CA - Noah Cuatro, 4, drowning now ruled a suspicious death, Palmdale, July 2019 *parents charged*

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Authorities ordered Palmdale 4-year-old removed from home weeks before death

July 12, 2019

"PALMDALE — A court order to remove a 4-year-old boy from his parents’ Palmdale home was issued about two months before the child died under what authorities said were suspicious circumstances, it was reported Friday.

The order was issued on May 15 after a Department of Child and Family Services caseworker filed the request to remove Noah Cuatro from his parents’ custody, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Two days earlier, authorities were told the boy’s father, Jose, had a drinking problem and had kicked his wife and their children in public, according to anonymous sources who talked to the paper.

One of the sources told The Times that when Jose Cuatro was drinking he would tell Noah’s mother he doubted the boy was his child...."

Authorities ordered Palmdale 4-year-old removed from home weeks before death – Daily News
 
Dawookie said:
It's definitely the fault of the case worker no matter what way you look at it. She's the one that filed for an approval order in May which was approved the next day and she didn't follow up and do her job
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Not sure how it works in California, but in some states, Children's Services files for the order & the court orders custody transferred to the state, then it is the Juvenile Office that actually picks up the child/ren.

Of course I'd be a hideous, major pest in the JO's office until someone picked up keys & drove out there....


BTW how close is/was Noah Macintosh???

JMHO YMMV
 
Laughing said:
Not sure how it works in California, but in some states, Children's Services files for the order & the court orders custody transferred to the state, then it is the Juvenile Office that actually picks up the child/ren.

Of course I'd be a hideous, major pest in the JO's office until someone picked up keys & drove out there....


BTW how close is/was Noah Macintosh???

JMHO YMMV
Click to expand...
I know in LA County, DCFS removes the child. They can get assistance from LE if the situation requires it.

Reading a little more into it, I still can't believe he wasn't removed. The case worker gets an email stating whether it was denied or not. They are supposed to serve it as quickly as possible at any location the child can be found, home, school, daycare etc. They have 10 calendar days to make several attempts to remove the child. If not done within that time frame, a new order must be obtained and the court must be notified with reasons why the child couldn't be removed.

So either the family had him hidden away to where the case worker could locate him or the case worker didn't do their job correctly. Haven't been able to find if another removal request was asked for after the original expired.

The Noah Macintosh case happened in Corona which is about 100 miles or so south east of me.
 
Dawookie said:
So either the family had him hidden away to where the case worker could locate him or the case worker didn't do their job correctly.
Click to expand...

I think this falls under "case worker didn't do their job correctly". I'm a "by the book" type of person so if I were the case worker, my options are either I successfully remove the child from the home, or I try and try again until I am able to do so (or file for a new court order if necessary and continue trying). Presumably you don't just give up because you can't find the kid on the first attempt (if any attempt was made at all).

One of the problems, though, is that there seems to be little oversight on these types of things. Who checks to make sure court orders are followed through on or that procedures are being followed? What are the repercussions for the social workers when they are not? As we saw from the Gabriel Fernandez case, not much - social workers there copied and pasted from old reports and nobody cared until the child died.
 
apricotpeach said:
I think this falls under "case worker didn't do their job correctly". I'm a "by the book" type of person so if I were the case worker, my options are either I successfully remove the child from the home, or I try and try again until I am able to do so (or file for a new court order if necessary and continue trying). Presumably you don't just give up because you can't find the kid on the first attempt (if any attempt was made at all).

One of the problems, though, is that there seems to be little oversight on these types of things. Who checks to make sure court orders are followed through on or that procedures are being followed? What are the repercussions for the social workers when they are not? As we saw from the Gabriel Fernandez case, not much - social workers there copied and pasted from old reports and nobody cared until the child died.
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I hope they made several attempts and got a renewed order. Hopefully all the info comes out so we can find out exactly how the system failed and what can be done to fix it so it doesn't happen again
 
Relative Files Damages Claim Over Death of 4-Year-Old Palmdale Boy

August 28, 2019

"The great-grandmother of a 4-year-old Palmdale boy whose death was originally reported as a drowning but has led to an investigation of possible child abuse filed a multimillion-dollar damages claims against the county, the first step toward a lawsuit, her attorney announced Wednesday.

