I think the world desperately needs.
[woman] I honestly don't know
at what point it turned,
there were no red flags at all.
[woman] You never can reconcile
this picture-perfect family
with these incredible details on the other side.
[man] I knew that this couldn't be
the first moment of tragedy.
This couldn't be the first moment
of violence.
I was trying to help them and protect them
and this is the result.
[woman] How can they be so close
to something so awful
and not even know?
[dramatic music playing]
[waves crashing]
[Sheriff Tom] March 26th, 2018,
I heard a report on the radio.
They dispatched the deputy
to the northern part of Highway 1
to perform coroner duties
at a multiple fatality traffic accident.
I knew exactly where it was because I've been there
so many times.
It's a big dirt turn out...
with a 75, maybe 80-foot drop off...
no guardrails whatsoever, no protection.
[dramatic music playing]
[helicopter blades whirring]
[Sheriff Tom] When I pulled up the scene...
fire engines there,
ambulance was standing by,
highway patrol helicopter.
I saw one of our deputies
and I went to him and said,
"You know, what do we have?"
And he said, "We have a car that went over."
[waves crashing]
[Sheriff Tom] I walked to the edge of the bluff.
[camera shutter clicks]
[Sheriff Tom] And I saw a crumpled SUV.
The waves were coming in and going out,
and you saw this car rocking back and forth.
This was not a normal traffic accident
from the very onset.
And it continued to be
anything other than normal.
[dramatic music playing]
[Cynthia] So that morning, I get into work.
I was told that they had located
two female adults
within the passenger compartment
of the vehicle,
and they had located
two male juveniles,
and a female juvenile outside
on the rocks.
[It. Shannon] Some of the fire crew as they're
examining the scene on the beach locate
a Minnesota State driver's license
in the name of Sarah Hart.
We did some Google research
and located a photo of the Hart Family
and a story that had gone viral.
Yeah, someone around here said today
what the world needs now might just be
what we see in this photo.
[Cynthia] I was Googling Hart Family,
Devonte Hart,
the first picture that popped up is Devonte
hugging the Portland police officer.
[news reporter] Born to a drug-addictive mother
and into a violent life, he and his two siblings
were adopted into a loving family
and Devonte was at that rally with a message of peace
and holding a sign offering free hugs.
[Cynthia] And then, when you start really bringing up
Hart Family, we get, you know, a lot of pictures
of smiling and laughing,
and videos of them singing.
The moms looked happy and loving.
And there's beautiful six children
that looked like they were having a time
of their life.
[dramatic music playing]
[Irene] Before I actually met the Harts,
I heard about these kids
that would come to these festivals
that I attended.
People mentioning like, "Oh, you know,
the Hart kids, they give free hugs."
[indistinct chatter]
[Irene] I heard, oh, these two brave
lesbian women went against all odds
and adopted numerous children
and are giving them
this unprecedented life really,
that no child is so lucky to have.
These kids were just pure joy.
All they could do is just smile
from ear to ear.
They were always like, propped up
on people's shoulders,
dancing in the crowd.
And memories of that are so sweet.
They were a unit.
[Drew] It wasn't difficult to just...
really enjoy getting to know Jen.
She had a great sense of humor
and she was just so social
and frankly just fun to talk to.
[dramatic music playing]
[Niema] Sarah was, from what I could tell
like very reserved, very quiet.
She seemed sweet but...
not really conversational.
Jen was a little bit more of the like outgoing
and connecting with people on.
Jen and I did become Facebook friends.
She was pretty active in posting and I would see
pretty regular posts of them,
you know, the six of them.
They always seem kind of calm and happy like even serene.
Jen's photos were incredibly beautiful.
They could've been in a magazine,
the way they were framed and how the kids...
Like the colors the kids were wearing
and whatever exposure or lighting she was using.
And they would be having like,
really the foster kid's dream.
[Drew] Jen seemed to be leading
the most exceptional life.
This supermom,
this champion of racial reconciliation,
willing to sacrifice herself
for the greater good of these beautiful children,
we all felt like we were along for the ride.
[tense music playing]
[Sheriff Tom] To know that we had
possibly six children...
[waves crashing]
[Sheriff Tom] ...two adults,
I don't think I know
it was on everybody's mind of...
this is what we're dealing with.
[It. Shannon] By mid-morning,
we had one person positively identified
that being Sarah Hart.
We suspected the other adult female
was Jennifer Hart, her married partner.
And two deceased children.
And one that was believed to be a child
but was late teens, so we weren't really sure.
[Cynthia] We were pretty positive
we had this family,
but we only have three kids.
So we're missing three children.
[Sheriff Tom] We had a vehicle out of state
with possibly eight fatalities.
We knew that these two mothers
had adopted these kids
and they were from, I believe, it was Woodland, Washington.
So we had lots of questions.
What's between Mendocino County
and Woodland, Washington?
How long would it take 'em to get here?
Why did this happen?
[tense music playing]
[Cheryl] My name is Cheryl and I knew Sarah Hart.
We worked together at Kohl's Department Store.
She was the assistant store manager.
[dramatic music playing]
[Cheryl] Saturday, March 24th,
I had gone into the store
and when I came in I realized
that it was a different manager
when it was supposed to be Sarah.
And so I, kind of, looked at her and was like,
"What are you doing here?" And she said that,
Sarah had sent a text message
at like 3:00 in the morning that she was sick.
"I possibly needed to go to the hospital."
We both just thought it was kind of weird
because she had just worked the day before
and she seemed totally fine.
But on Sunday evening,
they still hadn't heard from her.
She was a dependable person.
If she said she was gonna be there,
she was gonna be there.
I sent a text message and told her,
"Can you let us know what's going on?
You're kind of freaking everybody out."
But there was nothing.
Just radio silence.
[dramatic music playing]
[Cheryl] Everybody came in Monday
and we kind of kept waiting to see
if Sarah was gonna come in.
And, you know, we gave her till about 9:30, 10:00,
and she still hadn't showed.
I decided to call 911.
[tense music playing]
[911 operator speaking]
[Cheryl speaking]
[911 operator speaking]
[Cheryl speaking]
[911 operator speaking]
[Cheryl speaking]
[911 operator speaking]
[Cheryl speaking]
[dramatic music playing]
And about 10 minutes later...
[cell phone vibrating]
[Cheryl] My phone rang, and it was an officer,
and I explained the situation to him,
and he says, "Well,
how many children does she have?"
