Categories | Health & Medicine Article

Mother, Boyfriend AND Social Workers To Blame For Boy's Death?

April 4th, 2017 Health & Medicine 2 minute read
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Mother, Boyfriend AND Social Workers To Blame For Boy's Death?

Social workers Stefanie Rodriguez and Patricia Clement and supervisors Kevin Bom and Gregory Merritt are said to be to blame and will be tried for felony child abuse following the murder of 8-year-old Gabriel Fernandez at the hands of his mother, Pearl Fernandez, and her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirro.  The boy had been tortured for months leading up to his death, but his caseworkers and law enforcement hadn't pursued abuse charges.  Following the child’s death, Aguirre and Pearl Fernandez are charged with capital murder and have pleaded not guilty.

[caption id="attachment_17616" align="alignnone" width="300"]Pearl Fernandez and Isauro AguirreImage Courtesy of NBC Los Angeles

The social workers argued that there wasn't any way they could have predicted the swift escalation of violence that led to Gabriel's death.  They contend that the homicide occurred when the family was not under county supervision.  They also believe the sheriff's deputies who visited the home a number of times should be to blame for the child's demise and can't understand why they're not being prosecuted.  The workers indicate their office is notoriously understaffed and they’ve been subjected to working extensive hours, making it impossible to perform proper follow up.

Monday’s ruling in Los Angeles came after a preliminary hearing in which Gabriel’s first-grade teacher, Jennifer Garcia, along with other witnesses for the prosecution testified about their concerns with the signs of apparent physical abuse, including facial bruises, scabs, missing tufts of hair, and broken lips.  Garcia said she noticed a facial bruise the size of a half-dollar on the boy at one point, and after he said he was beaten with a belt buckle she immediately called a county child abuse hotline.  She also indicated Gabriel had told her “my mom shot me in the face with a BB gun".   These were just two examples of the many times the witnesses voiced their fears but felt their complaints fell to deaf ears.

Sources:

Social workers charged with felony child abuse in boy’s death at the hands of his mother

4 L.A. County social workers to face trial in horrific death of 8-year-old boy

Sara E. Teller

About Sara E. Teller

Sara is a credited freelance writer, editor, contributor, and essayist, as well as a novelist and poet with nearly twenty years of experience. A seasoned publishing professional, she's worked for newspapers, magazines and book publishers in content digitization, editorial, acquisitions and intellectual property. Sara has been an invited speaker at a Careers in Publishing & Authorship event at Michigan State University and a Reading and Writing Instructor at Sylvan Learning Center. She has an MBA degree with a concentration in Marketing and an MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, graduating with a 4.2/4.0 GPA. She is also a member of Chi Sigma Iota and a 2020 recipient of the Donald D. Davis scholarship recognizing social responsibility. Sara is certified in children's book writing, HTML coding and social media marketing. Her fifth book, PTSD: Healing from the Inside Out, was released in September 2019 and is available on Amazon. You can find her others books there, too, including Narcissistic Abuse: A Survival Guide, released in December 2017.

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