UPDATE — Erica Hammel, the young mom from St. Clair Shores pushing for Wyatt’s Law, a package of bills that would require a state registry for child abusers, is upbeat. She and her son, Wyatt, who was abused by a repeat offender, visited with Rep. Tom Hooker, chairman of the House Committee on Families, Children and Seniors, this week to discuss the legislation. After gaining no traction in Lansing for seven months and then seeing the bills kicked to Hooker’s committee, Hammel said she now hopes for a committee hearing on the legislation in September, after the Legislature’s summer break.
On Facebook, Hammel told her followers: “He (Hooker) looked me (in) the eye and said to me “Erica, I want you to know I am committed to these bills.” That meaning he will not just set them aside, that he really wants to do his research.”
In the photo above, Wyatt, now 3 1/2-years-old is pictured with his mom following his fourth brain surgery.
Below is a portion of the story I wrote for Deadline Detroit about Hammel’s struggle under the headline,
Why would a GOP lawmaker team up with the ACLU to block a child abuse law?
By Chad Selweski
After the near-death of her 1-year-old son, Wyatt, at the hands of a child abuser, Erica Hammel set out to change Michigan law.
When she learned that Rachel Edwards, 33, Wyatt’s babysitter/attacker, harbored two previous child abuse convictions, Hammel thought it’d make sense to mandate that child abusers register with the State Police, much like the digital state registry that lets the public locate sex offenders and pedophiles.
In October 2015, she convinced three state representatives to answer the petition and introduce a package of bills that would create a child abuse registry. And, yes, the legislation was called Wyatt’s Law. It honors the boy, now 3 ½, who still suffers from numerous physical handicaps due to his extensive “shaken baby syndrome” injuries.
Hammel accomplished all this by the age of 27.
But what Hammel didn’t anticipate was that her fight was far from finished, that partisan politics in the Republican-controlled House would block the legislation, leaving the three-bill package untouched on a shelf for the past seven months.
What she didn’t expect was that dozens – perhaps hundreds – of phone calls and emails by Hammel and her persistent little army of supporters to the representative overseeing the bills – House Judiciary Committee Chairman Klint Kesto – would go unanswered.
And what she never foresaw was that Kesto, a Republican from Walled Lake and a former Wayne County prosecutor, would partner with the ACLU to essentially derail and divert Wyatt’s Law, citing concerns about privacy for victims and families becoming stigmatized if someone in their household lands a spot on a child abuse registry.
How those concerns would be any different than the much-lauded sex offender registry is unclear.
After Hammel’s supporters “blew up” Kesto’s Twitter account and the lawmaker finally agreed to talk to Hammel – at an April meeting in his Lansing office – she was led to believe it would be a one-on-one conversation. Instead, she was blindsided: Kesto was accompanied by legislative staffers and ACLU lobbyist Shelli Weisburg opposed to Wyatt’s Law.
Hammel, who has no political experience, describes getting peppered with questions by this group as “like being in a shark tank.”
“It was a shocker. It wasn’t like I couldn’t fend for myself, but I had nobody on my side. They were teaming up against me. I know why the ACLU was there — it was to break me down,” Hammel said.
Babysitter/abuser Rachel Edwards (Department of Corrections photo)
Lost in the discussion was that the young mom had a perfectly legitimate personal reason for the legislation.