And I said she has six.
He asked if I knew anything about her
not feeding her children?
And that kind of threw me for a loop
and I said I don't...
I don't know anything about that.
We just needed somebody to go out to her house
and make sure she's okay.
And he said that he didn't need to go up there
because he had already been up there once that day
because of a call from DSHS,
the Department of Health and Social Services.
And he said that they have packed their stuff
and split.
And he says that it appears that they're on the run.
[dramatic music playing]
[Det. Adam] On March 27th, 2018,
Mendocino County reached out to Clark County for assistance
to do a welfare check at the Hart Family residence.
[dramatic music playing]
[It. Shannon] We had, at that point
eight known family members.
Five established and recovered
in the County of Mendocino
but I don't know where
these other three children might be.
[Det. Adam] Upon getting that call,
the Sheriff's Office was able to look back
and see that the day prior on the 26th
there had been two welfare check requests
at the same house.
One from a coworker of Sarah's
concerned that she had missed work
and also a call from a CPS worker
who had made previous attempts to go out
and contact the family.
[dramatic music playing]
[911 operator speaking]
[CPS speaking]
[911 operator speaking]
[CPS speaking]
[911 operator speaking]
[CPS speaking]
[It. Shannon] I talked to a deputy
and he went out with one of his sergeants.
They were able to make entry,
but...
there was no sign of trouble,
nothing out of place.
They basically said the house was neat
and in good order.
[Det. Adam] There was food out on the table.
Food in the fridge.
It all seemed open and accessible to anybody
who would've wanted it.
We did know that the CPS worker
had left a card a few days earlier,
and so, it was unknown if they were fleeing
that investigation
if they was at a short trip
or if they were leaving for good,
we just didn't know.
There are a lot of families that have CPS involvement.
It doesn't always amount to neglect, abuse,
or any kind of criminal case
but I talked to Child Protective Service
and we started to learn a little bit more
about the Hart background
and it also involved additional
allegations of abuse in other areas
that they had lived in.
And over the next several days,
we had started looking at those kind of things as well.
[dramatic music playing]
[It. Shannon] We were able to track several relatives
down to the South Dakota area.
[all] Happy birthday to you.
[Cynthia] Jen's aunt relate to us
that she had seen the children
within the last couple of years
and had the most contact with the children family-wise.
We ultimately were able to send her
some photos via email
and she was able to positively identify
who we had in our possession at that point.
Markis was the easiest.
He had a very distinct jawline.
And you could see that in all of his photos.
When we were looking at Jeremiah and Devonte,
their faces were very, very similar.
And the aunt informed us of a mole
that Jeremiah had
and we made the identification of it being Jeremiah.
When we got to the female,
we were wavering between Hannah and Abigail.
The aunt gave us information
of Hannah missing two front teeth.
We were able to positively identify
Jennifer,
Sarah,
Jeremiah,
Markis,
and Abigail
as the deceased folks that we had.
[ominous music playing]
[Sheriff Tom] I'm Sheriff Tom Allman,
Mendocino County Sheriff.
Certainly, this is a tragic day
for Mendocino County tragic week.
There may be many questions about what caused the accident
and no new information has been developed.
There's a lot of unknowns on this.
The detective sergeant and I said
we need to open up active missing persons report
on the three kids that weren't found.
People may wonder why do you do
a missing person case if, you know,
they were killed in a traffic accident.
But in this case, the bodies were missing.
We have every indication to believe that
all six kids were in the SUV.
However, only three bodies have been recovered.
Sierra is still missing,
Hannah is still missing,
and Devonte is still missing.
When we put out a press release
asking for information,
we wanna know where they came from,
where they've been.
All we wanna do is get some media coverage.
We're looking for these kids, can you tell us anything?
[dramatic music playing]
[birds chirping]
[Jackie] Wednesday, March 28th, 2018,
our newsroom received word from California
that there was an Oregon SUV that had gone over
a steep embankment on the coast.
[news reporter] What caused the family
to drive over a cliff to their death?
That's the question multiple agencies
from California to Washington are investigating.
[Jackie] Anytime a whole family
is killed in a crash it's a huge news story.
But then the photographer that I worked with
back in 2016
ran into the newsroom and said,
"Jackie, we interviewed them at the Bernie Sanders rally."
They've been standing in line for hours to Feel the Bern.
In the crowd, the boy who started
the free hug revolution.
We could not believe it.
They're such a well-known family,
he's such an adorable boy, they all were.
Hart and his family are all smiles
with what they call Hart Bern.
He's planting the seeds of a revolution.
It's not... It's not a fake thing.
It's not just a young people thing.
A lot of my friends and family,
this is what we've been waiting for.
It was stunning.
And we knew that this was going to be a story
that we'd be following.
So we immediately started Googling
where they could've gone off.
And the more we zoomed in we're, like,
"How do you go off the edge like that?
How does that happen?"
[dramatic music playing]
[Jackie] So the newsroom sent my colleague
Bob High to the house.
And he immediately saw the CPS card
in the door.
[Bob] A business card from
a Washington State Child Protective Services worker
was still in the front door
of the Hart family's home Wednesday.
[Jackie] So Bob went to the neighbors
and they were the ones who revealed
that they called CPS.
[Bob] One of the Hart's adopted children
started asking neighbors Dana
and Bruce Dekalb for food every day.
[Dana] Non-perishable food items.
And was asking that we not tell his mom
and to, you know, hide it and put it by the fence
so he could get to it
and that they were withholding food from him
as punishment.
[Jackie] Devonte, he was saying,
"Our moms, they're punishing us.
They're depriving us of food. We're starving."
Looking at their social media posts,
they were living this seemingly
perfect life online.
They created this persona,
this family living in harmony.
But it was completely different
from what was actually emerging
and what was happening behind those closed doors.
We knew that there was just so much more to the story
and we had really just hit the tip of the iceberg
at that point.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Irene] I was driving in my car
on the way to the gym
and my phone rang and a dear friend of mine
who did not know the Harts
but knew that I was friends with them.
"She said, "I think you need to pull over
and look at the news right now."
We just learned from
the Mendocino County Sheriff's office
that they believe the entire Hart family,
all eight of them, were likely in this SUV
when it plunged 100-feet over a cliff
on the California coast.
[Irene] I went on my phone
and I looked at the news.
