Advertisement
By Daniel Heimpel
The first recorded sign of trouble in the short life for Noah Cuatro came before he was born. In August 2014, when his mother was nine months pregnant with Noah, she allegedly threw her baby sister in her crib, causing the 10-month-old children’s bride to burst in two places.
Shortly after Noah was born, workers with the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services removed him and another young sibling from their troubled home. It would be the first of two stints in care.
He returned home in 2014, but went back into care in August 2017 after county workers found his parents – Ursula Juarez and Jose Cuatro – medically neglecting the toddler. Ultimately, in November 2018, the juvenile court ordered Noah to return home, over DCFS & # 39; s objections.
Social workers last saw Noah this year in late June. Two weeks later, on July 6, the 4-year-old Palmdale boy was dead. Los Angeles County officials arrested Noah’s parents on Sept. 26, and the district attorney’s office charged them with manslaughter and torture four days later.
Law enforcement response
While DCFS social workers clearly appeared in Noah’s and others like him in high-profile cases, his death also raises questions about the role law enforcement plays in protecting vulnerable children.
New data from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office shows how disparate the response is across the county’s 46 law enforcement agencies. For Noah, who spent most of his short life in the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles Police Department, the number of cases of child molestation that is under investigation appears.
District Attorney data show that from January 2018 to July 2019, the LAPD did not investigate nearly 4,000 allegations of serious child abuse by its stations or generated through a county-wide electronic cross-reporting system called E-SCARS. In 2018, L.A. police did not investigate 10% of the 24,000-plus reports it received from the two sources, while the percentage increased to 13% in the first half of 2019.
In comparison, sheriff’s deputies in Los Angeles County responded to child abuse reports 97% of the time in the same 18-month period, though they accounted for only 71%, as many calls.
Most of these reports are sent to law enforcement by the DCFS and are limited to “allegations of sexual abuse, physical abuse, serious neglect, emotional abuse and exploitation” according to the agency’s policy guidelines.
“When we talk about physical and sexual abuse, we talk about potential crimes,” said Michal Nash, executive director of the county’s Office of Child Protection. “Do you only want some of them examined, or do you want them all examined? The answer is pretty luminous. After all, you are talking about crimes against children. ”
When asked why the LAPD could not investigate thousands of child abuse reports, Director of Media Relations Josh Rubenstein said in an email statement:
“Our officers and detectives are working tirelessly to investigate allegations of abuse; However, we cannot make a broad brush comment without looking at each case in context to understand the details of the investigation. ”
Interaction with Noah’s family
On April 17 and May 15, while the Cuatro family was living in the North Hills area of Los Angeles, the DCFS & # 39; s child protection hotline fielded two separate allegations of sexual abuse against Noah and domestic violence charges. According to Nash, these allegations were transmitted via E-SCARS to the LAPD.
Nash, who is coordinating a nationwide effort to improve law enforcement’s response to suspected child abuse, encountered these reports while investigating Noah’s death for a report delivered to the Board of Supervisors earlier this month. Although he requested information from police, Nash said “no information has been received on what has been done by the LAPD, if any, in response to these reports.”
LAPD officials would not answer questions about Noah’s case, instead directing a reporter to file a public records request. Although this request is made, it may take weeks or months to receive a response.
Once after the last sexual abuse report against Noah in May, his family moved to Palmdale. On July 5, Noah’s parents called 911, claiming the boy had drowned in the pool in their apartment complex.
But Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials found that “what looked like a trauma to the body was contrary to what the explanation was for the cause of death,” prompting a homicide investigation.
LAPD, sheriff’s policies are the same
The Los Angeles County Attorney’s Office recognizes that it can be difficult to compare answers between different law enforcement agencies.
“The discrepancy between percent of law enforcement & # 39; no investigation & # 39; can be attributed to a number of factors, including various internal agency responses,” district attorney spokeswoman Shiara Davila-Morales said in an email.
Officials from both the LAPD and the Sheriff’s Department said their policy is to send officers out to investigate all suspected child abuse reports. In the case of duplicate reports, or when officers are unable to contact a family, some child abuse reports may be marked as “no investigation.”
The two agencies also have different structures for deploying officers. While the LAPD has a centralized child abuse department that has 50 members, the Sheriff & # 39; s Department has about 60 investigator positions divided into six teams across the county.
Importantly, the differences from agency to agency are also evident from station to station within the LAPD.
