Public Not Helping Police Probe of Clinic

Police expressed frustration Thursday with a lack of cooperation from the public in the investigation of the death of an 18-month-old girl after treatment at a back-room clinic in Tustin.

“One of the things we need the most is being able to show this place as dispensing medication and doing it for a considerable length of time,” Tustin Police Lt. Mike Shanahan said. “Our problem is the community is not responding to our request for information.”

Usually, in cases involving injury to a child, police “are flooded with information,” he said. But that is not happening in the investigation into the death last week of Selene Segura Rios of Anaheim.

The baby’s parents had taken her to the Los Hermanos Gift Shop after she began vomiting the evening of Feb. 22. Her parents said she was taken to a back room and given an injection of what they were told was penicillin, but she soon grew listless and died two hours later.

Customers have said the store was known in the Latino community as a place where people could obtain prescription medicine and injections.

Shanahan acknowledged that people may not be coming forward out of mistrust for police or sympathy for the gift shop employees, who performed what many felt was a service in the community.

“I think part of it is cultural and part of it is trust,” he said. “Many of those drugs on display do not require a doctor’s prescription in Mexico.”

He said police still consider Monica Bernabe, 23, the night manager at Los Hermanos, a suspect. She was arrested last week in connection with possession of illegal prescription drugs but released Feb. 25.

At the time, police said they did not have enough evidence. But Shanahan said Thursday that Bernabe “had a role in the injection” given to Selene.

“Bernabe is going to be a suspect until we determine that the shot had nothing to do with the child’s death,” he said. “We are looking into her knowledge and her understanding of what she was doing.”

Bernabe, 23, could not be reached for comment. She said previously that police did “an injustice” in arresting her. “I did not do anything wrong,” she said upon her release from Orange County Jail. “I feel victimized.”

The Orange County coroner’s office said Thursday that it will not determine the cause of death until toxicology and tissue analysis is completed. That would likely not be before April 1, said Lt. Hector Rivera.

Police also have said they will question the shop’s owner, Oscar E. King, as well as his sister, Laura Escalante. King said last week that he had turned the business over to his sister last year, though business records in Tustin still show him as the owner.

Police said the gift shop opened in October 1997, and for some months has been operating as a clinic or pharmacy. Police want to determine how long that operation went on and who was involved.

Shanahan said at least one other employee was in the store when the Segura family brought their daughter in. Police are trying to identify others who worked in the store and what their involvement in the treatment may have been.

“We have descriptions, but no names,” he said.

Police are looking for public response to help them determine if employees had any medical training or misrepresented themselves. Answers could determine what, if any, criminal charges from negligence to voluntary manslaughter might apply.

Shanahan doesn’t believe any murder charges are appropriate. “I don’t believe there was malice to harm the child,” he said.

Seized in a raid at the store were hundreds of syringes and pharmaceuticals--most manufactured in Mexico and allegedly imported illegally, police said.

Los Hermanos has been closed for the past week. Wednesday night, police arrested several youths who broke into the store. Police didn’t say what, if anything, was stolen. Police already had removed all medicine and medical devices.