And I fell to pieces.
To some, a very vibrant family,
a model of what love looks like.
Others though say there were signs of trouble
prompting Child Protective Services
to start an investigation.
As the news continue to develop
and the truth about the story started to be revealed,
it became so much more difficult to process.
[Jackie] The minute the news broke,
the social media mob really, like, took off.
I was getting bombarded with messages and they were,
like, "You're not reporting the full story."
Or, "They probably dropped the kids off."
Or, "Devonte may be being human-trafficked."
I mean, it was unbelievable.
Then we'd have the people coming
to their defense, "These were amazing moms."
We weren't duped, that love wasn't fake.
They love their children.
They weren't White Supremacist.
They just were isolated.
They were in pain.
I had massive questions.
The biggest one was,
"How do you just drive-off a cliff
with a whole car full of people?"
[dramatic music playing]
[Jackie] Our newsroom was working
to put this timeline together.
We knew CPS had visited the house on Friday,
the SUV was in the driveway and no one answered the door.
They go back on Monday, the SUV was gone.
We knew that the Hart's clearly had left
and they left in a hurry.
[waves crashing]
[Jackie] But why did they do that?
When did they leave? Where did they go?
There's got to be a forensic way
to put this together.
[dramatic music playing]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Shannon] So the actual accident investigation
falls under the jurisdiction
of the California Highway Patrol.
They have highly-trained accident investigators
to kind of piece this all back together.
[Sheriff Tom] They can find out the speed
it was going,
they can find out if bulbs were working,
if brakes were applied.
They will do as much of a forensic investigation
on that vehicle
as some pathologist
would do a forensic investigation on a body.
[Shannon] Initially, we're thinking
this unsuspecting family is driving down Highway 1
which is a two-lane narrow highway
possibly at night
and they accidentally leave the roadway
and go across this very large turnout.
Normally, you would've expected...
skid marks.
You know, where they applied massive braking
but there were no skid marks at all.
Also, according to the Highway Patrol,
there was no indication of seatbelt use,
which is odd because some of the friends
of the family indicated that Jennifer
was adamant about the use of safety belts
when they're driving.
But the investigation indicated
no safety belts were worn at all.
Eventually, the California Highway Patrol
were able to download some information
from the vehicle's computer
and it was determined that there was no braking
and the speedometer was pegged and locked
at around 90 miles an hour.
Those are indications that the vehicle
was involved in rapid acceleration.
[news reporter] Electronic data pulled
from the Hart's SUV indicates Jennifer Hart
pulled off Highway 1 at a dirt turnaround.
Investigators say the SUV stopped 70 feet
from the cliff edge and then accelerated
plunging the entire family to their death.
[Sheriff Tom] When you start putting the totality
of everything together you would be a village idiot
if you didn't think that,
you know, something was rotten here.
[ominous music playing]
[Sheriff Tom] If on day one I had said,
"Gosh, this was an intentional act"
then it was homicide.
Oh, can you imagine?" People would've said,
"Who are you to make that determination?"
You know? Who would kill six kids?
I'm a dad. Who would kill six kids?
But if this is not an accident,
that means one thing,
it means it was a crime.
If it's a crime, it's murder.
[news reporter] And we begin tonight
with new information.
Investigators are shedding new light on why
they believed a Washington family's
deadly crash off a cliff in California
was intentional.
[Sheriff Tom] At the very beginning,
when I said I have no reason to believe
this was anything but an accident,
I believed it.
But that changed.
When things started developing,
from a traffic accident to a homicide investigation,
that's not a baby step, that's a big leap
but it is what it is.
[news reported] With me, Shane Cavanaugh,
staff writer for the Oregonian.
Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman.
So right after the accident I was on CNN
to make that statement.
Sheriff, I wanna begin with you.
We're starting to get at least a picture
of where this family was before this horrible accident.
Is that helping you in any way to figure out
why the accident happened
and where are those three missing kids are?
Well, it's certainly helping us
determine the route.
I... I'm to the point where I no longer am calling
this an accident. I'm calling it a crime.
[ominous music playing]
[Zaron] Every day I go on Twitter looking for stories.
Because as a journalist, it is the place
that you can see a story
before it becomes a news story.
And some Black women that I follow,
they were posting about Devonte Hart,
this kid who had gone missing and they said it's the kid
from that viral photo from the Ferguson protest.
And I said, "Wait, that's the kid who's missing?"
And it stuck with me because I'll put it very simple,
when you have two White mothers
who adopted not one, not two,
but multiple Black children,
enough to fill a Suburban that alone is the curiosity.
But as soon as the story started developing,
people started to dig into it.
Not only was there a lot more to it
but the tragedy was incomprehensible.
[dramatic music playing]
[Dr. Raquel] In 2004, Markis, Abigail,
and Hannah came to the attention
of Child Welfare in Texas.
The children were very young at the time
and they came from poor backgrounds.
[Sharon] Markis was five, he was in school,
then Hannah was about two,
and then Abi was still a baby,
she was like six months.
The biological mom had some issues
and the children weren't getting the medical care
that they needed.
And he decided that it would be best for the kids
if she went ahead and relinquished her rights
and let them get adopted.
[Dr. Raquel] Jen and Sarah worked through
the Permanent Family Resource Center
which was an adoption service agency
in Minnesota
and adopted Markis and his two siblings
Abigail and Hannah in 2006.
[Sharon] Jen and Sarah were a same-sex couple
and instead of trying to have a baby through,
you know, artificial means, they felt that adopting
a sibling group was a better alternative.
I met them on the phone the first time
and there was just something about them.
They were open to any therapies
that the kids needed to go through.
They were very supportive of the fact
that they were siblings and needed to stay together.
I don't know. It was just the things
that they said were all the right things.
[dramatic music playing]
[Dr. Raquel] The adoption worker found the home
was suitable.
They were making adequate sleeping arrangements.
They took them for speech therapy
and kept up with their medication regiment.
Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta.
[Sharon] Approximately a year later
I had to take three more kids to Minnesota.
So, I checked in on Markis, and Hannah, and Abi.
And the difference was amazing.
[Diane] I met Jen and Sarah in our store
in Alexandria, Minnesota.
Markis, Hannah, and Abigail,
they came into the store quite a bit.
Sarah and Jen were very proud of them
and introduced them to all of us.
As soon as they saw you, you'd always get a hug.
