Doctor’s Handling of 4-Year-Old Rape Victim Criticized

A 12-year-old boy released on a weekend pass from a home for troubled youths raped his 4-year-old cousin, who was then refused treatment by a doctor at a nearby hospital, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said Monday.

The assault occurred about 7 p.m. Sunday during the girl’s visit to the Lancaster home of the boy’s mother, authorities said.

Deputies of the Sheriff’s Department’s child abuse unit said they had called for an investigation of the girl’s treatment by an emergency room physician, who they said handled her roughly during an examination early Monday at Lancaster Community Hospital.

The doctor, Christine Daniel, at first refused to test the child for signs of rape and left her in the emergency room for 90 minutes while seeing other patients, according to a Sheriff’s Department report.

When the doctor returned, the girl cried during the exam and the doctor then refused to further treat her, saying she was “being uncooperative,” authorities said.

Daniel could not be reached for comment on Monday.

“This is really strange,” said Det. David Fletcher of the child abuse unit. “If you’re a doctor in this position, you either do your job or order the girl to be taken somewhere else and say ‘I can’t do it.’ But to keep a little victim waiting that long, especially after what she had been through, that’s insane.

“You just don’t do that to a little girl--or to any victim.”

Carol Fryer, spokeswoman for the hospital, said Monday that Daniel is not an employee of the hospital, but works there occasionally as an employee of Southern California Emergency Medical Group of Malibu, a service that provides medical staff to the facility.

“She is not an employee of this hospital,” Fryer said. “I have no idea how often she works in the emergency room, or how often she is scheduled here. She could be working at other hospitals also.”

Fryer said that for legal reasons, she could not discuss the incident involving the little girl.

A spokeswoman for Southern California Emergency Medical Group declined to comment, or to locate Daniel to respond.

In their report, sheriff’s deputies said the doctor treated the girl rudely. “The doctor stated she did not feel comfortable examining the victim and would not do it,” said Fletcher, quoting from the report.

After leaving the child alone with relatives for more than 90 minutes, the doctor then abruptly inserted a swab in the child’s vagina, causing her to cry, the report said.

“She didn’t establish any rapport with the child,” Fletcher said. “At that point, she just said ‘I can’t do this. The girl is being uncooperative.’ And she refused to do anything more.”

Later, Deputy Theresa Dawson completed the rape test in the emergency room by taking a suspected semen sample from the girl’s leg, Fletcher said.

“The deputy saw evidence on the girl’s leg and took the swab herself,” he said. “She was forced to do it by herself.”

Fletcher said the girl’s family was “livid” at her treatment and filed a complaint with the hospital on Monday.

“We’re going to check into this ourselves,” he said. The Sheriff’s Department has “a contract with [the hospital] for such services and I’d say right now that was in jeopardy. You just can’t be doing things like this.”

Authorities said the boy, who was himself a rape victim at age 4, was on a weekend leave from the LeRoy Haynes Center for troubled youth in Laverne, where he has lived the last few years.

The boy was arrested early Monday and was being held at Sylmar Juvenile Hall on four counts, including forcible rape, oral copulation, sodomy and penetration by a foreign object. He is scheduled to be arraigned today or Wednesday, Fletcher said.

The 4-year-old girl was scheduled for further tests Tuesday at County/USC Medical Center. Fletcher said the child was at home and in good condition on Monday.

Only a great aunt was at home when the alleged crime occurred just before 7 p.m. in a bathroom. The girl had been left at the home while her mother was at work, Fletcher said.

The rape was discovered when the girl’s aunt arrived to pick her up and found the bathroom door locked. “She found the girl inside with her hair and clothes disheveled and her clothing misbuttoned,” Fletcher said. “When they got home to the girl’s house, the child told her what had happened.”

Fletcher said he met with the boy for 90 minutes on Monday and described him as “a confused, troubled young man who has a hard time with the truth.”

“He looks innocent, like Opie from the Andy Griffith show almost . . . But he was raped by a family friend at age 4. And any time a child is molested, especially at his age, they’ll act out. They’ll molest other kids.”

Fletcher, a 15-month veteran of the department, said he was shaken by the crime.

“I told the kid, ‘You’re just a baby. You’re hardly in the world.’ It’s sad, it really is. I have a 13-year-old, so when you see this, you just see your own. You say ‘Dang, how can this be happening?’ ”