Did County Ignore Warnings on Slain Children? : Tragedy: Three sources say they had told Children and Family Services that an El Monte home was unsafe. Agency maintains there was no way to predict the shooting.

The shooting deaths of two young children in an El Monte apartment two weeks ago have led to bitter accusations that county social workers failed to heed warnings that the home was unsafe and that the children should be removed.

Operators of a nonprofit children’s home, a school nurse and the head of a community resource center said that in the weeks prior to the murders they repeatedly expressed their concerns about the welfare of the youngsters to the county Department of Children and Family Services.

“It’s really ugly and it wasn’t necessary. These kids didn’t have to die,” said Beverly Tyman, a caseworker from St. Harriet’s Children’s and Family Services Center in El Monte, where the children lived for a short time this year.

County officials said the deaths of 6-month-old Ambrose Padilla and 5-year-old Laura Moreno were tragic, but insisted that the Department of Children and Family Services had assiduously monitored their care and had no way of foreseeing the sort of violent attack that ended their lives.

“There was no way of predicting or preventing the gangland type of shooting. This could have happened in Beverly Hills in the best of homes,” said Paul Freedlund, deputy director of operations for the agency.

The children were shot to death by unknown assailants on a balmy spring night April 22 along with their mother, Maria Moreno, their uncle, Anthony Moreno, and another man. Another brother and sister may have been spared only because the attacker ran out of bullets, investigators speculated. Sheriff’s deputies found drug paraphernalia in the home, but have not determined a motive for the killings.

The case shines a spotlight once again on the county’s child dependency system. Some of those in El Monte who feared for the safety of Ambrose, Laura and three other siblings said the case points out the danger of a system that is too intent on reuniting children and their biological parents.

Similar concerns were recently raised by the April death of 2-year-old Lance Helms, who was fatally beaten less than three months after a dependency court judge returned him to his father’s custody. In that case, social workers warned the court that the father’s home was dangerous. The father’s girlfriend has been charged in Lance’s death.

In the El Monte case, Maria Moreno’s five children, ranging in age from 3 months to 10 years, were removed from her home Jan. 13. The county’s dependency court, at the direction of the Department of Children and Family Services, found that the 39-year-old mother was neglectful for keeping the children in a dirty home, officials said. The agency would not discuss other allegations made against Moreno, which they said the court did not sustain.

The children were sent to St. Harriet’s, a group home for children under 10. They stayed at the home until Feb. 8, when all but one, who was receiving medical care, were sent back to Moreno.

St. Harriet’s officials said they did not initially object to the children going back to their mother but that, once the transfer was completed, the problems began. The children’s aunt, Moreno’s sister, repeatedly told the group home that the children were not being properly cared for and could be in danger with their mother, said Peter M. Stocks, director of the home.

Tyman, the children’s caseworker from St. Harriet’s, was so disturbed by the reports that she took the unusual step of following their case, even after they were back with their mother.

Tyman said she repeatedly called the Department of Children and Family Services and expressed her concern about the lack of a clean and safe environment for the children. She said there was no evidence that the children were being physically abused but that on her one visit to the home she found the floor littered with cigarette butts and nails, among other problems. A 6-year-old son had not been taken for an appointment to obtain corrective surgery for a badly scarred knee, she reported.

Tyman’s warnings culminated April 11, just 11 days before the murders, when she wrote an official at the county agency: “I am fearful that, unless this case is treated differently, harm will come to these children.”

A veteran nonprofit worker in the community also expressed worries about the family. Lillian Rey, executive director of the El Monte-South El Monte Emergency Resource Assn., said her agency had been assisting Moreno for at least a decade with food, clothing and shelter and advice on substance abuse problems.

Rey said that she had tried to persuade Moreno’s county social worker that the family had to be moved out of what she said was a squalid apartment, which had a bedspread for a front door, a floor lined with old mattresses and no cooking facilities or crib for the infant, Ambrose.

“I wanted to move her out and (the social worker) said, ‘Let’s give her another chance to work it out there,’ ” Rey said. “Well, they didn’t get another chance. Maybe (the murders) would have happened even somewhere else. But at least I would know we tried and that we didn’t leave her there.”

Finally, Kathleen Hite, a nurse in the Mountain View School District, had grown concerned because the 6-year-old’s leg was not being treated. Hite said she found the boy at school several times without socks or underwear and, once, with a bowel movement in his pants. Hite said she twice visited the home and found it filthy.

Twice in March, Hite said she left messages for the county social worker, saying the children should be placed in another home. Hite said that when she finally reached the worker, she reiterated her position. “I just remember talking to her and her saying, ‘We have to give the mother a chance,’ ” Hite said. “I have heard that so many times over the years and I said, ‘Yes, but we have to give the kids a chance, too.’ ”

Officials in the Department of Children and Family Services said the agency’s records show a total of four complaints about the children’s living conditions. They said all were promptly checked out, often not only by the caseworker but by a supervisor as well. The worker in the case had scheduled weekly visits to the home instead of the regular monthly checkups. And when Tyman’s letter arrived in April, an investigator was assigned to double-check on the case.

“There was always food in the home, the children were clean and well-cared-for,” said Linda Cross, a regional deputy director for the department. “I’m not saying it was perfect, but it was clean.”

The children also received medical checkups at County-USC Medical Center and the 6-year-old was scheduled for appointments to treat his scarred leg, officials at the county agency said.

Although Rey, Hite and Tyman said they saw unidentified men hanging about the apartment who made them uncomfortable, county officials said they were never notified of this and that the caseworker did not see such loitering.

“It’s very easy in this business to Monday morning quarterback,” Freedlund said. “I believe our people believed in good conscience that they had sufficient evidence to warrant leaving the children in the home.”

Tyman and her supervisors from St. Harriet’s said the case points out the county’s predisposition to remove children from group home care, often to their biological parents.

“That probably drove them. They have labeled congregate care to be something that is not good for small children,” said Stocks, St. Harriet’s director.

Department of Children and Family Services officials and a child advocate who works outside the agency agreed that they prefer to place children with families. They said the position is based on studies that show that children flourish with limited caretakers, rather than workers who constantly change in an institution.

The officials accuse the owners of St. Harriet’s of using the tragedy of the Moreno case to satisfy their own drive to prop up sagging usage of their facility. “People at St. Harriet’s are in a concerted effort to exploit a terribly tragic situation for their own financial gain,” said Schuyler Sprowles, spokesman for the county agency. “They are under tremendous pressure to fill their beds with children.”

The founder of the facility and 26 others run statewide by the nonprofit Guadalupe Homes organization vehemently denied that charge.

Father Leon Pachis, a Greek Orthodox priest who headed the organization for 30 years before recently stepping down, called the charge ridiculous. He said the El Monte home opened nine years ago at the county’s request and remained open as a community service, despite financial losses.

“If we were going after profit,” Pachis said, “we would have closed that place a long time ago.”