They'd always talk to you.
They just seem like a happy family.
[ominous music playing]
[Dr. Raquel] In 2008, Sarah and Jen were approved
to adopt Devonte,
Jeremiah, and Sierra.
But while they're in that process,
there is an allegation about a physical disciplining
in the home that may have been inappropriate.
Hannah made a report in school
that she was hit by her parent.
Jen and Sarah both denied having any knowledge
of how or why Hannah had bruises.
Child Welfare did investigate,
but by all accounts there was not enough evidence
to indicate that that had actually happened.
But on November 15th, 2010,
Abigail was in school
and she mentioned to her teacher
that her mom gave her an owie,
and she pulled up her shirt
and her teacher saw bruises on her stomach.
[Zaron] Based on the CPS reports,
there are bruises indeed by her belly button
but then also on her back, and up by her sternum.
This is not some child who is clumsy or fallen.
The cops find out that the parents felt the child
needed to be disciplined because the child
had a penny in her pocket.
So the parents, Sarah and Jen,
gets so upset that one of them beat the child.
The child said it was Jen but the cops eventually
arrested Sarah and she pleads to domestic assault.
[Diane] I got a telephone call at home
one evening from Sarah.
She had some serious matter
that she needed to take care of
so she wanted to change shifts
with me at the store.
She told me that she had spanked Abigail too hard
and there were bruises and the police were involved.
I was surprised, disappointed,
but when she told me the situation,
there was something I guess that I felt
just seemed a little bit off.
And my gut instinct right away
was that she was covering for Jen.
[Jackie] "Sarah immediately took responsibility"
for the spanking that occurred the previous day.
The defendant explained that she and her partner
Jennifer do not ordinarily use spanking
as a disciplinary measure.
However, they had recently resorted
to spanking to deal with AH's behavior.
The defendant admitted that she let her anger
get out of control the previous day
while dealing with AH.
The defendant explained that she took AH
into the bathroom
and bent AH over the edge of the tub.
The defendant admitted that she hit
AH on the back side
and acknowledged that the marks on AH's stomach
"probably came from AH being bent over the tub."
It's just hard to read.
[dramatic music playing]
[Dr. Raquel] Between November 2010
and January 2011,
there were six allegations of abuse
against Jen and Sarah
called into Child Protective Services.
But even after Sarah was convicted,
Child Welfare did not feel
that there was enough information or evidence
in this case to suggest that these children
were being neglected and/or abused.
[Zaron] Eventually,
Jen and Sarah seemed to notice
that if they can minimize the children's contact
with other adults then nobody would be able
to file reports with CPS,
nobody would be able to involve police officers
coming to the house unannounced
to check on their children.
So they learned the obvious lesson,
remove the children from school.
So you no longer have school nurses,
and cops, and social workers noticing
the children had now fallen through the cracks.
[dramatic music playing]
[news reporter] Authorities say they have recovered
a body they believe belongs to one
of the three children who went missing
along the Northern California coastline.
[Cynthia] On April 7th I was notified
that we were able to locate remains
of another young juvenile.
[waves crashing]
[Cynthia] She was in the general vicinity
of where the crash was.
We were pretty positive we had one of the two females
that we were missing.
And when we were able to gain DNA samples
is when we were able to identify her
as Sierra Hart.
Finding her, it just solidified
that we were now looking into a recovery process
for the last two children.
[ominous music playing]
[Dan] Some new details tonight
about the Washington family
who drove off a cliff in California.
Tonight we're learning information now
about the biological mother of three of those kids
and their aunt's fight to keep them in Texas.
[news reporter] This attorney, Shonda Jones,
represented the aunt.
She said she held onto these case documents
for seven years longer than is normal
because she felt this decision
was such an injustice.
[Shonda] I remember I was at my office
and I kept hearing about it.
And then they said Devonte,
they said Harris County, and they said Minneapolis.
And I know I said, "That's my case."
I was representing Priscilla Celestine
who was a paternal aunt of Devonte,
Jeremiah, and Sarah.
I'm not gonna lie, I became furious.
I wanted people to know, you know,
there's another backstory to this
than besides what the media is presenting.
The mother of the children, she had a drug problem
and the state of Texas was seeking
to terminate her parental rights,
as well as the father
of the children's parental rights.
And the father of the children,
his sister was Ms. Priscilla Celestine.
She stepped in because she wanted the children
to remain with a family member
instead of being placed into foster care
with the state of Texas.
Ms. Celestine always had a special place in my heart.
She is a wonderful person, honest, loyal, reliable.
[Dr. Raquel] Ms. Celestine kept a clean home.
She took really good care of the children.
One day while Celestine was at work,
the daughter allowed their biological mother
to come in and visit with the children,
and the Child Welfare worker showed up.
They felt like this was a violation.
It put the children at risk
and that it was such a safety issue
that they had to remove the children
from that home immediately.
[dramatic music playing]
[Mia] My name is Mia Williams
and in 2006 I was a supervisor
with Child Protective Services in Houston, Texas.
Within the state of Texas, if there is an immediate risk
or harm with the child in that placement,
the state has the authority
to remove that child from the home.
And in this case,
according to the family opinion,
the case worker went to the home,
saw the biological mother there,
probably received the necessary approvals,
and the children were ultimately removed
from the home and I'm sure they probably placed them
in an emergency shelter.
[Dr. Raquel] Ms. Celestine, by all accounts,
she was providing a good home for them.
And one simple slip-up
letting the mother come see them,
they just removed them automatically.
[Zaron] Priscilla Celestine fought
for those children and said I want these children home
in my house because they are my family.
And the law said, "No."
Priscilla Celestine, she tries to get custody
of the children again.
Her petition for custody is denied.
The children are then put into the system
and are eventually allowed to be adopted by the Harts.
[dramatic music playing]
[Shonda] It was just very baffling to me
because it seemed like it was all a sham,
like, everything was already planned
and no matter what I said or did,
their mind was already made up.
And I couldn't understand, like, why are they trying
to get these children out of Texas to Minnesota.
Come to find out,
the people that they were placing them with
were the ones who were actually abusing children.
[Mia] The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services policy states
that throughout the life of the case
you should be looking for relatives or fictive kin,
meaning folks that have a relationship
with the child.
[Zaron] Their aunt lost custody because she allowed
the children to have an unsupervised visit
with their own mother.
