A quick-thinking Orlando waitress, who communicated via hand-written signs with a boy she suspected was being abused, was able to save the boy and get his abusers apprehended in a remarkable story.
On January 1, waitress Flaviane Carvalho noticed something odd about the party who sat down at one of her tables just before midnight. The stepfather and mother didn’t order food for the 11-year-old boy they brought in, and he was visibly bruised despite wearing glasses, masks, and a hoodie.
Carvalho initially flashed a note asking if he was okay. When she flashed him a note saying “Do you need help?” and the boy nodded, she called police to investigate.
Initially, the boy had alibis for all the injuries when interviewed by police. But as the Orlando Sentinel detailed, once he was safely in a local children’s hospital, and medical staff was able to assess him, he made the horrific extent of the abuse he endured clear.
“‘Abuse,’ I say lightly,” the detective on the case told reporters in a press conference Thursday. “It was torture.”
According to the article, the boy was 20 pounds underweight, enduring punishments including being beaten while hanging upside down, being handcuffed to a moving dolly, made to exercise excessively, and deprived of food.
Both the stepfather and mother are facing charges, and the boy and his younger sister were both removed from the household by the Florida Department of Children and Families.
Orlando Police tweeted out the story as an example of how people can fight child abuse by adopting the simple “see something, say something” principle.
SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING: We talked with an Orlando Restaurant Manager who saw a family withholding food from a boy at a table. She noticed bruises on his body and created a sign to secretly ask the child if he needed help. When he signaled "Yes" she called us. pic.twitter.com/U8m9MG1KUN
— Orlando Police (@OrlandoPolice) January 14, 2021
Those who wish to support the children can mail donations to the following address: COLE, SCOTT & KISSANE , P.A. Trust Account; c/o The Northern Trust Company; 600 Brickell Avenue, Suite 2400; Miami, Florida 33131; Attn: Michael Villasana; for the benefit of the minor children of Wilson/Swann.