Social workers have 10 days to take children from their homes after a judge issues a removal order; otherwise, they must alert the court. But after 29 days, no one had told the court that Noah Cuatro remained with his parents.
Los Angeles County caseworkers allowed 4-year-old Noah Cuatro to remain in his parents’ home despite a court order in May — weeks before the Palmdale boy died under what authorities say are suspicious circumstances, according to two sources who have reviewed court documents.As Ipson was examining the request to remove Noah, however, Johnson’s colleagues at the DCFS office in Lancaster began questioning whether such a measure was necessary.
It’s ultimately up to DCFS’ chain of command to chart a path forward. The brass sided with Vasquez Ducos.“From sitting in the room with both of them,” Blyn testified, Vasquez Ducos was “better able to articulate her viewpoint” than Johnson. He also said that DCFS management wanted to follow the core “practice model” that requires workers to remain focused on the positive, taking a better look at a family’s strengths and less at its weaknesses.
Johnson was instructed to withdraw the petition for a removal warrant, but it was too late. The court had already signed it. Still, Bryden instructed Johnson to refrain from carrying out Noah’s removal.Johnson vented in an email to her immediate supervisor who was on vacation, “They seem to not believe that my concerns are valid.”The following day, she tapped out a terse note of protest to a senior supervisor, expressing disagreement with keeping Noah at home.
During the visit, Noah “randomly” ran up to Hernandez Aviles, saying, “They feed me a lot,” “They take good care of me,” and “They love me.”“Many of [the] child’s responses throughout the visit appeared coached,” she wrote in notes. But by mid-June, the final full month that Noah spent alive, 29 days had passed, and no one ever told the Juvenile Court that he remained with his parents.
Johnson also informed the court about a troubling new fact: Juarez had just given birth to another baby boy. Vasquez Ducos was effectively tasked with being the caseworker and said she would try to see Noah, but her relationship to the family was fraying. To Vasquez Ducos, however, it seemed no such exam was necessary. She said in an email that a forensic exam two months prior showed “normal findings,” even though that exam merely found it was “plausible” that Noah’s bruises came from a bunk bed. Vasquez Ducos also asserted that there were no allegations of sexual abuse, despite an allegation the prior month that DCFS categorized as sexual abuse.
“Again, there was no evidence of any of the statements made by [Eva Hernandez] to be found true,” Vasquez Ducos said in a late June email. “You knew in your heart that there was something more that he couldn’t tell us, that his body was telling us a story, and we needed to figure out what was going on,” Velazquez said.Homicide detectives are investigating the death of a 4-year-old Palmdale boy after his parents reported he had drowned.
Dr. Carol Berkowitz, a UCLA pediatrician, said Noah had “so many injuries” but concluded Noah died from suffocation.
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