Should that be the penalty that these children
are now gonna be consigned to whatever fates
the winds allow them?
The White mothers, after they adopt them,
get busted for physically abusing them.
There's almost no consequences.
The punishment is nothing,
just think about that for a second.
[Bruce] So, good afternoon.
I'm Bruce Carpenter.
I'm the commander of the Ukiah area.
We got some preliminary toxicology results back.
We have determined that
Jennifer Hart's blood alcohol level was
above the legal limit based on preliminary results.
[Cynthia] Jen had alcohol in her system
which, according to family,
was a very unusual thing for her.
The preliminary blood alcohol content
was at 0.102.
[Cynthia] We were told that she very rarely drank alcohol.
So it was a shock to her family
that she had alcohol in her system.
And the other preliminary results as well
that have come to light
is that Sarah Hart
had a significant amount of benadryl in her system.
The children, also, were determined
to have had benadryl-type of substances
in their system.
[Cynthia] Looking at the three children,
their levels of diphenhydramine
was actually very high.
[It. Shannon] At those high levels,
it was fairly indicative that Sarah and Jennifer Hart
drugged their children before this incident.
[camera shutter clicks]
[Cynthia] That was a huge shock to me
and to all of us
that they took the time to actually give
this amount of benadryl to the children.
And it had to have been done an hour, two hours beforehand
in order for the children to be sound asleep
when they drove that car off of the cliff.
[Dr. Joni] What we know as forensic psychologists is
that people wind up doing bad things
for a lot of different reasons.
The term "family annihilation" refers to someone who kills
several close family members
in a relatively short amount of time.
For people on the outside,
family annihilation is always a sudden event
and a complete shock.
But, this was not an example of two individuals
who just, on the spur of the moment,
were so desperate and despondent
that they drove off a cliff.
They had taken some very specific steps
to plan out this murder-suicide.
In this case, there was something that happens
that sets the wheel in motion.
We don't have a clear understanding
of what that stress was,
but it's the end result
of all these things that have been going on
for a long period of time.
[reporter] Tonight, a call for change,
critics are calling out Oregon DHS
after recently-released documents reveal
officials here had reports of abuse
involving the Hart family
long before their SUV crashed
on the California coast last month.
[Dr. Raquel] This was a report that was called in
from one of Jennifer's friends.
And what prompted this call was an incident
that happened on 06/28 in 2013.
Jen and the kids had been staying with friends.
They had ordered pizza one night.
The friend thought that it was a little strange
Jen only gave the children,
each of them, a very small slice of pizza.
In the middle of the night,
one of the children came down and they ate the pizza.
And in the morning when it was discovered,
Jen got very upset.
The friend reported that she dragged one of the kids,
and then she stated that Jen had all six kids lay down
on an inflated air-mattress
with sleep masks on their faces
and their arms by their side for five hours.
And when the friend spoke to her about this,
told her that she was concerned about the situation,
Jen did not see
that what she was doing was extreme.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Dr. Joni] There were a lot of indications
that these kids were not being treated well,
and that these kids were, at the very least,
in psychological danger.
Withholding food, particularly on a regular basis,
it's so damaging to kids,
physically, in terms of their development,
but also psychologically.
[Dr. Raquel] According to the report,
Jen would kinda turn on and off.
She would only show them affection
when she wanted to capture certain pictures.
And then as soon as that was done,
she would go back to,
pretty much, ignoring the kids.
The friends said that the kids were
like trained robots, and if questioned, would
likely not say anything.
But if one can get Markis alone,
he might honestly say what is happening in the home.
CPS did do an interview with the children.
They separated them from the parents,
but in-home,
and asked them about how they're disciplined.
All of the children denied that they were being abused.
But this is not necessarily unusual
for a child not to say anything,
especially if they're being interviewed
in the presence of, or within the vicinity
of their parent.
The child welfare workers sit down with Jen and Sarah
to speak about these allegations.
Jen just passed it off as, you know,
they had food issues, and that these children came
from a home where they were abused and neglected,
and now they're in a loving home.
And sometimes they act out.
[Zaron] They present this, like, feral child model.
This is the power that Jen, as a white woman, has is
that if she says something, people believe it.
[Dr. Joni] Jen, I think, tended to cope
by blaming other people,
by blaming the situation.
"It's the kids who had the food issues.
It's not that we're not feeding them"
[Dr. Raquel] When the doctor did the evaluation,
it was stated that each and every one
of the children, except for Jeremiah,
was below the weight and height
where they should be for their age.
But yet, he said that they were
still normal and healthy children.
[Zaron] You have two sets of children,
the two groups are not biologically related,
and yet they all have the same conditions
of not being on the growth charts,
not tracking in terms of normal development.
Why do they all have the same condition?
The CPS worker takes six months to complete
the report, and by the day after Christmas,
they receive a report that...
there was reason to believe
that there may be something going on
in the house.
They just say that it is inconclusive
and that they lacked the evidence to act.
The message to the parents is "We're getting away with it."
And the message to the kids is,
"Nothing is gonna be done.
Nobody's got your back",
and makes it less and less likely
that there would be an opportunity
for anyone to intervene.
- [soft clapping] - [indistinct chatter]
[people chanting "Om"]
[Irene] I met the Harts in 2013
at the Mystic Festival in Oregon.
The kids were there. They were really small at that point.
I remember...
thinking to myself, "They must be
like, three or four years old."
I was most drawn towards Devonte
with his "Free Hugs" sign on,
because it felt like an invitation.
He had so much charm,
just charms the pants off of everybody.
Devonte was bright, joyful, but also timid.
[indistinct singing]
[Niema] He would often wear these, like, body suits,
or little bits of colorful costume pieces.
But whatever larger-than-life-ness
he might have had in the pictures,
[audience member] Woo! Beautiful.
[Niema] ...when you touched him, he was
just this thin boy.
[all cheering]
Jen looked like
the commanding officer in a way.
She was just like, "Okay. You go here, you do this."
She was definitely always organizing the kids,
or taking the photos or staging things.
[Irene] Everyone was just celebrating them
and they were just like, leading the way.
Like, "This is how you live."
This is the picture of happiness.
I remember being like,
"I want to be like Sarah and Jennifer one day.
I want to have that much love to offer my child."
[Niema] I don't think they were really close
to a lot of people in terms of like,
having people over.
And, so Facebook was how most people knew
what was happening in their lives.
