Incomplete Child Death Records:
Whose Blame?
April 21, 2006
DHHS: Blue Ribbon Panel Child Death
Review -- Part 1 DHHS: Blue Ribbon Panel Child Death Review -- Part
2
 A
blue ribbon panel looked at the deaths of 79 Southern Nevada
children involved in the Child Protective Services system and found
nearly half may have been murdered. The panel announced those
findings Thursday. Now the questions are: who is responsible and why
isn't more being done to protect our children?
The report found incomplete records
of visits to families and poor communication between agencies put in
charge of children. Eyewitness News talked with those in charge of
CPS and the district attorney's office to find out who is to blame.
Two children died every month for
three years on average under the watch of Child Protective Services.
At a hearing Thursday employees stood up and admitted ignoring forms
and processes that would protect the children.
Susan Klein Rothchild is their
boss. Her leadership was questioned. Klein Rothchild said, "There
were a lot of things that say we need to make things better that
have been going on for a long time. I suggest to you that this is a
review from 2001 to 2004."
But Assistant Clark County Manager
Darryl Martin says they haven't done enough. "If a child died and if
a child died of negligence or abuse we need to know that. And we
will be making those changes immediately."
Martin says they need to fix
communication problems. Police weren't even reporting deaths to them
and when they did, in at least 12 cases the district attorney didn't
even investigate. Why?
Assistant District Attorney Robert
Tutin says if there aren't any other children in the home that could
get hurt it's not a priority. "If your mandate is to ensure the
safety of children and there are no other children in the home, it
is not going to be a priority."
Tutin says their caseload is so
high; they have to focus on cases where kids are still alive and
being abused. Martin says they need to focus on the child deaths,
too.
Martin said, "That is a bad
practice. That is an old practice and it has been going on for
years."
In at least one of those 12 cases
that wasn't reported or investigated, a parent went on to kill
another child. Martin says he's working on mandating that officials
investigate and report child deaths from now on.
Eyewitness News: "Where was the
common sense missing?"
Asst. District Attorney Martin: "It
is one of those systemic issues that I guess no one ever paid
attention to before now."
The assistant district attorney in
charge of juvenile and family support told Eyewitness News the
county commission is working on an ordinance to put a system in
place for all the agencies to work together to prevent and
investigate child deaths.
Email reporter Ky Plaskon at
kplaskon@klastv.com
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