County Investigation Standards Are Unequal
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Regarding the brutal slaying of 2-year-old Michael Ferguson (“Death Spotlights Foster Care Problems,” June 15): If Los Angeles County social workers would investigate foster parents (relatives included) under a microscope the way they investigate us adoptive parents, perhaps these gross abuses would stop. If my husband and I were to ever say that we heard voices ordering us to kill our child before our child killed us, or that we awakened holding a butcher knife and placed a hand over our child’s mouth until he was close to unconsciousness, Social Services would have removed our child from our home immediately. Why was Michael placed back in danger by the very people responsible for protecting him, simply because he was living with a relative?
Janet Kronenberg
Los Angeles
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When a person says voices are urging him to kill his foster child, that child should be taken from the home immediately. What is there to investigate? The Department of Children and Family Services, that’s what. It will take more than discipline to straighten out this tragedy.
Terry Brannon
Los Angeles
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