And Jen was pretty active and posting,
and, so it seemed like
they were happy, you know, from what she would post.
Very well-curated display of life.
[Dr. Joni] We can learn a lot
about a family or about a person
by how they use social media.
How often they use it to get their emotional needs met,
how often do they interact with other people,
what kind of pictures do they post,
it tells us a lot about their values,
and the things that are important to them.
But when I look at Jen's post,
I see, based on my professional experience,
based on my knowledge as a mom,
something doesn't seem right
in terms of how this person is presenting this image.
[Irene] Devonte was definitely the focus
of her Facebook page.
You never really saw her post about... Markis.
Or Jeremiah, or Hannah or Ciera.
She may have mentioned some interaction
that had to do with Devonte.
But the focus was very much her talking about her son,
and how she saved him, you know?
[Dr. Joni] So, this is a post that Jennifer made
on November the 8th, 2014.
"We were standing in the grocery checkout line.
An elderly man was standing
at the end of the bagging area.
He spots our son, looks him up and down."
"Man: I can tell you're going
to be a baseball player when you grow up.
Son: Pauses, tilts his head and gives a closed mouth grin.
"Actually, no. Baseball isn't really my thing."
[Joni] " Man: Well, I can tell you're gonna be a ball player."
As his mom, I can tell
there was a slight frustration inside of him.
Checkout lady: Oh, I bet you're gonna be a basketball
or soccer player then.
Son: No, I don't play any sports.
It's just not my thing. I just have other interests.
"Checkout lady, in a befuddled,
nearly astonished voice:
What? I have never met a kid
"that looks like you that doesn't play sports."
We all know what she means by "Looks like you."
"Man chuckling: Right? Never. They all do!"
"It was so obviously clear what was happening."
While I wanted so badly to step in and protect my son
from the ongoing racial stereotyping, I didn't.
[Zaron] I let him step into his own power
and he handled it brilliantly.
The statement, "I let him step into his own power" is
just gaggingly offensive. Anyway.
"Man: Well, what do you wanna be when you grow up?
"Son: I'm here to help people."
I'm here to inspire. Now.
"Man said, " What are you gonna do
to help and inspire people?"
[Zaron] " Son: I'm going to be myself."
No matter how much people try to make me something I'm not."
[in unison] "Have a great night."
"Flashes ginormous smile."
I think this kid will be all right.
No matter what is tossed at him.
The irony is that he will not be all right
because you were tossed at him.
Here's a post from Jen, dated November 13th, 2014.
"I share stories, photos,"
and experiences of our family often.
I would never have expected
that one of my most recent posts would
impact people the way it has
and find its way to the Huffington Post.
Meet Devonte: The little boy with a big heart.
A young boy who was born into a life of drugs,
extreme poverty, danger,
and destined for a bleak future,
is defying stereotypes in the most remarkable way.
"Devonte Hart entered the world 12 years ago"
with drugs pumping through his tiny newborn body.
By the time he was four years old,
he had smoked, consumed alcohol,
handled guns, been shot at,
"and suffered severe abuse and neglect."
[Shonda] I remember reading an article
with the adopted mom saying that she remembered
Devonte being shot at, and that was a complete lie.
Show me the paperwork here in Houston
where someone said that.
"It was a life of little hope
and a future that seemed over before it began."
[reading]
[Zaron] So, the Huffington Post story,
all this stuff that's presented
as if it were documented fact,
these are all things that Jen reported.
She says, "When we adopted him,
he only knew [bleep] and [bleep]
And he struggled to identify with the names of foods,
body parts and everyday objects."
Those are literally quotes from Jen from the CPS report.
[Shonda] Again, she tells this story.
Miss Celestine never told me that about Devonte.
So he must have digressed
from the time that he left her.
I mean... that's ridiculous.
[Zaron] Jen figured out that if she puts forth a narrative,
somebody else will pick it up and repeat it,
and if someone else repeats it,
then she can say, "You know what they said."
[Dr. Joni] On the surface it looks like,
"Oh, it's all about my kid."
But, between the lines,
there is just this constant theme,
that "If it wasn't for us,
this kid would've ended up who knows where."
So what seems to be a story about Devonte
is really a story about Jen.
[Niema] In hindsight, it definitely looks like
they were painting this picture
of themselves as heroes,
and these children as very sad victims...
that needed to be rescued.
[Zaron] She's using Facebook
just like an advertiser or a marketer,
and she's selling white saviorhood.
But she doesn't care about the kids.
She just wants the likes and the dopamine hit.
She's hurting all of these people for that.
[Dr. Joni] Family annihilation is the most common form
of mass murder.
But it is an incredibly difficult event
to predict, because it is so rare.
I've been asked before, "Is there a personality
of the family annihilator?" And we know the answer
to that question is "No."
But there are some commonalities
that we sometimes find.
There's, often times, a history
of undiagnosed depression.
People who commit family annihilation,
often times have a strong need for status,
and for attention.
Then sometimes you have this black-and-white thinking,
"meaning "If you're not my friend, you're my enemy.
If things aren't good, they're horrible."
And then, almost always, you have
an environmental trigger.
Something happens that isn't responsible at all
for what happens,
but it becomes a precipitant.
[reporter] A few minutes ago, the grand jury deliberating
the death of Michael Brown issued its decision.
[newsreader] The Grand Jury will not indict Darren Wilson.
He's the white police officer who shot and killed
the young, unarmed black man Michael Brown in August.
[newsreader 2] The Grand Jury decision set off outrage
in communities not only throughout St. Louis,
but across the country.
[Niema] I remember when that hug image first appeared
on media, and how quickly it became viral,
and learned that it'd become kind of national news.
That was an iconic and beautiful image
and spoke to a hope
that we were feeling at that time.
As someone around here said today,
what the world needs now might
just be what we see in this photo.
I originally saw Devonte in that picture
with that cop on the news.
And I couldn't believe my eyes.
It was Devonte on the TV.
And he's hugging a cop in this picture,
and I'm like, thinking,
"Oh, my Gosh, maybe he'll
be a part of something really profound,
with everything that's happening with the protests."
I could tell it was meant to be like,
"Oh, this is this black boy
hugging this white cop in this moment of solidarity."
But the look on Devonte's face was mixed.
I don't know if he was sad
because of all that had happened,
or the interaction he just had with the police.