Officers in the 77th Division of South LA rolled on less than 80% of the alleged child abuse calls in 2018 and 2019. At the same time, the Rampart Division, which spans Silver Lake, Echo Park, Koreatown, Pico-Union and Westlake responded to 98% of its child abuse warnings. Apparently the amount of calls is a contributing factor to the difference.
Advertisement
In LA County Service Area 4, which includes the Rampart Division, four children who were already on the child protection worker’s radar were killed by family or caregivers from 2015 to 2018. In Service Provision Area 6, which includes South LA, 20 children were known by DCFS were killed in the same way during the same period.
The elected officials respond
Reid Lidow, a Deputy Secretary of Mayor Eric Garcetti, said in an email: “The LAPD has a speedy, thorough process for investigating allegations of child abuse and is strongly committed to bring overall justice to justice.”
County Supervisor Kathryn Barger expressed her desire to see law enforcement across the county respond more uniformly to reports of child abuse.
“We actually communicate and address some of the differences that are taking place,” Barger said. “If it means changing or restructuring on both sides, there is a lot of open dialogue to look at, for the greater good.”
E-SCARS is credited with change
In 2013, LAPD investigated 74% of suspected child abuse cases it received, while now accounting for nearly 90%. The Long Beach Police Department – which could not investigate nearly half of the abuse reports it received that year – is now the most responsive in the county. In 2018 and the first half of 2019, Long Beach police investigated all calls for abuse it received.
Long Beach Police Secretary. Daniel Mendoza credits E-SCARS, which is responsible for electronically suspected child abuse reporting, for driving the change.
“Now there is a system of control and balance and we are able to manage and be responsible for every call,” Mendoza said.
Before e-SCARS launched in 2009, law enforcement and county social workers often lost reports or did not see them for days or weeks, according to officials who know the system. E-SCARS should immediately cross-report, so law enforcement and DCFS are alerted immediately.
While E-SCARS was an improvement, it had a small budget and a small staff, which limited its effectiveness.
Gabriel Fernandez is seen in this photo provided by his family.
That changed as the role of law enforcement in child abuse became news on the front with the horrific 2013 killing of 8-year-old Gabriel Fernandez, also in Palmdale. LA County’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Child Protection, which was unable to dig into how the abuse of Gabriel and other children was repeatedly missed, reset to “failure of some law enforcement agencies to cross suspect reports. on child abuse. ”
Since then, L.A. The County Board of Supervisors increased the cost of E-SCARS and its older technology. “We’ve gone from AOL calls to iPhone 10 in five years,” Brad McCartt, who now heads the unit, said earlier this year.
Detective Maria Singh, a supervisor with the LAPD & # 39; s Department of Child Abuse, said her unit is vigilant when reports of child abuse appear on E-SCARS.
“When these (suspected child abuse reports) are received in our office, they are forwarded,” Singh said. “We have done a lot of justice to these children who have undergone terrible physical or sexual abuse. It just keeps me going. ”
Singh said about 50 detectives and investigators in the LAPD are focused solely on child abuse, and she is on duty 24/7.
Anthony Avalos, 10, died of serious head injuries on June 21, 2018, and reportedly had cigarette burns covering his body. (Image from Facebook) Next step
In February, the Sheriff & # 39; s Department and DCFS launched a pilot project aimed at stopping serious child abuse in Lancaster and Palmdale, wrapped up by Gabriel & # 39; s 2013 deaths, 10-year-old Anthony Avalos in 2018, and Noah in year. Deputies and child abuse investigators are rallying together for calls for child abuse or neglect.
During July, these small teams completed 261 common responses. In August, DCFS, the Sheriff & # 39; s Department and LAPD all sat down to discuss expanding the program beyond Lancaster and Palmdale, according to a recent report from the Office of Child Protection.
Victor Avalos, father of Anthony Avalos carries his son’s coffin out of St. Junipero Serra Parish Church. The 10-year-old Lancaster boy was reportedly tortured to death by his mother and her boyfriend. He was found unresponsive in his mother’s home on June 20 and died the next day. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News / SCNG)
But a continuing problem identified by the Blue Ribbon Commission in 2014 – and in an OCP report issued after Anthony & # 39; s death in 2018 – is a lack of consistency in how law enforcement agencies and DCFS interact in investigating child abuse.
Nash’s goal is to create a protocol that clearly delineates each role.
“OK, they both reported to E-SCARS. The question then is what? “Nash said. “It’s ‘what so’ that I’m worried about.”
This story was published in partnership with The Chronicle of Social Change, a national news site focused on children, youth and families.
. (tagsToTranslate) Los Angeles County (t) Los Angeles Police Department (t) Child Abuse (t) Response
Advertisement