[FONT="]The heartbreaking death of Palmdale boy Gabriel Fernandez has leaders in one Southern California community looking for ways to better protect children like Gabriel.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Lancaster Councilmember Angela Underwood Jacobs recalled learning about the death of the 8-year-old boy in 2013.[/FONT]
[FONT="]"When you hear of something so horrendous, you almost go into a thought that, 'This can't be, this can't be real, it can't be true,' or, 'Who would do such a thing?'" said Underwood Jacobs................ [/FONT][FONT="]Underwood Jacobs wants to draft an ordinance that would require the county Department of Children and Family Services in Lancaster to go one step further in record-keeping, with digital recordings of its investigations. [/FONT][FONT="]"Anytime that you are handwriting a scenario, if you will, there's an interpretation or a perception of what it is you believe yourself to hear," she said.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Underwood added that keeping only written records allows for emotions to get lost in these kinds of investigations.[/FONT]
[FONT="]As a mother, she said, it's been difficult to consider what "could have been" in Fernandez' case. She wants to make sure it doesn't happen again.[/FONT]
[FONT="]"My thought is that going forward, if we're able to save at least one child, we're doing better than we were compared to 2013," she said.[/FONT][FONT="] [/FONT][FONT="]
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