I remember, at the time, seeing that photo
and not fully understanding
that there was a lot more to this story than I knew.
[Zaron] When the photo was taken of him hugging the cop,
there were two photographers, both people of color,
who both noticed the same exact scene,
and they commented on it saying,
one said that it was clearly trauma.
Another said, "I don't know what's going on in this photo,
but I'm gonna leave it up to y'all to say
because this, to me, looks like this ain't right."
[Niema] Understanding how much of those children's lives were
staged and made into photo-ops,
I don't know that that moment was
actually consensual for Devonte.
I don't know if he actually wanted to hug that cop.
[Zaron] From what I've seen, a lot of the friends were
very proud of the moment
because it went so massively viral.
It was as if they were friends with somebody
who was on the cutting edge of protest culture,
which is what Jen wanted it to be
and present herself as.
A leading non-political figure of this hope and change idea
that America can move towards.
She takes all of that and uses it for her,
and in doing so is rightfully called out for it.
[Vanryckeghem] I was just going on Facebook.
I looked, and I found Jennifer's post,
and I remember being confused and disappointed.
Even reading it now, I'm like,
"Who wrote this?"
"I understand many of you have stumbled upon"
the darker side of media as of late.
Things have been twisted and used for various reasons.
I can't control that,
and I cannot allow that to control me.
What other people think is none of my business.
I know what really happened,
and how Devonte truly feels about that encounter.
"And that's all that matters to us."
She dismisses claims that she is basically hijacking
the Black Lives Matter movement,
that she is hijacking the Ferguson protest and the energy
that going into calling attention to systemic racism
and abuse in America.
People then, as they start to, in her words, attack her,
she defends herself by presenting it as their wrong,
they don't understand.
These are haters that are coming after me
because we're lesbian moms
with our adopted black children.
She's both, dismissed the claims that are rightful
and made herself sympathetic by playing the victim.
[Vanryckeghem] It does really seem like she was just protecting her own agenda,
and no one or anything else but that.
It must have been a trigger for her to get so much attention,
when she knew that she was living a double life,
and that it couldn't be something that she could maintain
if people really started peering into their lives
and wanting to know a lot more.
So she probably had no other choice
but to shut everything down and withdraw.
[Burnett] The virality that she was chasing after ruined the thing.
It, basically, compromised Jen's ability to control the narrative.
So, once the narrative escaped her clutches,
she left and created a new narrative.
[Bunch] In 2016, I met Jen
in the highly competitive gaming community.
We were part of this team of players
dedicated to a specific game.
And you're all working to destroy every other team
and move up the rankings.
And we were the second-ranked team,
and this is worldwide.
Jen was the co-leader of that 50-member team,
so she's keeping track of scores for 50 players.
She is checking to see if people are maintaining those scores.
In the team chat, she kept it lively.
Anything to, like, keep everyone motivated.
For her, it was clearly a passion
to maintain that sense of unity,
and she did a great job out of it.
[Johnston] After this picture goes viral,
we find Jen going to the gaming community,
which really does provide her a forum,
where she can again share pictures and posts of her family.
She can also get a ton of status
and a ton of affirmation.
[Bunch] You're spending many hours
with the team members every day,
exchanging photos and talking about your careers,
and so it really does become a family in a sense.
Jen moved to Washington early summer, in 2017.
I remember, she shared photos of the house,
pictures of the kids in the new house with chickens,
painting the new living room.
The kids are all happy, she's happy.
I never saw a sign ever, ever
that they were anything but great.
[911 operator speaking]
[man speaking]
[911 operator speaking]
[man speaking]
[911 operator speaking]
[man speaking]
[Beck] Dana DeKalb's father called 911,
and he told a shocking story
about a child coming to their house in the middle of the night
and asking to be hidden in the house.
[doorbell ringing]
[Bruce] It was 1:30 in the morning, and I went to the front door,
and here's this girl standing there,
and she comes bolting in the house.
Ran upstairs, and went into the bedroom,
and started shaking Dana.
[Dana] She pounced on me frantic and begging, you know.
"Take me to Seattle. Don't make me go back there.
They are racist, they are abusive,"
and we're just like going, "Whoa!"
[Beck] A short while later, they heard the rest of the family,
Jen and Sarah and the rest of the children, outside calling for Hannah.
Eventually, they went into the house
and gave an explanation for Hannah's behavior.
[Dana] Sarah never spoke. Jennifer did all the talking.
And she said that, you know, Hannah struggles, she has some issues.
It's been a rough week, and she's going through all kinds of turmoil.
And they were drug babies,
and so the kids struggle.
I was all prepared to call the cops,
but she, she sold it well.
They ended up back at our doorbell at 6:30.
Hannah handed us a note saying how sorry she was
that she had told us some things that weren't really true.
It's just that she had a really bad week,
and she wanted to apologize for bothering us.
Before they left, I asked if I could have a word with just Hannah,
and they said, "No. We do everything as a family."
[Bunch] Jen was the most fun-loving person
until you violated one of her rules.
Oftentimes, these rules weren't spoken rules,
these were just the way she wanted things to be done.
[Hart] There was an occasion that I was at the store,
and we get a call.
I answered the phone, and there was a woman on the other end,
and she asked to speak with Sarah Hart.
So I told her, "One moment." I put her on hold.
"Sarah," I said, "It's for you."
And she got a panicked look on her face,
and she looked at her watch,
and she went, "Oh, [bleep]."
And she ran into an office and slammed the door.
About ten minutes later, she came out of the office,
and I had jokingly said, you know, "What did you do?"
And she told me that she did not
play her part in a game.
She said that Jen was very upset with her,
to the point that Jen had said
if Sarah wasn't going to support her,
she might as well just kill herself.
Because it was all she had to look forward to, was this game.
Sarah was very worried about Jen,
because Jen was depressed and withdrawn.
Sarah would constantly have to be, you know, calming her down.
I think Sarah was the buffer between the kids and Jen,
like the battered spouse would, you know.
In this family, there was a tremendous amount of stress
going on at home.
I don't know what that stress was,
but we do know that things were getting worse.
The only evidence we have are these kids,
who are desperately trying to get help.
So, the very first night was on Thursday night.
The next morning, he was here again at 9:00 am, asking,
"Do you have any bread?"
So I said, "No. But I have those tortillas."
That's when he started saying could we put it by the fence.