Attorney Brian Claypool said the claim was filed Tuesday on behalf of Eva Hernandez, great-grandmother of Noah Cuatro, and another was filed on behalf of the boy's estate.

The claims contend that Noah died "after countless reports of abuse" that had been made to the county Department of Children and Family Services.

"There were at least a dozen calls made to the child abuse hotline and police from people who said they suspected Cuatro and his siblings were being abused," according to the claim filed on behalf of Hernandez...."

Relative Files Damages Claim Over Death of 4-Year-Old Boy
 
Noah’s death followed two others in the Antelope Valley. Eight-year-old Gabriel Fernandez of Palmdale died in May 2013, and 10-year-old Anthony Avalos of Lancaster died in June 2018.

DCFS Social worker Janet Nichols says spending time with each child is even more critical in the wake of these child deaths—many of whom had cases out of her Antelope Valley office.

“I know a lot of workers are fearful, you know what if I’m the next one,” Nichols said. “If we check on a kid today that doesn’t mean they are going to be ok tomorrow. That’s something I try to stress to my coworkers. We can’t take it home and we can’t second guess ourselves. We go a lot on intuition and checking with management and brainstorming to see if a kid is safe.”
Social Worker Not Sure if System Works After Child Deaths
 
Boy's death seemed like a failure of L.A.'s child-welfare system. It wasn't so simple

"... Yet another child had fallen through the cracks and died. It’s the kind of story that has long haunted Los Angeles County’s troubled child-welfare system.

But now, a new report about the case has found that social workers and their supervisors acted appropriately in leaving the 4-year-old boy at home, despite the tragic outcome. ..."
 
1. History of Contacts and Systemic Issues Identified
The family of Noah C. consisted of mother Ursula, father José, and four children—Noah and three siblings. Contact with DCFS fell into three different contexts.

▪ First, in August 2014, petitions for Noah and his older sibling were filed alleging that Mother had physically abused her own infant sibling, resulting in a skull fracture, and that Father was an abuser of marijuana. The petitions resulted in the detention of Noah’s sibling and Noah, shortly after Noah’s birth.

▪ Second, petitions were filed in November 2016 alleging that Noah had been diagnosed with “failure to thrive,” developmental delay, and congenital hyper- tonia, and that he was medically neglected by Mother and Father, who failed to take the child to eight scheduled medical appointments. These petitions again resulted in the detention of Noah and his sibling.

▪ Third, following the return home of Noah in November 2018, reports were made to the DCFS Child Protection Hotline regarding Noah that contributed to the issuance of a removal order on May 15, 2019, that was not executed.

1 When she was a child, the family of Mother was the subject of three DCFS referrals—one in 2001 and two in 2011. The third referral resulted in a Voluntary Family Maintenance (VFM) case that closed as the family stabilized. When Father was a child, his family was also the subject of three DCFS referrals, in 1999, 2001, and 2008. The 2008 referral was promoted to a VFM case that closed in 2009 as the family stabilized.
Cont’d @
http://ocp.lacounty.gov/Portals/OCP/PDF/Reports and Communication/Noah C. Report/Office of Child Protection (OCP) Response to Noah C Motion 08-30-19.pdf?ver=2019-09-11-132054-960
 
imstilla.grandma said:
Los Angeles County’s Office of Child Protection released a report Wednesday, absolving the county’s welfare system of wrongdoing in the suspicious death of a Palmdale boy earlier this year.
Report absolves L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services in Palmdale boy's death
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According to what I heard on KABC radio, the John and Ken show, that^^^ report was a joke. That 'report' was done by the people who are being investigated.

That 'report' was put together by Children's Services, and they investigated THEMSELVES. And found themselves to be free of blame. :rolleyes:o_O:mad:
 
Laughing said:
Not sure how it works in California, but in some states, Children's Services files for the order & the court orders custody transferred to the state, then it is the Juvenile Office that actually picks up the child/ren.

Of course I'd be a hideous, major pest in the JO's office until someone picked up keys & drove out there....

BTW how close is/was Noah Macintosh???

JMHO YMMV
Click to expand...

Does the JO do a better job? Can you tell, or are there statistics?
On the surface, it sounds like a better system. The ones who pick up the children are following a directive, so the parents can't argue with the JO officers successfully, seems to me. All they can do is watch the child(ren) go out the door, and then they can contact the Child Protection (or whatever the name) and complain, etc.
 
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