DCFS Received 13 Calls, 8 Times Visited Home Of Boy Who Died

[MarblesMom]

What does it take today to save children?  This is a case where the state failed in a major way.  Sigh.

https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2018/06/25/dcfs-anthony-avalos-lancaster-boy-abused-death/

[MarblesMom]

I know, it is just me out here, on my soapbox.  This story just doesn't get better.

https://kfiam640.iheart.com/content/2018-06-26-reports-of-abuse-ended-in-2016-for-anthony-avalos/?cmd=managed_social

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

It's hard to think of anything to say. It sounds like Anthony was failed by so many people, on so many levels. People who tried to help, like the aunt and uncle he stayed with for a little while, must be so heartbroken. 

I just looked up a local case from when my firstborn was a baby. An 8 year old boy came to spend the summer with his mom, her boyfriend, and his half-brother. Less than 2 months later, he was dead; tortured and abused to death, and thrown into a canal. He would have been a senior in high school this fall. 

Robert deserved a chance to grow up. Anthony deserved a chance to grow up. We failed them both, and so many other kids, too. Breaks my heart.

[Jug Band Baby]

Normally I'm weary of saying that social workers who don't act in cases that end in death should be held criminally liable because I'm concerned about kids who aren't being abused being removed as a precaution on one phone call, and ending up traumatized.  There really are a lot of unsubstantiated complaints by either truly misguided people, like someone hearing a kid scream at 2am and calling out of concern and it end up being that the kid screamed because she woke up from a nightmare (my elder has nightmares and has woken up screaming, but no one has called CPS, thank goodness), or people who try using the system as revenge on someone they don't like.  But in this case, based on what I had read so far, there were so many flags that it was negligent.  Teachers calling.  Family calling. POLICE calling.  And CPS did nothing.  Police don't call CPS unless they KNOW something is wrong.