[Beck] While speaking with Dana and Bruce,
they mentioned that Devonte had provided them a list of food items,
and had mentioned that his parents were withholding food from them.
And he was asking Dana and Bruce to get food,
so that he could share it with his brothers and sisters.
[Dana] The first night, I didn't think anything.
But then, when he came back Friday night,
it's like, "Wait a minute. I just gave you, like, thirty tortillas."
One time, he asked us for six jars of peanut butter.
- [Bruce] Yeah, peanut butter. - [Dena] When he asked for peanut butter,
I was like, "This is, like, staples.
They're not getting enough to eat."
Every time he came, he did divulge more information
as he became more comfortable.
And that's when we learned that they had been abusing them,
and they were withholding food for days at a time.
And he said Sarah used to not go along with it,
but she is now.
At the exact moment that Devonte was going to spend
the next eight, nine days asking repeatedly for food,
she's on Facebook celebrating.
"I am a better human in every possible way for knowing these children.
They have been my greatest teachers.
I couldn't be more in awe of all the people
that chose to celebrate this life with us.
Thousands of people that have shared a hug,
a dance, a story, a laugh, a meal, a cry, a word of encouragement,
a smile, a song,
"thank your for exemplifying the true meaning of family."
She's arranging a collage of their love
while denying them food, actively,
to the point that they are begging strangers for food.
[Dana] That Thursday is when he had told us
that everything Hannah told you was true.
And I said, "Okay. So, why did she run away that night?"
And he said, "'Cause my mom was abusing her."
I just felt like, "Okay, now I have enough to get somebody's attention."
[reporter] Worried for the children,
the DeKalbs called state CPS officials,
who visited the home again on Friday,
but, apparently, no one answered the door.
The next morning, when we saw that the vehicle was gone,
and then, Sunday morning, when it still wasn't there,
we figured there was something.
[reporter] Then, on Monday, the DeKalbs heard about
the horrific crash in California.
[Allman] I think the moms were on a mission.
And whether or not their mission originally was Mendocino County,
I don't know the answer to that.
But, in my heart, I believe their mission was death.
This was a one-way journey as soon as they left.
New details tonight. Human remains have been found
near a cliff in Mendocino County,
the site of a horrible family tragedy.
[Bartley] May 9th, I come to work.
There's buzz about the fact that there was, uh, some
remains recovered on the beach.
A pair of blue jeans,
and a hiking boot style shoe,
and then, inside, there was a sock.
[reporter] Hannah Hart and her 15-year-old brother Devonte
are still listed as missing after that crash.
I was told at the coroner's office
that they could see some bones within the sock.
And upon really looking at the jeans,
we located the letter "H"
written in ink on the label.
So we were pretty confident that we had recovered something of Hannah.
As the days rolled on, we realized that
the ocean had... had claimed Devonte,
and that we weren't going to get him back.
And there wasn't going to be any amount of searchin'
that we could do to change that.
[Allman] In California, in the vast majority of counties,
the Sheriff is also the coroner.
Our responsibilities are very legal,
in black and white,
to determine the cause of death and the manner of death.
The cause of death could be asphyxiation, drowning,
and the manner of death is going to be
what actually caused that death.
Suicide, homicide, accidental, natural.
Certainly, I could have determined
that this was a driving accident.
And we could have filed the death certificates,
and that would've been it.
But I didn't want to do that.
I wanted the facts to be known.
I didn't want history to judge this as an accident if it wasn't,
and I didn't want history to judge this as a crime if it wasn't.
So I decided to have the coroner's inquest.
- [man 1] We're set. - [man 2] Thank you.
Good morning. We are on the record.
[Guichard] This matter is a formal coroner's inquest,
and it is an inquiry into the death
and deaths of eight individuals.
It's... like a criminal jury, you have citizen jurors
that listen to all the evidence,
and they make a determination about the manner of death.
As I've indicated,
a coroner's inquest is designed to put out into the open
the circumstance of a death or deaths.
[Allman] If the jury comes back
that it's a traffic accident, no worries.
All I wanted was the truth.
And if the law says that a jury can determine truth,
I'll hang my head on that.
April 3rd, of 2019, a year and a week after the incident,
the initial presentation started.
By mid-afternoon on the 4th, final arguments were given.
The jury went out, and they came back
with a verdict that wasn't a surprise to me.
And with respect to Abigail Hart, Markis Hart,
Jeremiah Hart, Sierra Hart,
Hannah Hart, Devonte Hart,
the finding is, at the hands of another other than by accident.
Sarah Hart, the finding is, suicide.
Jennifer Hart, the finding is, suicide.
[Allman] They list the cause of death for six of them as homicide,
and two of them, suicide.
And I...
In my heart, I believe that's the absolute truth.
The question that bothered me most,
how did we allow this to happen?
And I'm talking about "we" as society.
You have a parent that went above and beyond
what was reasonable in disciplining a child,
and you even charge them.
And you get to the end of every one of these reports,
and they say the same thing, "insufficient evidence."
What evidence did you need?
What did you need to see
to know that these kids needed some protection?
[Williams] This case is not unique.
I'm sure that there are hundreds of cases around this country
that are being handled in the same manner.
And what I would like to see
is more accountability
to ensure that these children are placed
in a safe, nurturing, home environment.
[Allman] We have a national database that reports mental illness,
we have a national database for criminal histories,
we also have a national database for gun registration,
we do not have a national database for child abuse allegations.
I'm not going to say that if we had a national database,
that the Hart family would still be alive.
But, certainly, there would have been more of an investigation
to find out if the adoptions had been appropriate,
or if CPS should be a little bit more involved than what they are.
[Jones] It honestly was just tragic all the way around,
from the beginning to the end.
And it's just unimaginable that somebody
in those short years on the planet,
that their lives would just be filled
with so much chaos and tragedy.
[Vanryckeghem] My hope if there's even one person
who sees a child in any sort of
potentially compromising position...
[sniffles]
Will remember what happened to the Hart kids
and not overlook it.
[Burnett] Most people would never have heard of the Hart children
if it didn't have the wild, dramatic ending
of them driving off the edge of America and crashing into the Pacific.
Right now, there are kids being abused in situations like this
that we may never hear about,
because no one will take an interest in their story.
And not just in a passing way,
but actually engage with this person.
Let me see them as a human being,
a fully complex person in front of me,
as opposed to a quickly understood symbol,
a black boy with "free hugs" on his chest.